A study on customer, supplier, and competitor knowledge using the knowledge chain model

In the new economy, firms are willing to pay abundant premiums for the significant entrepreneurial capacities of management and staff in order to develop, build, protect, transfer and integrate knowledge. Although companies and scholars have indeed recognized the value of knowledge management, they have not generally included customer, supplier, and competitor knowledge, preferring to emphasize the process of knowledge acquisition and sharing that takes place within organizations. Thus, this study proposes a conceptual framework, and uses interpretative case studies, to explore how an enterprise obtains the three types of external knowledge. Moreover, through the following five primary activities – acquisition, selection, generation, internalization, and externalization – this study will illustrate how enterprises apply the internal knowledge chain to transform their customer, supplier, and competitor knowledge to enhance enterprise competitiveness. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.