Knowledge and Strategy

Organizational knowledge is the most valuable strategic resource, and the ablity to create and apply it the most important capability for generating competitive advantage. Knowledge and Strategy addresses the link between knowledge management and business strategy. The articles in this book offer a solid foundation for understanding why managing knowledge should be part of every organization's business strategy.

Following an introduction by Michael Zack, the book is divided into four parts. Part One, "The Resource-Based View of the Firm" introduces the concept that firms compete based on their strategic resources and capabilities rather than specific products and services. Part Two, "The Resource-Based View of Knowledge" uses the resource-based view as a jumping-off point to explicitly consider knowledge as a key strategic resource. Part Three, "Characteristics of Knowledge as a Strategic Asset," examines those characteristics of knowledge that enable it to function as a strategic resource and addresses the implications for its management. Part Four, "Knowledge and Strategy," explicitly examines the relationship between knowledge and strategy and the implications for managing knowledge to create comptitive advantage.

• Part One: The Resource-Based View of the Firm
1. The Resource-Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategt Formulation
   Robert M. Grant
2. Competing on Resources: Strategy in the 1990s
   David J. Collis and Cynthia A. Montgomery
3. The Core Competence of the Corporation
   C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel
• Part Two: The Resource-Based View of Knowledge
4. Excerpt from The Theory of the Growth of the Firm
   Edith T. Penrose
5. Beyond the Knowledge Worker
   Paul M. Romer
6. Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management
   David J. Teece, Gary Pisano, and Amy Shuen
7. Organizational Knowledge, Collective Practice and Penrose Rents
   J.-C. Spender
8. Prospering in Dynamically-Competitive Environments: Organizational Capability as Knowledge Integration
   Robert M. Grant
   
• Part Three: Characteristics of Knowledge as a Strategic Asset
9. Knowledge and Competence as Strategic Assets
   Sidney G. Winter
10. The Strategic Analysis of Intangible Resources
    Richard Hall
11. Knowledge, Strategy, and the Theory of the Firm
    Julia Porter Liebeskind
    
• Part Four: Knowledge and Strategy
12. Tacit Knowledge: The Key to the Strategic Alignment of Intellectual Capital
    Hubert Saint-Onge
13. Generic Knowledge Strategies in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry
    Paul Bierly and Alok Chakrabarti
14. Is Your Firm a Creative Destroyer? Competitive Learning and Knowledge Flows in the Technological Strageis of Firms
    Max H. Boisot
15. Leveraging Intellect
    James Brian Quinn, Philip Andersson, and Sydney Finkelstein
    

A try to reconcile KM with the Resource-based view of the firm. A very good argumentation, but it is hard to find a common thread.

Well, there is an impressive array of contributors, so you may read it to get an overview of their opinions…