Turning Knowledge Management Strategy into Corporate Growth

Built on the knowledge management and corporate growth literatures, this paper examined the antecedents of knowledge management strategy and its consequences. Grounded in the resourcebased view and corporate growth theory, this study found that a firm’s knowledge management strategy and strategic performance relate to long term corporate growth. Learning orientation has also been found relates to the firm’s use of knowledge management strategy and exerts an interacting effect on long term corporate growth. Implications for knowledge management practitioners were discussed. INTRODUCTION While we stepped into a knowledge era, intellectual capital was stressed by Drucker (1993) in his description of post-capitalist society. Knowledge, referred as the most crucial intellectual capital, is playing a paramount role in corporate growth. Knowledge management has been considered a critical strategy for firms to obtain competitive advantage in recent years (Ndlela and du Toit, 2001; King, 2001). In the context of knowledge management, strategy refers to the organizational intention and enabling condition for organizational knowledge creation (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). King (2001) observed that knowledge management strategy focuses on the acquisition, explication, and communication of mission-specific professional expertise that is largely tacit in nature to organizational participants and contexts in a manner that is focused, relevant, and timely. However, the current research on the knowledge management strategy and corporate growth performance connection seems far from maturity. Hasan and Al-hawari (2003) stressed the importance of knowledge management strategy by stating that a firm’s innovative capacity and performance may be dependent upon its ability to take advantage of its knowledge assets. Despite growing interest in the importance of knowledge management strategy in achieving corporate growth, there is still a lack of credible empirical evidence for high technology firms, which are characterized by their high level of intellectual work (Kelley and Caplan, 1993). Little research offered a detailed understanding about the role of knowledge management strategy in achieving corporate growth. This study is making three additions to existing literature on knowledge management strategy in high technology industry. First, Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven (1990) elaborated that high technology firms, compared with others, are facing severe problems of limited managerial and financial resources. Yet, knowledge management is characterized as innovative and resource-