Abstract:

New knowledge may perhaps be the only remaining and one of the most critical sources of competitive advantage available to an organization in the 21st century. This is true; more so, as previously available traditional resources may no longer offer any significant competitive advantage. To remain competitive, organizations must create and use new knowledge. However, the current practices in knowledge acquisition, utilization, and management are mostly limited to capturing, recycling, and deploying the existing information, and making it available on a technology platform. This is done with the hope that individuals will not only use the information made available to them, but will also voluntarily contribute to the growth of the organization’s knowledge pool. Most organizations are also woefully reluctant to realize that knowledge obsolescence is inevitable, and that the knowledge based on organizational consensus or common wisdom based on collective experiences can be wrong. To create new knowledge and attain competitive advantage, organizations need to locate and gather information and business intelligence about their internal and external consumers of knowledge and convert them into new knowledge.