How knowledge assets lead to a sustainable competitive advantage: are organizational capabilities a missing link?

Abstract

Even though knowledge assets have been widely recognized as the principal drivers of firm's competitive advantage, few are the frameworks that have explained how these strategic assets are transformed into value and how the value creation process occurs. Also there is a confusing terminology in the literature surrounding many concepts explaining the dynamics of value creation. By conducting a Systematic Review – an evidence-based methodology for theory building – this paper seeks to define a ‘common language’ of the concepts used to explain this phenomenon, and build the assumptions of a theoretical model that explains how knowledge assets, through learning mechanisms, are linked, renewed, and leveraged into socio-technical processes or organizational routines, that in turn form the basis of organizational capabilities. As they are socially constructed, these organizational capabilities, when leveraged into products and services, generate value and provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage and long-term superior performance. The model should therefore serve as a theoretical contribution to the literature and it has a further potential benefit to begin an inquiry, for both theory building and management, about the nature of firm's knowledge assets and organizational capabilities, and the sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Some of these avenues are outlined in this paper.

Keywords:

• knowledge assets
• knowledge dynamics
• organizational routines
• organizational capabilities
• dynamic capabilities
• sustainable competitive advantage

Acknowledgements

The author thanks David Teece, Robert Grant, and JC Spender for their insightful suggestions and their input into the systematic review process. The author is grateful to Bernard Marr for his valuable help and contribution to the review process. All remaining errors, of course, remain the sole responsibility of the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karim Moustaghfir

About the author

Karim Moustaghfir is an assistant professor and program coordinator of Human Resource Development at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is also the general coordinator of the Mediterranean School of Advanced Studies in e-Business Management (Italian-Moroccan Partnership). During his Ph.D. he was also a visiting fellow at the Centre for Business Performance – Cranfield School of Management. After completing his Master and Ph.D. degrees, he worked as Post-doctoral Researcher at Scuola Superiore ISUFI – Università del Salento, Italy. He now researches on the topic of dynamic capabilities, knowledge assets, and their impact on firm performance.