A knowledge management framework to grow innovation capability maturity

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Innovation is widely considered a key prerequisite for achieving organisational competitiveness and sustained long-term wealth in our increasingly volatile business environment. It is therefore imperative that organisations enable themselves to relentlessly pursue constant innovation; to grow and mature their innovation capability. A study aimed at organisational support by means of business tools toward maturity growth in these innovation capability areas is therefore warranted. Knowledge management plays a fundamental role in the enterprise's ability to innovate successfully, and the question arises whether knowledge management tools and organisational facilitating conditions can be used to grow innovation capability maturity. The existing literature on the subject is sparse, which led to the following research problem statement: No formal guidelines exist for the use of knowledge management to grow innovation capability maturity. Knowledge conversion is a prominent theme within the knowledge management field. Knowledge creation processes form the core of this knowledge creation model and therefore, one solution to the above-stated problem is to investigate the use of knowledge creation processes to grow innovation capability maturity. This notion provides the platform for aligning knowledge creation processes to the requirements for innovation capability growth from one maturity level to the next as the cornerstone for developing a knowledge management framework that enables innovation capability maturity growth. In order to align these knowledge processes with the requirements for growth in innovation capability maturity, the author identified a knowledge creation path as a key enabler for maturity growth in each innovation capability area. Knowledge management tools and organisational facilitating conditions that support the specific knowledge processes highlighted in the identified path were identified through a literature study and subsequently synthesised to form a framework. The impact of this framework lies in providing guidelines for the use of knowledge management as a vehicle for innovation capability maturity growth.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University