Knowledge management model of the service development in B-to-B networks

Purpose: The transition towards service business is topical in all industrialized countries and an increasingly significant proportion of revenue is generated by companies' service activities. Some earlier studies describe service development as an ad hoc procedure (Rathmell, 1974; Claude & Horne, 1992; Gröönroos 1990) and based on organization's individual innovators (Claude & Horne, 1992). This stresses the role of knowledge management as a source of competitive service development. This article focuses on identifying the knowledge sources of service development and how knowledge is created, shared and utilized in networks for the creation of new innovative services and developing current services? Design: This is an exploratory case study aiming to represent phenomena and their relations with possible causalities. Empirical information was collected from case companies, from B-to-B networks in various service business fields. Findings: The article traced the origins of the knowledge management field differentiating between tacit and explicit knowledge and describing the SECI/ba model. The paper shows that the SECI/ba model supports new service development and innovations in the network from both the research methodological and case companies points of view. Originality: The primary contribution of the paper is in describing network knowledge management methods supporting tacit and explicit service knowledge management. From a theoretical point of view, the article traces the origins of the knowledge management field and how knowledge management models support new service development and innovation