Knowledge and continuous innovation

Abstract

Competition today is forcing companies to increase their effectiveness through exploiting synergy and learning in product innovation. Literature, however, is still mainly focused on how product development projects, seen largely as isolated efforts, should be organised and managed. This article proposes a model to describe and explain how companies can gain a substantive competitive advantage by extending their innovation efforts to other phases of the product life cycle and by facilitating knowledge transfer and learning both within the company and with other partner organisations. The model is based on collaborative research by the authors, based on their involvement in the Euro-Australian co-operation project CIMA (Euro-Australian co-operation centre for Continuous Improvement and innovation MAnagement).

Does open innovation apply to China? Exploring the contingent role of external knowledge sources and internal absorptive capacity in Chinese large firms and SMEs

“…It is a continuous variable ranging from 0 to a maximum value of 1. The Previous Year Innovation Performance (Innov2001) is included as a control variable as well (calculated similarly to the dependent variable) to take account of the consideration that innovation is a continuous behaviour and prior innovative activities and investments might be highly correlated to and influence current innovation performance (Boer et al, 2001).…”

The Influence of Knowledge Management on Financial and Non-Financial Performance

“…Thus, in the well-known knowledge creation model of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), three of the four distinct phases namely, socialisation, externalisation, and combination involve extensive social interactions among organisation members (Chua, 2002b). In line with this, Boer et al (2011) proposed a model explaining how rms can gain a substantive competitive advantage by focusing on their continuous innovation of product life cycle and by facilitating knowledge transfer and learning both within the¯rm and with other partners.…”

“…As a result, organisations tend to collaborate with other organisations, groups or individuals including their customers. In line with this, Boer et al (2011) proposed a model explaining how¯rms can gain a substantive competitive advantage by focusing on their continuous innovation of product life cycle and by facilitating knowledge transfer and learning both within the¯rm and with other partners. Li et al (2012) in their research on collaborative knowledge management practices (CKMP) revealed that interorganisational knowledge collaboration can lead to increased organisational knowledge quality and signi¯cant performance bene¯ts to the participating¯rms.…”

If Cross-Functional Teams are the Answer, What is the Question?

“…Likewise, a company with a strong culture of innovation leverages relationships across boundaries and through the extended enterprise, and encourages people to reach further and more faster to gain or spread knowledge [7] [8]. Cross-functional teams provide a substantial range of ideas, learning and improvements that can be applied to the firms [9]. Thus, firms need to use crossfunctional teams in the implementation of innovative technologies, such as intelligent information systems, with the aim of bringing ideas, learning, knowledge, expertise and innovation into the project.…”