Evaluation and Management of Organizational Knowledge

Organizational knowledge is a current topic in business organizations and research: While the former are enthusiastic to expand performance by means of knowledge management, science is more reserved: The topic is only meaningful if it is built on the existing wisdom of relevant disciplines. The subject of this research project is knowledge as a strategic resource with potential to sustain competitive advantage. Primarily the social dimension of knowledge is examined, since this aspect seems to be especially relevant for the understanding of the creation of new and the dissemination of existing knowledge within and outside an organization. The concrete goal of this research project is to develop an evaluation framework for measuring and accounting organizational knowledge. This is a key issue both in the context of managerial decisions and for the testing of theoretical propositions. Current instruments are still in their infancy. The application and further development of theory-based evaluation techniques originally developed to measure the impact and merit of social programs promise considerable improvements in the following areas: o First, in the development of firm-specific controlling instruments that allow better allocation of resources to promote the creation, dissemination and exploitation of knowledge, o second, in the formulation of theoretical propositions about the nature of organizational knowledge and the causal relationships between concrete, knowledge oriented interventions and the strategic success of a firm, and o third, in the reinforcement of knowledge oriented processes and interventions through the utilization of participatory forms of evaluation.