Designing Organizations to Lead with Knowledge

Organizational development practitioners in the knowledge economy must bring frameworks and development processes that help organizations build and sustain knowledge leadership. Today’s sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge: creating it, importing it, and leveraging it to deliver higher value to the market place than one’s competitors can provide. For example, financial services firms depend on broad and deep expertise in various kinds of financial instruments, models, and transactions, on growing that knowledge through data collection and analysis, keeping current the understanding of laws and regulations in many countries, and on combining this technical knowledge with deep knowledge of customers’ needs to guide the development of products and services that yield high value. Product, process, and service innovation in all industries is based on technical, organizational, and customer knowledge. Knowledge defines and is embedded in the competencies of the corporation—yet sustaining knowledge leadership requires explicit focus and the intentional building of an organization’s knowledge capabilities. Knowledge management—the building of a context that brings knowledge into the firm, utilizes it, grows and enhances it, and leverages it for competitive advantage—is a key strategic competence in today’s organizations.