It is argued that knowledge is displacing natural resources, capital, and labour as the basic economic resource in the ‘new economy’ (Drucker, 1995). Commentators on contemporary themes of strategic management stress that a firm’s competitive advantage flows from its unique knowledge and how it manages knowledge (Barney, 1991; Boisot, 1998; Spender, 1996; Nonaka and Teece, 2001). Some researchers even state that the only sustainable competitive advantage in the future will be effective and efficient organizational knowledge managing (Wikstro¨m and Normann, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; von Krogh et al., 2000) | Knowledge and Process Management Volume 10 Number 3 pp 194–206 (2003) Published online in Wiley InterScience (). DOI: & Knowledge Managing and Knowledge Management Systems in Inter-organizational Networks Sven A. Carlsson* Informatics, Jo¨nko¨ping International Business School, Sweden It is argued that the basic economic resource in the new economy is knowledge. An important source for competitive advantage in this economy is organizations’ networks of external rela- tionships. It is also argued that information and communication technologies (ICT) and Knowl- edge Management Systems (KMS) can play an important role in knowledge-intensive processes and flows. This paper presents a conceptualization of strategic knowledge managing within the context of inter-organizational networks. The conceptualization is based on the resource-based, dynamic capability, and absorptive capability views as well as ideas from the ‘gift economy’. Three types of inter-organizational networks for strategic knowledge mana- ging are defined: (1) extra-networks; (2) inter-networks; and (3) open networks. The paper dis- cusses knowledge managing in the three network types and illustrates how ICT and KMS can be used to enable and enhance knowledge managing in inter-organizational networks—the core business process used for illustration is new product development. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION obsolete almost overnight, successful companies are those that constantly create new knowledge, It is argued that knowledge is displacing natural disseminate it widely throughout the organization, resources, capital, and labour as the basic economic and quickly embody it in new technologies and resource in the ‘new economy’ (Drucker, 1995). products’. (Nonaka, 1991). This has led to an inter- Commentators on contemporary themes of strate- est in idiosyncratic knowledge that is valuable, gic management stress that a firm’s competitive rare, .
