In the new economy, a firm's sustainable competitive advantage flows from its
ability to create and exploit new knowledge. Consequently, the need for
executives to manage this process effectively is greater than ever. The extant
knowledge management literature contains an implicit assumption that a standard
approach with universal applicability to this process exists. Yet many
organisations adopting this approach fail to realise the anticipated benefits.
In this paper, the underlying causes for these failures are discussed and the
assumption of a standard knowledge management approach critically challenged. To
this end, the organisational form framework by Miles and Snow is integrated, for
the first time, with the knowledge management models by Nonaka. Through the
integration of these two frameworks, it is shown that the choice of knowledge
management approach cannot be unqualified but must be closely aligned with the
organisation's strategic and operational form in order for the anticipated
benefits to be reaped. Our analysis suggests three conclusions: One, Prospector-
type organisations will tend to adopt Bottom-Up approaches for effective
knowledge creation; two, Defender-type organisations will tend to adopt Top-Down
approaches; and three, Analyser types will adopt Middle-Up-Down knowledge
creation approaches. We provide directions for future research
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