Abstract
Information has always been an integral component of business strategy. However, with the rise of information technology (IT) and globalization of businesses, information has taken a far more important role in explaining business performance. IT can be used to enhance research activities of the firm; and its product knowledge can be used to improve business productivity. In fact, scholars and researchers have indicated that knowledge can be a source of sustainable advantages for the firm. However, not much research has been done that explains what kind of knowledge is important for sustainable advantages. In this paper, we present three kinds of knowledge: core, complementary, and peripheral. We also develop an idea of shared space along three dimensions: physically shared space, technically shared space, and cognitively shared space. The main theme of this paper is to show the relevance and importance of these different kinds of knowledge along the shared spaces that create sustainable advantages for the firm.
Highlights
There is a renewed interest in the importance of knowledge management
When core knowledge is linked with complementary knowledge, these linkages become source of the competitive advantages to the firm, but it does not mean that peripheral knowledge is unimportant
While physical space provides the adequacy of secrecy of core knowledge, technical knowledge facilitates the distribution of complementary knowledge, and cognitive space provides a common avenue for sharing, interpreting, and believing the importance of peripheral knowledge, these spaces do not remain rigid nor do they are completely isolated from each other
Summary
There is a renewed interest in the importance of knowledge management. Information technology (IT) and globalization of businesses have been main contributors of this interest. We still do not know what kind of knowledge is the most important for sustainable advantages for the firm and how a firm can enhance the effectives of this knowledge for its use. We argue that even though each kind of knowledge has some contribution to the advantages of the firm, but the contribution of knowledge is enhanced when it is shared along a space that is easy to share and provides impetus to work in collaboration [4]. It is true that IT is an important contributor of developing and opening-up of these spaces, but IT alone is not sufficient to increase the effectiveness of knowledge for business advantages. We set a number of propositions and in the final section; we discuss the implications of the fit for knowledge management and suggest some ideas for future research
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