The Alignment of Knowledge Management and Strategic Orientation

THE ALIGNMENT OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

Mrs. Aparna Gaur
Faculty HR & IT
International Business School, Kota
Rajasthan, India tel. [phone] [e-mail] Mr. Arun Deshmukh
Faculty Marketing & IB
International Business School, Kota
Rajasthan, India tel. [phone] [e-mail] Abstract

Purpose

This paper focuses on the value of knowledge management (KM) for strategic management of organizations. While doing so, the perspective here is to find out the significance of knowledge management, how it does reside in strategic management. And how does it have a potential, to be used as a tool to enhance strategic advantage. To the extent that KM can serve the purpose of enhancing strategic advantage of an organization it is effective. Beyond that it could be superfluous. A model-in-the making for explaining the relationship of KM to strategic advantage, is applied to three cases of Indian organizations to demonstrate that KM can be used in a variety of ways to lead to operational effectiveness as well as to take strategic decisions. It is concluded that KM can be applied both for the limited purpose of operational effectiveness as well as for the purposes of strategic management. It should not be hyped into a wonder technique that is panacea for all organizational problems. Nor should it be under-estimated and dismissed as a passing fad.

Design / methodology / approach – The paper follows an exploratry approach and is based on the results of a collection of secondary data of three Indian companies who have traversed the journey of successful implementation of knowledge management concepts and analyzing the factors that contributed to their corresponding strategic advantage.
Findings – The findings in the paper suggest that a model can be developed which links the knowledge management orientation of organization to its strategic orientation
Research

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