Knowledge Orchestration for Sustained Competitive Advantage

There are few areas, which have attracted the proposal of as many theories as organizational knowledge and its management. Despite this diversity this article identifies a number of issues, which continue to challenge theoretical explorations into organizational knowledge: (1) It still remains difficult to understand how organizations can manage knowledge to their fullest advantage; given that knowledge is inherently tacit and therefore different to most other organizational resources. (2) It is often assumed that more knowledge and more knowledge management are inherently beneficial, often neglecting the implicit and explicit costs, which might be associated with the possession of knowledge. (3) Organizational knowledge is often seen with a focus on collective capability although only the individual usually applies knowledge. Based on a review of established organizational knowledge theories, this article synthesizes and proposes a number of concepts in exploration of the listed issues: (1) Organizational knowledge is broken up into knowledge potentials and their application in a changing environment. (2) The value of knowledge potentials is brought into relation with its usefulness in a dynamic environment. (3) Knowledge orchestration is proposed as an individual-driven way of interweaving knowledge flows in order to align knowledge potentials to a changing environment.