Knowledge Management and Innovation

General ConclusionThe Four Challenges of Knowledge Management at the Service of Innovation

The change of paradigm [CHE 03] that represents the generalization of interactive, collaborative and open approaches to innovation justifies a supplementary research effort that finds its source in the reconciliation of literature on innovation and knowledge management. By establishing connections between different stakeholders and different knowledge sources, these approaches transform the way in which firms perceive and exploit users’ potential needs and latent preferences, the technical constraints associated with the uses of developed products or even the complementarities between products of different conceptions. We have suggested in this book that these approaches induce the deployment of knowledge management processes (generation, application and valorization; Figure 2.1) adapted to the stakes of interaction, collaboration and opening. From this perspective, the challenges confronting firms are multiple. These challenges are directly associated with the management of multiple sources of innovation on which rely the generation, application and valorization of knowledge. We retain four of these:

1. – monitoring of the internal and external environment;
2. – selection of partners and knowledge sources;
3. – integration of heterogeneous knowledge sources;
4. – implementation of an adapted appropriation regime in light of generating value.

The success or failure of innovation will thus depend ...