There are several activities and factors in the core competence of the enterprise. The most important factor is the innovation to create competitive products and services. This innovation is successful only for the base of organizational capability formed by transfer of experiences, know-how and organizational learning. Knowledge is the basic element created and accumulated in the process of organizational learning and transferring organizational capabilities. Knowledge Management (KM) is the collection of processes in creation, dissemination, application, and integration of organizational knowledge for the firms' sustainable competitive advantages.
This study focuses on how to manage organizational knowledge creation and discovery from the viewpoint of the competitive advantage in an engineering company. This study answers the following questions:
① What's the role of KM for competitive advantage in an engineering company?
② What are the factors that activate organizational knowledge creation/discovery for successful KM?
③ How can the activation status be measured and what are the measuring factors of organizational knowledge creation/discovery in the enterprise?
④ What is the activation status of organizational knowledge creation/ discovery in S Engineering Company and how can the company's weak points in the organizational knowledge creation and developing process be addressed?
While answering these questions several research papers on KM and organizational learning were reviewed, especially those focusing on the organizational knowledge creation/discovery process. From the theoretical review this study extracted evaluation factors for the activation status and performance of organizational knowledge creation/discovery in the enterprises. Two case companies are analyzed using the evaluation factors. (One is the company that has successful features in KM -- D Co. and the other is in the investigation stage of KM -- S Engineering Co.) Finally this study suggests several action lists for the activation of successful knowledge creation/discovery for the S Engineering Company.
This study is limited in its scope. A more systematic approach using factor analysis is required for finalizing evaluation factors and the number of case companies should also be increased for more valuable results in the future.
