Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Successful companies are those that consistently create new knowledge, disseminate it widely throughout the organizations, and quickly embody it in new technologies and products.
(Nonaka, 1991:96)Introduction
Regardless of size and industry, the majority of organizations devote considerable time and resources to developing unique, profitable competencies. Many researchers and organizations look to knowledge to provide this competitive advantage (Crossan, Lane and White, 1999; Van de Ven, 2005), with the expectation that knowledge can be made to contribute to a firm's performance (Watson and Hewitt, 2006) when it is efficiently integrated with existing intellectual capital, and converted into unique, revenue-generating products or services (Appelbaum and Gallagher, 2000; Teare and Rayner, 2002; Turner and Makhija, 2006; Van de Ven, 2005). As Nonaka emphasized (1991: 96), “one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge”.
But why are some organizations better at achieving “competitive advantage” through organizational learning than others? To better understand this question, we delve back into the basics on organizational learning and outline the necessary steps an organization should take to implement organizational learning.
There is general consensus in the research literature and the popular press that several key factors are needed to implement and embed “organizational learning” into the fabric of an organization (Figure 9.1): (1) the influence of leadership on individual and organization culture; (2) creating a culture conducive to organizational learning; (3) improving the quality of knowledge the individual acquires, while facilitating the sharing of that knowledge with others in the organization; (4) generating new, actionable knowledge as a result of the knowledge shared or transferred within the organization; and (5) developing a competitive advantage with the newly, generated knowledge (a knowledge-based advantage).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.