Title: Use of the knowledge management framework as a tool for innovation capability audit

Authors: Roberto Biloslavo

Addresses: Faculty of Management Koper, Cankarjeva 5, 6000 Koper, Slovenia

Abstract: As effective innovation management needs to balance efficient coordination and the proper spending of limited resources on the one hand and creative chaos on the other hand, it is of critical importance to understand the whole structure of relationships and implications of processes involved. Success of innovation processes in relation to knowledge management has become a popular research topic in the last decade. In this way, we learned that early economic-oriented insights about importance of Ramp;D expenditure are not enough to explain the difference between innovation success and failure. It was found that more important than R&D expenditure are different factors such as people, information and communication technology, knowledge management processes, culture, organisation structure, management systems, process of assets allocation. As theoretical and empirical work in knowledge and innovation management has brought a large number of sub-theories and fragmented solutions, it is difficult for an organisation to know how to put all the key success factors together. For this reason, I propose a holistic knowledge management framework, which in a systemic way includes and connects all relevant organisation elements and its sub-dimensions in short, middle, and long time frame. Based on this, I then developed an innovation capability audit model and a related self-assessment questionnaire.

Keywords: knowledge management frameworks; innovation capability audit; learning; innovation management; self-assessment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2005.006663

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2005 Vol.2 No.4, pp.402 - 424

Published online: 01 Apr 2005 *

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