Introduction

So far, we have travelled on the innovation journey – a somewhat complex, fitful travel through uncertain territory involving false starts, wrong directions, blind alleys and unexpected problems. Successful innovation implies the completion of a risky adventure, often with valuable returns on the original investment. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the journey and take stock of the knowledge acquired through an often-difficult experience. And for the unsuccessful efforts we sometimes acquire more knowledge than from the successful ones.

Now, if innovation accumulates so much knowledge, how do we as organisation ensure that we capture it?

Lots of companies have come to realize that the brainpower or intellectual capital of their employees is their competitive edge. The problem is though that a lot of companies drown in information but starve for knowledge. Knowledge management is a newly developed science of ensuring that companies leverage their knowledge bases by setting up a system to maximize the returns on all the knowledge the company has to offer.

In this Learning Unit we will investigate the concept of knowledge management. This concept includes but spans a bit wider than managing the knowledge we gain from innovation.