Title: Industry as the knowledge base: the way Asians integrate knowledge from academic, industrial, and public sectors

Authors: David D.C. Tarn

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, I-Shou University, 1, Section 1, Hsueh-Cheng Road, Ta-Hus Hsiang, Kaohsiung County 840, Taiwan

Abstract: Knowledge Management (KM) has played a critical role in innovation and technology management-related fields over the past decades. Most KM studies investigate related issues from the perspectives of an organisational or firm-to-firm level. Many firms create and sustain their innovativeness and capability via their counterparts within and across the industry, and their KM activities occur at the industrial level. The members of the KM activities may include firms, research and academic institutes, governments, and even their competitors and clients. This study takes industry as the knowledge base and explores the content of Industry-based Knowledge Management (IKM) and how it is practiced in Asia. IKM is classified as four modes – knowledge clustering, enlarging, exchanging, and initiating. Some practical IKM cases in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan are reviewed to verify the model and to clarify the IKM contents of each mode. Suggestions and directions toward IKM practices and research for the future are given.

Keywords: industrial sectors; knowledge management; Asia; model construction; innovation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2006.009464

International Journal of Technology Management, 2006 Vol.34 No.3/4, pp.360 - 378

Published online: 03 Apr 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article