The Importance of Strategic Fit in Knowledge Management

Whilst a great deal of academic research and many methods used by consultants and practitioners in knowledge management have focused on developing successful strategies, few have reviewed strategic-fit. This project aims to fill this gap. A survey of over 150 organisations discovers distinct variations in the knowledge orientation of organisations with different strategic approaches. These findings support the notion that in order to achieve a more effective KM strategy it is important to match this closely to the strategic needs of the organisation. One size does not fit all. The study identifies a number of success factors for each of four strategic types of organisation and describes how these are correlated with overall performance. The focus is on adaptability to changes in the external environment and more generally on business agilit

University-Industry Strategic Alliances: Management Framework and Case Study Investigation

Strategic alliances provide companies with a mechanism for enhanced knowledge transfer leading to improved products, and for universities, there can be access to sustainable funding sources for research. However, certain challenges exist in developing and managing these alliances, including contractual agreements being fit for purpose and ensuring academic research is relevant to industrial requirements. Following a literature review, a management framework has been developed that is based on the need for alignment between companies and universities in three core areas, namely technical, commercial and social. This alignment mechanism will be explored through a case study investigation of a strategic alliance between a university and an industrial organization. Findings include a need for a robust commercial approach including management of intellectual property; alliance governance arrangements and performance measurement; management across boundaries; and the importance of companies’ absorptive capacity

Aligning IT To Business In Complex Multinational Corporations: The Case Of The U.N. Secretariat

Business-IT strategic alignment grows in importance as organizations strive to link business and technology in light of the internationalization of their businesses. This positivistic research method uses a field survey design to examine (a) the role of knowledge management processes in the relationship between contextual factors and alignment in the U.N. Secretariat, and (b) the role of IT projects in the relationship between alignment and the performance and effectiveness of the U.N. Secretariat. Structural equation modeling techniques are conducted to analyze data collected through a sample of 166 IT managers and 97 business managers from 50 offices in the U.N. Secretariat. The measurement model exhibited a fairly good fit. The results of the study have at least four implications to leaders in the U.N. Secretariat and in multinational corporations (MNCs). A theoretical and practical perspective of business-IT strategic alignment in the U.N. Secretariat is provided. The study draws upon the strategic alignment model and the typology of MNCs to propose and test an IT strategic alignment model for MNCs (mSAM). The business-IT strategic alignment implementation model for MNCs (mSAIM) is the model for application proposed as the critical recommendation of the research study

Formal knowledge sharing in medium-to-large organizations: Constraints, enablers and alignment

This research considers one of the most important of resources - knowledge. There is a widespread view that knowledge is important to organizations and this has led to the study of knowledge management. There are a plethora of definitions of knowledge and knowledge management, but knowledge sharing is recognised as being of fundamental importance. The literature shows the success of knowledge sharing is not only affected by factors including culture, management, technology, processes and structure but, more importantly, it is affected by how these factors interact and fit together. However there is little literature on alignment or strategic fit in knowledge sharing. This research adds to the literature by investigating the enablers and constraints of knowledge sharing and the possible effects of alignment. An interpretive approach using case studies triangulated with a survey is adopted, involving semi-structured interviews with 23 people across five organizations. The findings suggest that significant top management support and a strategy for knowledge sharing are necessary precursors of effective knowledge sharing. In the organizations which lacked this, there is little to encourage people to share and almost none of these organizations measured well on any aspect of knowledge sharing. There are widely varying uses of technology, but many are aimed at sharing data or information. Fewer uses of technology are geared to enabling or encouraging the communication necessary for knowledge sharing. The lack of senior management support may prevent any significant internal or external alignment so a possible approach to strategic fit for knowledge sharing is that strategy has to come first (and the management support that goes with it) and that this should lead to the embedding of the necessary behaviours for knowledge sharing. Only after this are processes and technology able to support knowledge sharing.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Practicing and factors infuencing the effective implementation of Strategic Information Systems Planning in public agency

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) guided organization in achieving its target. The importance of SISP increases proportionately with the uncertainty of business requirements. Failures in implementing SISP may affect organizational service delivery and reputation. This paper discusses on the evaluation of the practice and influencing factors of SISP implementation in a public sector. The Human Organization Technology-fit framework was used to evaluate the effectiveness of SISP from human, organization and technology perspectives. A qualitative case study was conducted using interview and document analysis method. The study identified 25 influencing factors of SISP implementation including knowledge and expertise, stakeholder engagement; governance, top management support, financial allocation and infrastructure capabilities. These influencing factors can guide other agencies to identify the risks of SISP implementation at an early stage; subsequently, mitigation plan can be developed to minimize the risk

The Quality Schools Model Of Education Reform: A Description Of Knowledge Management Beliefs And Practices Using Baldrige In Education Criteria

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2008This study used a concurrent nested mixed-methods approach to analyze the implementation of the Quality Schools Model of education reform through the lens of the seven Malcolm Baldrige Education criteria. Specifically, this study was an inquiry to determine the difference in beliefs and implementation related to knowledge constructs between and within groups of school staff based on professional role, years of education experience and years of experience working in the Quality Schools Model district. This research also used structural equation modeling to examine the fit between the Baldrige in Education theoretical model and actual practice of the Baldrige concepts in the context of rural Alaska school districts implementing the Quality Schools Model of comprehensive education reform. A 72-item questionnaire was used to measure beliefs about importance of concepts and perceptions of the concepts in practice. The questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 212 administrators, teachers, and classified staff in three rural Alaska school districts. Qualitative data was gathered through 14 semi-structured interviews with community members, elders, school board members, parents, and school staff. Results from the questionnaire data showed that job classification was the greatest predictor of mean responses. Administrators perceived knowledge activities were in practice to a greater degree than teachers. There were no significant differences in beliefs about importance or practice among participants based on years of education work experience or on experience in the current school district. The results showed ambivalence and sticky transfer in the street-level implementation of the QSM with significant large differences between belief and practice scores for all groups. A structural model of Baldrige in Education factors with leadership as the exogenous factor was created for the QSM. Results showed that leadership had a direct effect on knowledge management, and knowledge management had a direct effect on strategic planning, and an indirect effect on process management and the outcome variables of student, stakeholder and market focus, and results. There was no direct or indirect path between the knowledge factor and staff focus factor, leading to a recommendation to increase knowledge creation and sharing opportunities for that group

The Impact of Strategic Fit on Innovation Performance: Focusing on Manufacturing Industry

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 공과대학 협동과정 기술경영·경제·정책전공, 2017. 8. 강진아.In a rapidly changing business management environment, continuous technological innovation is necessary in order to sustain a competitive advantage. However, technological innovation, by itself, does not necessarily guarantee success in firm management. There are many examples of firms that have failed to create values through technological innovation, despite the fact that they possess excellent innovative resources. I can easily find examples of firms that have failed to innovate because they could not seamlessly integrate their internal and external resources and because of inconsistencies in the strategies within the organization. The mutual interaction of various stakeholders, including top management teams (TMTs), suppliers, competitors and shareholders in exploring and developing innovative technologies, the convergence of a firms resources within a consistent strategy direction, and the creation of a synergistic effect are important. In other words, the way in which all the resources of technological innovation align is important in improving innovative performance. This dissertation emphasizes the importance of strategic fit in firm innovation. This study first criticizes that the concept of fit is used inconsistently and indiscriminately in many literatures, and develop a framework of strategic fit that is suitable for the study in technological innovation. Based on this framework, this dissertation examines the effect of the strategic fit of various factors, especially centered on the three major factors such as the top management team attribute, the internal context as well as the external context of the firm. As the first study, this dissertation examines the effect of TMT cognitive characteristics on fir innovation contingent upon internal context such as organizational search behavior. The central premise of upper echelons theory is that the organization is a reflection of the top management team. The top management team has the authority to formulate, execute and evaluate a firms innovation strategies. The knowledge base of the top management team is a key variable in predicting the firms innovation strategy tendencies. This study focuses on this knowledge diversity. The decision-making tendencies of a top management team with a diverse knowledge base and one with a homogeneous knowledge base are bound to differ. The majority of pre-existing study concludes that the greater the knowledge diversity, the better the innovation performance. However, just as the existing quantitative analysis shows, this tendency does not apply to all firms across the board. This is due to the fact that the top management teams strategy direction is executed by the internal organization of the firm, and the TMT effect can be distorted through the firms organizational behavior and routine. Therefore, this dissertation analyzes how the relationship between the TMTs knowledge diversity and the innovation performance changes because of the organizations internal structure. As a result of conducting quantitative analysis of 120 manufacturing companies in the U.S., a positive correlation was determined between the knowledge diversity founded on the past industrial experience of the top management team and innovation performance. However, the results vary depending on the organizational search scope. The more expansive the organizational search scope, the greater the effect of the TMTs knowledge diversity on innovation performance. Conversely, the narrower the organizational search scope, the more constrained the top management team effect. When TMT with diverse knowledge leads to a broad search organization, therefore, fit as internal complementarity increases, which improves innovation performance. The effect of the TMTs knowledge diversity must also match the managerial discretion of the firm. The managerial discretion indicates the extent of the TMTs direct and proactive intervention into corporate affairs, and there is a high degree of variance depending on the type of industry. The effect of the TMTs knowledge diversity is greater in industries with high managerial discretion like computer or semi-conductor industries. In contrast, the TMT effect is limited in industries with low managerial discretion like forestry or simple manufacturing industries. Therefore, industries with high discretion are more likely to achieve fit as external complementarity with TMT with diverse knowledge, which improve innovation performance. This dissertation also analyzes the relationship of external collaboration strategy and innovation performance. Firms can create innovative values by collaboration with many external partners. Some forms of external collaboration for innovations are mergers and acquisitions, alliances, and joint ventures. For the purpose of this study, the analysis focuses on alliances. In particular, the study analyzes the effect of alliance portfolio diversity on innovation performance. Alliance portfolio diversity refers to how many alliances firms forge with a diverse array of partners. Even if alliances are forged with great companies, alliances, by themselves, do not impact the innovation of the organization. From this perspective, I argue that the internal capability of value creation plays a critical role in leveraging alliance portfolio diversity. The alliance portfolio diversity can be represented as a pool of external resources which the focal firm can access. The extent of benefit that the focal firm gains from the portfolio will depend upon the internal capacity to create the value from the external resource pool. Based on the dynamic capabilities framework that emphasizes competitive advantage is generated from the capabilities to combine and recombine internal and external resources (Teece, 1996Teece, Pisano, &, Shuen, 1997), this study empirically investigates how the fit between an alliance portfolio strategy and internal capabilities affects innovation performance. First, I confirm the direct relationship between innovation performance and alliance portfolio diversity in terms of industry, then examine how internal capabilities of value creation leverage this relationship. In this study, the internal capabilities of value creation are examined in two aspects: routine (organizational search routine) and ability (technological capabilities). The results of this analyses show that the alliance portfolio diversity alone cannot explain the relationship with innovation performance, and this relationship is determined by internal contexts such as organizational search routine or technological capabilities. Apart from the hypotheses tests, this study conducted additional analysis by adding interaction terms with industry volatility as dummy variable, to examine how interplay of alliance portfolio diversity and internal capabilities is applied in certain environment such as high volatile industries. The result of this analysis shows the interaction of alliance portfolio diversity and organizational search routines becomes more significant in industries with high volatility while interaction of alliance portfolio diversity, technological capabilities, and high volatility have no significance. This study analyzed the impact of alliance portfolio diversity on innovation performance in terms of fit as integrated complementarity that considers internal and external components simultaneously.Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Backgrounds 1 1.2. Research purpose 2 1.3. Research outline 6 Chapter 2. Literature review 11 2.1. The concept of strategic fit 11 2.1.1. Definition. 11 2.1.2. Strategic fit in various theories. 11 2.2. Critical review on strategic fit 11 2.2.1. Critical review on prior studies 11 2.2.2. Suggesting new framework for technological innovation study. 20 2.2.3. Empirical studies on strategic fit for innovation performance 28 2.3. Top management team and internal-external context 30 2.3.1. TMTs Knowledge base 30 2.3.2. Organizational search behavior 32 2.3.3. TMT Knowledge base and organizational search behavior 33 2.3.4. TMT Knowledge base and managerial discretion . 34 2.4. Alliance portfolio and internal and external contexts 35 2.4.1. Alliance portfolio diversity 35 2.4.2. Alliance portfolio diversity and internal capabilities . 38 2.4.3. Alliance portfolio diversity, internal capabilities, and industry volatility . . 39 Chapter 3. Strategic fit of TMT knowledge base and internal-external contexts 40 3.1. Introduction 40 3.2. Research hypotheses 44 3.2.1. Top Management Team Knowledge Diversity and Organizational Innovation. 44 3.2.2. Top Management Team Knowledge Diversity and Organizational Search Scope . 49 3.2.3. Top Management Team Knowledge Diversity and Managerial Discretion. 53 3.3. Methods 55 3.3.1. Data and sample 55 3.3.2. Dependent variable . 56 3.3.3. Independent variables 57 3.3.4. Control variables 59 3.3.5. Empirical model specification 60 3.4. Results 61 3.5. Sensitivity analysis 65 3.6. Discussion 68 Chapter 4. Strategic fit of alliance portfolio strategy and internal-external contexts 71 4.1. Introduction 71 4.2. Research hypotheses 74 4.2.1. Alliance portfolio diversity and firm innovation 74 4.2.2. Alliance portfolio diversity and internal capabilities of value creation . 76 4.2.3. Organizational search routine as an internal value creation routine 77 4.2.4. Technological capabilities as an internal value creation ability. 80 4.3. Method . 83 4.3.1. Data and sample . 83 4.3.2. Dependent variable 84 4.3.3. Independent variables 84 4.3.4. Control variables 86 4.3.5. Empirical model specification 87 4.4. Results 88 4.5. Sensitive analyses 93 4.6. Discussion 95 Chapter 5. Conclusions 98 5.1. Summary and contributions 98 5.2. Limitations and future research 102 Bibliography 103 국 문 초 록 146Docto

Human Resources Strategy: The Era of Our Ways

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss some of the main features and trends in human resources (HR) strategy. Inasmuch as people are among the most important resources available to firms, one could argue that HR strategy should be central to any debate about how firms achieve competitive advantage. But this “people are our most important asset” argument is actually fairly hollow in light of the evidence. Far too many articles on HR start with this premise, but the reality is that organizations have historically not rested their fortunes on human resources. The HR function remains among the least influential in most organizations, and competitive strategies have not typically been based on the skills, capabilities, and behaviors of employees. In fact, as Snell, Youndt and Wright (1996:62) noted, in the past executives have typically tried to “take human resources out of the strategy equation--i.e., by substituting capital for labor where possible, and by designing hierarchical organizations that separate those who think from those who actually do the work.

Dynamic Capabilities: exploring industry level capabilities in UK Publishing

The competitive dynamics of many industries have changed considerably over the past decade and perhaps none more so than in news media. There is no doubt that this industry continues to undergo structural changes that compel news media firms to adapt and transform their business in response to the dynamic nature of media environment (Oliver, 2012; 2014). Indeed, many scholars have written extensively of the influence that the digital media environment has had on news businesses in terms of organizational value chains, profitability and their strategic adaptation to an environment disrupted by innovative new media technologies (Kung, 2008; Picard, 2010; Coates Nee, 2013; Neilsen, 2014; Schlesinger and Doyle, 2015). Industries have long been examined by researchers from a strategic perspective with various themes of inquiry relating to; industry structure and positioning, industry evolution and development, industry lifecycle, industry change and industry consolidation. Fundamentally, this body of knowledge emphases the importance of an organisation’s strategic fit with their competitive environment to achieve competitive advantage. This paper argues that ‘industry analysis’ could usefully draw on Dynamic Capabilities Theory (Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997) which argues for the strategic adaptation and reconfiguration of news media firm resources and capabilities in order to address a rapidly changing competitive environment. The increasingly dynamic nature of news media provides an ideal context to examine the dynamic capabilities exhibited at industry level, and whilst questions of industry analysis have been extensively covered in the field of strategic management, there is a dearth of literature that examines dynamic capabilities at industry level, and more specifically, UK news media. This paper will present empirical findings from a comparative time-series analysis (1997-2013) of the UK Publishing Industry and compare it to other industries categorised within the UK Creative Industries. Using descriptive statistics, this research will examine two key resource based metrics: the number of employees and the Gross Value Added by each industry. In doing so, this analysis will extend the limited knowledge on industry level dynamic capabilities and inter-industry performance and provide an insight into how the UK Publishing Industry has adapted to digital media over two decades change and turbulence

Strategic human resource management: insights from the international hotel industry

In the strategic human resource management (SHRM) field three approaches have dominated, namely, the universal or best-practice, best-fit or contingency and resource-based view (RBV). This study investigates evidence for the simultaneous or mixed adoption of these approaches by eight case study firms in the international hotel industry. Findings suggest there is considerable evidence of the combined use of the first two approaches but that the SHRM RBV approach was difficult to achieve by all companies. Overall, gaining differentiation through SHRM practices was found to be challenging due to specific industry forces. The study identifies that where companies derive some competitive advantage from their human resources and HRM practices they have closely aligned their managers’ expertise with their corporate market entry mode expertise and developed some distinctive, complex and integrated HRM interventions, which have a mutually reinforcing effect