Managing Knowledge: Perspectives on Cooperation and Competition - Softcover

`The work is a scholarly treatise and all contributors have displayed remarkable prowess in conceptualisation. Yet, every theme has been examined so that the practising manager may be provided with guidelines.... With commedable methodological rigour, the authors have drawn extensively from meticulously researched work in the fields of sociology of knowledge and strategic management and then formulated their own integrative model. Their work is characterised by both depth and breadth.... important and intellectually challenging' - Management Review (India)

Using both established as well as more recent modes of inquiry, this book sheds new light on an increasingly important dimension of organizational cooperation and competition - that of knowledge and knowledge transfer. As we move from the industrial age to the information age, the key to the competitive success of firms becomes the application and development of specialized knowledge and competencies. Based on research and practice, the book addresses a wide range of issues concerning the management of knowledge, from knowledge transfer between organizations to knowledge management within organizations. Divided into two parts, Managing Knowledge reflects a fundamental conceptual distinction between two world-views. The first part is characterized by representationism, or traditional approaches to viewing knowledge, knowledge transfer and cooperative strategies. The contributors provide a clear overview of the current research on knowledge management, and bring together studies on the sociology of knowledge, strategic management and learning theory. The second part focuses on anti-representationism, or new perspectives on knowledge and knowledge transfer in organizational cooperation. These perspectives, based on autopoiesis theory, go far beyond conventional ways of perceiving and managing knowledge and their implications for management theory and practice are fully examined. Contrasting established approaches with the new thinking on knowledge as an organizational resource, Managing Knowledge makes important and stimulating reading for academics and students in strategic management and general management studies.