An exploratory case study. Knowledge management: Managing organizational knowledge assets by aligning business strategy, knowledge strategy, and knowledge management strategy

The study of strategic management is mainly concerned with searching for the right ingredients to ensure that the adopted strategy allows firms to maintain the position of sustainable competitive advantage. Building on the resource-based view, it is stated that each firm is endowed with unique resources and capabilities that are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and not substitutable. The ability to manage the knowledge assets in a well-conceived strategy is the key to formulating a competitive advantage that is sustainable. Although today's practicing managers realize the importance of managing knowledge assets, they have not had much success in managing these valuable assets because of lack of a clear and concise KM framework. The objective of this study is to empirically test a KM alignment model that is coherent, explainable, and consistent with past research and theories to assist practicing managers in their KM implementation and assessment and to explore the significant factors that cause the misalignment of KM initiatives.;Using case study method conducted on three small financial services firms, a total of six propositions were developed to test the alignment model. The research findings show that only propositions that are related to KM initiative that is focusing on capturing, storing, and distributing knowledge to the right people at the right time are supported. Other propositions related to the management of tacit knowledge with the objective of creating new knowledge and increasing innovative capacity was not supported. These findings are consistent with the discussions that have been prevalent in the KM literature, which states that the lack of success can be attributed mainly to the fact that KM as a field or discipline in management study is a recent phenomenon and the development of the theory is still in the emerging stage. Furthermore, the findings also confirmed that firms have been trying to address the "how" of KM by using information technology and have paid limited attention to addressing the "what" of knowledge to be developed. This leads to firms implementing KM initiatives that focus on "how" to efficiently manage their knowledge assets without knowing "what" types of knowledge are to be developed and managed. Also, based on the cross-case analysis, this study presented four significant factors that cause alignment and misalignment. The four significant misalignment factors are (1) the implementation of KM at the tactical level, (2) the lack of senior management support, (3) the decision of KM implementation is based on "Fashion or Fad", and (4) gaps between realized BS and intended gaps. The KM alignment model, the typologies (BS, KS, and KMS), and the methodology employed in this study provide a concrete and roadmap to assist today's practicing managers to evaluate and assess their KM initiative from alignment perspective. The framework helps to address the following three questions commonly asked by managers: (1) Where are you, and where you want to be? (2) Do you have the right resources and competences to support the business strategy? (3) How efficient are you in utilizing your resources and competences to achieve where you want to be?...