Colloquium Presentation

On 9 October I presented a colloquium on my research progress.

The topic was: “The same only diferent: towards a typology of knowledge-centric capabilities”.

For those of you who requested a copy of my slides - here it is:

Some of the discussion points from the colloquium are included below:

Q: A number of people refer to the ‘new economy’ or ‘knowledge economy’ without exploring the concept more in-depth. How is the knolwedge economy different from the so called ‘old-economy’?

A: The fundamental rules of the economy haven’t changed, but the structure and drivers of the economy have changed. Technological advancements have rapidly changed the way production is being organised and value is being delivered, and knowledge is increasingly being recognised as a strategic resource.

Q: In your literature review, have you come across any negative effects resulting from knowledge management?

A: No, I have not come across any case studies discussing negative consequences of knowledge management.

Q: Surely information overload could be a negative consequence of knowledge management?

A: It could be, if knowledge is not managed effectively. Knowledge management is not about dumping everything that everybody knows in a repository. Knowledge management should focus on creating knowledge that is of strategic importance to the organisation, which should narrow down the scope and filter out information that is not of strategic importance. Technology implementation, such as search engines and taxnomies should also assit employees in finding the right information or persons when they need to.

Q: Do you have a hypothesis that you are testing?

A: No. The research is inductive not deductive, in other words, I am exploring what is out there, and from the findings I am building a theory about the emerging types of knowledge-centric capabilities (typology) and roadmaps to becoming knowledge-centric.