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Designing a Fitted House of Dynamic Knowledge Management Strategy to Strengthen Competitive Advantage : Qualitative Research among UN Agencies and their Partners

“Knowledge is the only treasure you can give entirely without running short of it (African proverb cited in IFAD, 2007).” And it has been largely recognised by organisations that knowledge is a resource that they can leverage on. As Bryan (2004) mentioned, the proprietary knowledge that resides in the minds of a company’s top professionals are a source of Competitive Advantage. Therefore, organisations that leverage on Knowledge Management to promote a Knowledge Management Strategy can achieve Competitive Advantage in a world of rapid change and growth where only organisations who keep on learning and adapting will survive. Therefore, this thesis work aims to answer the following research question: “How does leveraging on Knowledge Management promotes the delivery of Knowledge Management Strategy to achieve Competitive Advantage through the Dynamic Capabilities View?” The purpose of this research is to understand more about the practical path which aims to evolve into a dynamic path for organisations to leverage on Knowledge Management (KM) in order that its strategy consecution delivers Competitive Advantage. The authors explore the subject matter by building from existing literature on the main theoretical areas encountered, and then design the research and its approach from the research question. The research followed a qualitative approach and method by utilising semi-structured interviews done to 7 international development organisations, where 13 respondents contributed with their experiences and insights from their involvement in KM in their organisations. Moreover, secondary data was used to complement, support, compare and contrast the findings of the empirical research as the authors used qualitative documents related to the topic published by the organisations. As a result, all primary and secondary data were analysed in an inter-subjective interpretative way deriving from the theoretical framework in order to answer the research question. The research revealed that the identified gap in literature between Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Strategy is also existing in practice. It was identified that it depends on the maturity of KM in the organisation and/or the organisation’ maturity itself. But is not only restricted to that, the success of a KMS is directly linked to how the organisation articulates KM, and the importance given to it is based on the sense and utilisation of the dynamic nature of KM. Thus, it can turn its organisational capabilities into Dynamic Capabilities and achieve a Competitive Advantage, this is fundamental in international development organisations in the nonprofit sector, which is increasingly striving for resources where every organisation aims to be “the partner of choice.”

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-130736
Date January 2017
CreatorsPena Vela, Maria Emilia, Koong, Shy-Nien
PublisherUmeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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