Knowledge management, innovation, and competitive advantage: is the relationship in the eye of the beholder?

ABSTRACT

As countries like Turkey rapidly develop their technology sectors, there is significant interest in whether knowledge management (KM) can help companies gain competitive advantages. However, individual perceptions as to the effectiveness of KM or information systems, which ultimately determine company-wide usage, may vary by individual preferences, as well as by tasks and department. This study compares a sample of 61 survey responses from 61 firms operating in Turkey, to an auxiliary sample of 34 responses from a single firm. The populations of the responses for the two surveys were statistically the same. Furthermore, the responses in the auxiliary survey provided similar relationships between the regression factors as the cross-company responses. This suggests a potential reinterpretation of cross-company survey results, and furthermore that KM and information technology measures for firms could be treated as distributions instead of single values. Perceptions also varied by employee turnover and workforce size.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge management
• competitive advantage
• surveys
• individual perceptions

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the feedback and suggestions from several individuals at a company operating in Turkey that were used to fine-tune the survey, and the comments of the two anonymous referees which helped improve the quality of the paper significantly.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.