Information Technology as Knowledge Management Enabler in Product Development. an Empirical Evidence

Product development is a knowled ge intensive process. It is widel y recognized as a m echanism that produces fi rms to learn, to enter new technological areas, and to deal more effectively with market uncertainty. Since technology management has beco me ingrained within the field of knowledge management, product development has be en viewed and studied from a knowledge management perspective. In this contex t, this study focuses on a spe cific knowledge management initiative, information technology (IT). It empirically explores how IT influences on knowledge based capabilities of pr oduct development –specifically knowledge exploitation and exploration. With this aim, we introduce a typology of IT configurations based on two main dimensions: the diver gent and the convergent dimensions. The results show that the product development can be categorized in three IT configurations. Specially, our r esults provide statistically differences in terms of knowledge exploitation and show the advantages of a combination of the two dimensions of IT.