Knowledge Management and Competitive Advantage of Listed Consumer Goods Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria

The study investigated the effect of knowledge management on the competitive advantage of Nigerian consumer goods businesses. A survey research design was used for the study. The management staff of six major consumer goods firms were included in the study’s population: Flour Mills Nigeria Plc., Cadbury Nigeria Plc., Guinness Nigeria Plc., Nestle Nigeria Plc., Honeywell Flour Mills and PZ Cussons Nigeria from which a sample of 384 was drawn using power analysis. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts and simple percentages. In addition, covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) was used to achieve the study’s objectives. The findings from the study revealed that knowledge acquisition (β = 0.541; p = 0.001), knowledge sharing (β = 0.672; p = 0.001), knowledge creation (β = 0.774; p = 0.001), knowledge codification (β = 0.450; p = 0.001) and knowledge retention (β = 0.853; p = 0.001) had a significant positive effect on consumer goods company’s competitive advantage. The study concluded that knowledge management played an important role in enhancing competitive advantage when adequately managed. It was recommended that the authorities in charge of the consumer goods companies ensure management staff quickly get any information needed within their working environment and ensure a horizontal information flow. In addition, the management should constantly develop new knowledge and ideas as well as providing appropriate communication and information technology (IT) gadgets to boost competitive advantage.

relationship between research and innovation in the public sector – an analysis of five cases from labour and welfare services

Many public agencies promote renewal in the public sector through projects that require a productive combination of research and innovation activities. However, the role of research in innovation processes is a neglected theme in the public sector innovation literature. We address this gap through an analysis of five cases from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. We find few examples of innovations based directly on research, but several examples of research on innovations and on more complex co-evolutionary processes of the two activities. Research seems to be particularly important for the diffusion and scaling up of innovations. We find that research has an impact on innovation in later phases of the innovation process through the formalisation of practice-based and unsystematic knowledge, codification of experiences, and legitimation to ensure political support and funding. This new conceptualisation contributes to the public sector innovation literature and may help improve policies that set up a rather limited role for research.

University-Industry R&D Alliances – An Exploration of Alliance Capabilities Measures

Background: Alliance capabilities studies have long emerged since the 1990s, focusing mainly on firm-to-firm collaboration. However, research on university-industry alliances only emerged from the 2000s. Alliance capabilities are portrayed as a crucial condition to achieve the targeted collaboration outcomes and sustainable relationships. As most alliance capabilities studies focus on firm-to-firm collaboration, research on university-industry R&D alliance is still scarce. Thus, the measurement items for alliance capabilities in the university-industry R&D context are still under-developed. Thus, to investigate how alliance capabilities affect university-industry R&D performance in Malaysia, the relevant measures must first be defined. This paper intends to properly define the measurement items for alliance capabilities in the context of university-industry R&D alliances. Methodology: The alliance capabilities measures are adapted from various literature to accommodate both university and industry perspectives. In finalizing the measurement, in-depth pre-testing was conducted by five strategic management subject matter experts in ensuring face and content validity. Results: There are three alliance capability dimensions. The first dimension is alliance management capability which includes goal setting, process configuration, alliance structure, coordination, management support, and alliance evaluation. The second dimension is alliance integration capability which incorporates relational capabilities, inter-organizational communication, relational capital, and project team effectiveness. The third is alliance learning capability which measures alliance experience, knowledge articulation, knowledge sharing, knowledge codification, internalization, and relationship learning. Although this study successfully develops a set of measurement items for alliance capabilities in university-industry R&D, further statistical analysis is required to test this scale. Conclusion: To date, quantitative measurement items for alliance capabilities in the context of university-industry R&D alliances are still at the infancy stage. Although the measurements are yet to be statistically analyzed, they can be used as a benchmark for future university-industry R&D alliances studies.

The Effect of ‘Datafication’ on Knowledge Diffusion: A Topological Framework

This paper begins by distinguishing between data infrastructure, data entry and data points as three distinct, but interrelated situations. Data practices are understood in the general sense of the word here, i.e., such as actions, actions, and consequences, of introducing data-generating technologies for knowledge codification. This paper will investigate both the generics and specificities of data practices to explore the disentanglement of the liveness of data practices, i.e. how such practices are happening with regard to knowledge codification. Within this regard, this study seeks to account for the ‘fluid and heterogeneous ontology’ of such practices. In other words, the framework conceptualizes data processing as correlational, and aims to provide a technique to explore they disentanglement of these relationships.

The role of information systems and knowledge codification for service provision strategies

PurposeWhile service scholars see modularisation as balancing the efficiency of standardisation with the value added through customisation the relationships between these concepts are under-theorised. In addition, although information and communication technologies can facilitate all three service strategies, the degree to which they codify service knowledge is not explicitly considered in the extant literature. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a model that examines service strategy trajectories by specifically considering the ICTs used and the degree of knowledge codification employed.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on three qualitative case studies of service departments of firms involved in cardiovascular applications, orthopaedic, spinal and neuroscience product development and information technology support. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, document analysis and non-participant observation.FindingsFindings show that ICTs were increasingly used to codify both standardised and customised services, though in different ways. For standardised services ICTs codified the service process, making them even more rigid. Due to the dynamic nature of customised services, drawing on experts' tacit knowledge, ICTs codified the possessors of knowledge rather than the service process they undertook. This study also identified a duality between the tacit development of customised services and modular service codification.Research limitations/implicationsThe model is validated using case studies from three companies in the medical and information technology sectors limiting its generalisability.Practical implicationsThe importance of considering the degree of tacitness or explicitness of service knowledge is important for service codification. The paper provides managers with empirical examples of how ICTs are used to support all three strategies, allows them to identify their current position and indicates possible future trajectories.Originality/valueThe papers main contribution is the development of a model that integrates the literature on service strategies with knowledge management strategies to classify service standardisation, customisation and modularisation in terms of both service orientation and degree of ICT codification.

The Competent Organization

Competent organizations must be principled about managing knowledge, whether leading corporate efforts, knowledge sharing, or knowledge codification activities to grow their employees and organizational capacity and improve the dynamic business capability. Those organizations that are principled understand their responsibilities. They understand the value of resources; humans are valuable assets, and employee know-how is critical to an organization's outcome. In this chapter, necessary principles for an organization to have are discussed. These principles are the start of building a single system of performance management of integration of knowledge management and competence-based approaches, which leads to practical outcomes for businesses hoping to meet their desired performance.

Managing the Standardization Knowledge Codification Paradox

In a connected society and organizations working with digitized business models, standards will have more important roles than ever in shaping activity systems content, structure, and governance. While the standardization conformity/innovation duality has received great attention in literature, little research has been done on the role of managers in managing the tensions of knowledge codification required during ISO 9001 standard implementation. By utilizing Danone's Networking Attitude experience as a case study, the authors address this gap by exploring how managerial skills and practices were used to overcome the cognitive and emotional tensions related to internal knowledge codification, transfer, and use. The main contribution is to elucidate the role of managers in resolving these paradoxes and creating innovation capabilities. Further, they demonstrate the mutually beneficial relationship between knowledge codification and innovation if knowledge management is approached more as an evolving pragmatic knowing than a technical means that may create rigidity and resistance.