Inter-organisational networks and communities of practice are two areas of inquiry of interest to knowledge management, especially when innovation is an important organisational goal. These two areas are separated by different foci, assumptions and approaches. For this reason they are often seen as opposing approaches to enabling innovation. The paper argues that whilst networks and communities are different structures, they have complementary roles to play in innovation and when combined could bring organisations closer to an optimal innovative structure. It is proposed that innovation networks are conducive to the exploration aspects and communities of practice support exploitation aspects of the innovation process. What is to be considered optimum will be dependent on the specific context determined by several network concepts, namely strength and density of ties, cognitive distance, and absorptive capacity.
Knowledge has become a central organizing principle in society to the extent that knowledge management has become a mainstream activity in organizations. Nevertheless, knowledge-related risks remain relatively neglected in the risk management domain. Whilst knowledge reduces uncertainty and the associated risks, the increased knowledge intensity in organizations also represents a risk factor that has to be assessed. The paper describes and validates an organizational risk assessment approach that considers knowledge-related and knowledge management risks in an integrated manner. The approach makes it possible to calculate risk ratings in terms of vulnerability and likelihood for 50 threats to all activities and phases of the knowledge life cycle. These risk ratings are plotted against 24 potential risks in the human, organizational, and technical domains. To impress on management the significance of these knowledge-related risks, the risk ratings are transformed to approximated financial figures. The approach is applied to 10 Slovenian organizations, two of which are discussed in detail in the paper, to demonstrate that it can be successfully used in a wide variety of organizations. It is concluded that the approach offers a way to assess both knowledge-related and knowledge-management-related risks, that the costs that individual risks potentially hold can be approximated, and that for a diversity of organizations mitigation strategies can be suggested for the identified risks.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.