The Complete Guide to Knowledge Management: A Strategic Plan to Leverage Your Company's Intellectual Capital

Chapter 10. Innovating for a New Beginning

In this chapter you will:

Learn that constant innovation is a must for the survival of an organization. Organizations and managers cannot afford to neglect investing in innovation, even during difficult periods.

Understand that innovation consists of three components: reuse of existing knowledge, invention of new knowledge, and exploitation of overall knowledge.

Realize that innovation is not limited to technology but can and should happen in all business activities, including business development, human resources, customer relations, marketing, and work processes.

Learn how to establish a culture of innovation that encourages and enables workers to innovate.

This chapter reviews the concept of innovation as a core aspect of knowledge organizations. Learning how to foster and manage innovation is one of the most important tasks of a manager in a knowledge organization, and lies at the heart of proper knowledge management. The chapter reviews methods for requiring, enabling, and encouraging innovation in your organization.

Innovation as the Essence of Knowledge Organizations

Successful knowledge organizations require a culture of continuous renewal, whether of products, technology, or methods. They need some kind of innovation in order to survive and should check their progress periodically according to whether they are meeting this goal.

In this section, we present some examples of role models known for their culture of continuous innovation. These ...