On the linking of Knowledge Management to Knowledge-Based Business Strategy

To attract, retain and develop competence has become increasingly important for organizations, as well as the capability to evolve areas of core competence for long-term competitiveness. This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of knowledge and competence as organizational resources, and to propose ways of designing effective KM strategies. A main assumption is that knowledge is becoming the main source of competitive advantage. Popular KM project types are assessed in this regard, using a reference framework of organizations as knowledge systems (Holzner and Marx, 1979). The results indicate weak KM tool functionality pertaining to management of knowledge, and poor linking to knowledge as strategic resource. A set of knowledge-based theoretical contributions to an emerging strategic framework for KM is suggested; knowledge integration, modular design, and competence provision. In order to provide a means of testing the framework, a method for competence provision is sought. To this end, the CSF method is briefly presented as method prototype, together with an outline of how it may be adapted to accommodate the theoretical contributions.