Organizational forms and knowledge management: One size fits all?

Abstract

In the new economy, a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage flows from its ability to create and exploit new knowledge. Consequently, the need for executives to manage this process effectively is greater than ever. The extant knowledge management literature contains an implicit assumption that a standard approach with universal applicability to this process exists. Yet many organizations adopting this approach fail to realize the anticipated benefits. In this paper, the underlying causes for these failures are discussed and the assumption of a standard knowledge management approach critically challenged. To this end, the organizational form framework by Miles and Snow is integrated, for the first time, with the knowledge management models by Nonaka. Through integration of these two frameworks it is shown that the choice of knowledge management approach cannot be unqualified but must be closely aligned with the organization’s strategic and operational form in order for the anticipated benefits to be reaped. Our analysis suggests three conclusions: One, Prospector-type organizations will tend to adopt Bottom-Up approaches for effective knowledge creation; two, Defender-type organisations will tend to adopt Top-Down approaches; and three, Analyzer-types will adopt Middle-Up-Down knowledge creation approaches. We provide directions for future research.