A discourse analysis of innovation in academic management literature

The chapter explores the academic management discourse of innovation in high impact articles. Innovation is approached as a discursive terrain where discourses compete to ascribe meanings to innovation. The study shows that innovation is mainly constructed as a positive concept in management literature and the chapter broadens the scope by analysing and problematizing the academic management discourse of innovation. More specifically, the analysis shows that management research of innovation is self-referential; it primarily focuses on benefits for the innovating organization by promoting accelerated innovation, effective self-preservation practices and a faith in the good result of innovation. What is constructed here is a potential self-reinforcing circle driving organizations to innovate faster and faster. The authors argue that research needs to acknowledge and explore what innovation leads to beyond the immediate economic interests of organizations. This would help scholars to identify blind spots, and to invite research which rejects the pro-innovation bias in order to extend research agendas to also include undesirable effects of innovation and possibilities to reduce them.Peer reviewe

The new organizational wealth. : Managing & Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets

San Franciscoxii, 220 p.; 24 cm

Transfer of knowledge and the information processing professions

How is Knowledge best transferred? Via Information or via Tradition (face-to-face socialization)? This Article draws upon Michael Polanyi's concepts of 'Tacit Knowing' and 'Tradition', contrasting it with Information Theory to explore the two methods. The present growth in information seems to be a supply push, not a customer demand, which is potentially dangerous. On today's information markets the suppliers pay - not the consumers, suggesting that the value of information in transferring knowledge is very small. The value can even be negative, because the reader does not know until after the reading, whether the information was worth spending time on or not. The money makers have the information suppliers as customers or have created standards that force the readers to use their tools. It seems false - and possibly unprofitable - to base transfer of human knowledge on information. I suggest that those carrying a 'radical' definition of information as being equal and meaningless are less likely to be disappointed and less likely to lose money on information markets. Human knowledge is action oriented and is best transferred via tradition, in social interaction with people, because humans have a huge capacity to absorb signals unconsciously in face-to-face communication. However, tradition is slow and unconscious. We must find new ways and other interactive media other than information, for efficient knowledge transfer. One such 'medium' is the open plan office.

ABSTRACT Knowledge Management and Growth in Finnish SMEs

The impact of knowledge management on the financial success of companies has not yet been properly researched. This paper makes a contribution by examining the relationship between sustainable sales growth and knowledge management activities in 108 Finnish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Design Data were generated from a questionnaire survey of 108 SMEs from different fields and thematic interviews with 10 companies. Findings Higher levels of KM-Maturity were found to correlate positively with long-term sustainable growth. Although Finnish SMEs display a surprisingly high awareness about KM, only a minor proportion of the sample firms has been able to benefit in terms of growth from their KMrelated activities. The results have implications for policy formulation in the field of SMEs, since half the Finnish SMEs in the sample do not grow. We found that the fast-growing companies with high KM-Maturity are applying KM-related activities in a comprehensive and balanced way, thereby raising question marks around the effectiveness of eclectic “K