Knowledge Management as a Catalyst for Innovation within Organizations: A Qualitative Study

The need for organizations to innovate and furthermore to ceaselessly innovate is stressed throughout the modern management literature on innovation. This need comes from increasing competition and customer demands and new market areas. Closely linked, but not synonymous, with innovation is the body of knowledge referred to collectively as knowledge management. Within this discourse knowledge is considered as a potential key competitive advantage, by helping to increase innovation within the organization. This paper focuses on the role of knowledge management in sustaining and enhancing innovation in organizations. In particular the paper seeks to establish a knowledge management model within which the principles of innovation can be incorporated. First, there is a brief review of the innovation and knowledge management literature and their respective synergies. From this literature a possible knowledge management model which incorporates innovation is suggested. Second, a research study is discussed which seeks to further examine and develop the model using an inductive grounded theory approach. The study involved socially constructed workshops representing 25 organizations, each of which constructed meanings in regard to innovation and the key areas of knowledge management as outlined in the model. Overall it was found that effective systematic knowledge management can incorporate innovation drivers in key areas which will result in both increased business and employee bene®ts. Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.