Management of knowledge asset

Abstract

In the knowledge-intensive business environment, competitive advantages rest increasingly on an organization’s ability to acquire valuable knowledge and information, and to apply them to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and competitiveness. Among important sources of such valuable knowledge and information are the firm’s employees and customers. Firms can capitalize on their employees’ knowledge by encouraging them to share knowledge for others’ use in the organizations. Firms can also provide customers with higher value proposition based on better understanding of the customers using information about them. However, neither of the two sources willingly and freely transfers their valuable knowledge or information to the firm. This dissertation focuses on two important issues that arise when the valuable knowledge or information is not fully available. The first part of the dissertation deals with the incentive issue in knowledge sharing in the organization and analyzes reward systems for effective knowledge sharing. In this part, two common forms of reward systems are considered; individual-based reward which is based on the individual contribution of valuable knowledge, and group-based reward which is based on the contribution of the whole group through knowledge sharing to the firm performance. Specifically, we analyze optimal reward systems, the effect of measurement inaccuracy in the actual amount of knowledge sharing, the optimal investment to improve measurement accuracy, the effect of changes in exogenous factors on the firm’s optimal policy, potential problems of group-based reward, and the role of organizational norms on knowledge sharing. Based on the analysis, we provide managers with guides to design reward systems. The second part of the dissertation addresses management of customer information and consumer privacy concerns in the context of product personalization based on customer information. While advances in information and communi...