Zack, Michael

--Zack, 2002, A Strategic Pretext for Knowledge Management--

One area still seriously lacking is the ability to link KM to strategy and competitive advantage. Although virtually all authors extoll knowledge's strategic virtues, the evidence that organizations are actually linking KM to strategy or realizing significant strategic benefits from KM is thin. The typical approach in most organizations is to implement a KM solution and then to attempt to work backward towards an explnation of why this particular application, if successfully implemented and used, might create strategic advantage.

O link KM to strategic advantage, we need to understand and articulate those particular sources of advantage that come from knowledge as a strategic resource. If the application of a certain knowledge can be shown to create or sustain competitive advantage by enabling an organization to better formulate and execute its competitive strategy, then that knowledge is a strategic resource.

The reason why most organizations start with KM rather than strategy, is that the people involved with strategy are not interacting at all with those doing KM, and those doing KM are not interacting with those doing strategy. The point at which both strategy and KM come together is in understanding the strategic nature of knowledge itself.

--Zack, 2002, Developing a Knowledge Strategy: Epilogue--

While many of the organizations recognize the importance of developing a strategic rationale for investing in knowledge creation and exploitation, they continue to be, for the most part, driven by focused, short-term, first-order outcomes rather thatn broader, longer-term strategic goals. Those organizations that do attempt the strategic link typically begin by developing a knowledge management initiative and then trying to work backwards to determine its impact on the organization's strategy.

Organizations usually frame knowledge strategy generically, in terms of knowledge exploration/exploitation, which are process-oriented categories and do not identify what knowledge needs to be exploited or created. This results in organizations attempting to share what they know without first understanding what they need to share. They are attacking their knowledge process gaps without considering their strategic knowledge content gaps.