MANAGING KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANISATIONS

In today’s knowledge based economy, where organisation’s competitive advantage is based largely on the ability to continually innovate, knowledge is a key resource and effectively managing the organisation’s knowledge ‘base’ is crucial. Firms such as Apple, Google, GSK and McKinsey all compete on the basis of their knowledge base and managing these types of organisation is very different from managing traditional organisations. The management of knowledge based-organizations is therefore a distinctive, contemporary and strategic challenge which has only recently begun to be addressed.  Understanding the distinctive challenges in managing knowledge workers and knowledge work is now a key issue in knowledge-based organizations. A number of new tools (grounded in ICTs) and techniques have been suggested but largely focus too narrowly on generic approaches to transfer information, and largely ignore the social, organizational and cultural context needed to foster knowledge processes such as knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. In this module, students will develop an in-depth understanding and skills that will enable them to appreciate the distinctive challenges these organizations present and develop ways to work and manage effectively within them.