Knowledge Management Process Capability: Operations Strategy Perspective

According to the resource based view (RBV) of the firm (Wernerfeldt, 1984; Barney, 2004) and distributed knowledge system view of the firm, knowledge is a critical organizational resource that contributes to superior performance if relevant KM capabilities are built and applied to the knowledge resources. The perspective that sound operations strategy applied to knowledge is necessary for a firm to take full advantage of knowledge management programmes is explored in this paper. The objective of this paper is to document empirical evidence from existing literature on the effect of KM process capability on performance of firms and to identify opportunities for further research which can generate more knowledge to help in the understanding of this relationship leading to the improvement of the contribution of knowledge to performance. An empirical literature survey method was used to collect information regarding KM process capability and its effect on performance. The results suggest that knowledge management process operations positively impact performance. Arising from these findings, it is proposed that studies be launched to determine the relative disposition and contribution of each of the KM process capabilities’ operations to performance. Such studies will guide organizations in building KM process capabilities and carrying out operations which can be leveraged for sustainable superior performance using knowledge resources