The knowledge dimension of innovation management

Abstract

The paper critically examines the literature of innovation management – the assumptions and the limitations of each dominant approach. The paper suggests that innovation management theorists have been late to embrace the theoretical progress of the knowledge management field. It seems that even though in theory knowledge management studies knowledge creation and sharing, in practice knowledge and innovation literatures do not communicate. It is argued here that the main limitations of the mainstream innovation approaches spring from that they treat knowledge as a de-contextualised object, transferable and controllable in best cases – at worst, the models focus on managing the processes, ignoring that these are there to support knowledge, hence knowledge should be the main focus of study. Knowledge studies in organisations have opened up ways of understanding knowledge phenomena from different perspectives, and their insights compliment the limitations that innovation studies have met. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches to innovation management, which succeeded in embracing insights from the knowledge literature in their analysis.

Keywords:

• knowledge management theory
• innovation
• knowledge creation
• meaning of knowledge