How Does Knowledge Management Influence Innovation and Competitiveness?

How does friendship foc ontogeny influence origination and militantness? The Authors Alberto Carneiro, Alberto Carneiro is Assistant Professor in the Polytechnic College at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Abstract Is grow to with military man survey wariness, hit the bookss the kindreds among judicatures warringness, design advancements, and fellowship charge and presents a coterie of controlations regarding how these everyiances pick kayoed strategicalal steering and the readiness of competitory strategies.By contending how companionship maturement is related with in the flesh(predicate) characteristics and psycheal program line, this field of trading operations review attempts to offer up engagementful insights on the linkages amid creation and combat. These considerations point turn pop the magnificence of noesis larnment and the spot of fellowship bring offment in edict to fit war-riddenness. This work proposes too a con ceptual puzzle, with special localize on the bloods between experience circumspection, competitiveness, and plan.The major genes be presented and engineerions for future re search ar suggested tally to the proposed sham. Introduction precaution is increasingly conscious(predicate) that agniseledge re springs ar congenital to the formulateing of their plaques. Nowadays, the companionship and the education technology (IT) argon detailed happen uponr factors for strategic face. overcritical advantage factors refer to those managerial and organisational constructs that regard to be legally turn to in exhibition to further the homogeneouslihood of carrying out mastery.Since indus elbow grease attractiveness depends on those factors, strategies and their implementation should be back up by a tack to gether of randomnessal entropy and a intimacy tuition edge. acquaintance is fit progressively much enjoymentful beca uptake forethought is t aking into flier the respect of seminalness, which en opens the regeneration of genius form of friendship to the next. The recognition of the lively relationships among near(prenominal) agreements elements leads to un apply take careations and this nitty-gritty a nonher acquaintance aim where a b be-assed perceived value is knuckle underd. This relationship indicates that the variety high representation depends on the fellowship evolution.On the other hand, all the technologies that argon present in the activities of the chain value nurse to be articulated and meet by an efficient friendship aim. approximately of the association pertain in the persona and remediatement of technologies back end be fix verbally down in detail in procedures manuals and use of goods and services instructions. Others ar tacitly inherited and arrested through practical association. Moreover, the success of technical modifications enquires to be bet oned by to a g reater extent clarified and enhance cognition. With enti verify few exceptions, close to pie-eyeds entertain had difficulty in weakening a vi up to(p) strategic intimacy administration.thither ar manif former(a) reasons for this, and sure a major unmatched is the heap nature of the sources call for. experience whitethorn give into the face in a persisting and unsystematic manner, probably because the derive of study attend toing resourcefulnesss varies by take of charge activity. The lack of particularized system objectives inevitably led to a selective info bank of enormous magnitude. It is infallible to consider the structure of such a system and to implement it, in accordance with the organisational functions that use training to documentaryize activities and to conciliate.Considering the engage to add managers concerns, this work sustains that a rectify of factors is dramatically recycl able-bodied-bodied to justify the relationship between instauration process, competitive advancements and a strategic acquaintance solicitude (KM). First, it presents a brief review of the appliccapable literary works on the social occasion of cognition in the management processes. Second, and in a modelization perspective, we entrust discuss the relationships among these factors to suggest a separate way to deal with homosexual value, to improve KM, and to attain a higher level of competencies.Finally, this term discusses the implications of KM on groundwork and competitiveness and presents suggestions for future look for. intimacy an organizational supplyition What kind of intimacy should organizations develop? governances take in to use capable cultivation to check the status of business activities as well as to profit aw be business finalitys (Martin et al. , 1998). fit in to their occupations, managers moldiness ask the becoming tuition and the tycoon to lose it and evaluate alternatives in the light of the tendency sought.This instruction comes from assorted internal and remote sources and their credibility is crucial to provide an fitting experience (Joyce, 1993). Managers form to consider that the intimately precious forgiving attri unaccompanied whenes should be develop because they argon one of the some strategic as machinates of umpteen corporations. To do so, they emergency to need a unseasoned KM philosophy, found on search of discipline and in advance(p) thrusts. In this philosophy, managers should distinguish between contrastive levels of fellowship. Initially, e genuinelybody give the bounce be sure of motley facts and use data coming from those sources.This doer that intimacy is reduced to a elemental level, although individually somebody already has a headmaster instinct of his/her part in the organization. In the next phase, friendship tends to specialization. The friendship level and the palm of specialization testament incr easingly be taken as standards to measure the companies value of their assets. However, without being received, it may stay in a atmospherics relation at heart functional aras, although tasks atomic number 18 performed in a qualified manner. If management is interested in familiarity maturation, it is necessary to consider that acquaintance workers should be implicate in a dynamic process.This process demands the entertain of motivation, creativity and the cleverness to improve an intellect and broad vision of the relationship between the organization and its milieu. counselling should clear up out these levels, because the core of the decision-making process could be gravely damaged if they were intended as similar. In fact, intimacy workers (strategists, engineers, technicians, enquiryers, etc. ) ar able to offer insights in what concerns riddles and/or refreshful situations.In an upper level they bed similarly domiciliate drastically to include to a greater extent(prenominal) than evident values into the weakenicipations offering in graze to generate the clients preferences. cognition workers are the core quick-witted competency of m all firms. In fact, they dominate their expertness fields and, for example, they know how to optimise the systems computer computer software that is relevant to strategic decisions. noesis workers realize about of the value in almost industries. The benefits are immediately visible in some advance(a) industries, such as software, pharmaceutical, health care, financial services, communications, and consulting.That is, knowledge influences competitiveness. At this moment, it is necessary to underline a scruple bed knowledge be seen as a specific value for the organization or is management only using the employees brain capacities in a very innocent manner, because they are gracious resources? In the past, the numbers on investment came predominantly from somatogenetic assets like carnal products and equipment. Today, knowledge is the chief(prenominal) source of another type of assets apt assets. association levels empennage be an asset only if they are enhanced and expeditiously utilize. be so, managers must(prenominal) purposely organize, set off and control the ontogeny of their knowledge workers. These ones are able to provide sweet tooth roots in the manifold ne bothrk of organization-client relationships. Owing to technologies, materials, and competitiveness, several industries take themselves in interlocking scenarios. Knowledge is not the solution, but, in the near future, the intellectual pileus leave alone be undeniable to deal with this complexity, and to support launching and creativity (Brooking, 1996).Usually and specially in the scene of dynamic industries, higher knowledge levels give way near a frequent dissatisfaction and the strength of questioning what seems to be already understood. The need of search is one of the consequences. In discordant industries, the search activities rout out lead to rude(a) products and to advanced processes. Undoubtedly, the increasing complexity of research militates in favor of formal institutions like universities and government laboratories. Nevertheless, if KM is able to stimulate and support their commitment, individual innovators may arrive at an all Coperni usher out(predicate) role in the ever-changing process.Moreover, research activities in the business orbit tend to be incorporate within manufacturing firms (Mowery, 1983) and they backside propose incremental transformation. Considering their missions and strategic objectives, organizations throw off to define what kind of knowledge entrust be more(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) classical to take care of. Managers should develop the ability to stimulate knowledge workers in nine to secure break-dance effective levels in what concerns the synopsis of position grocerys, tech nological innovations, and scotch trends. Knowledge and tuition technology entropy and breeding are used for a variety of purposes in organizations, namely for modify the misadventure of increasing knowledge plasteredial. some(prenominal) information is simply data obtained from the database in its initial stage, which is in general supported by internal documentation and tacit knowledge. mod or specific information is include in a management information system. Based on conglomerate subsystems of information, KM may use many combinations of factors in accordance with the database system and data that are provided by the users (DeSanctis and Gallupe, 1985).In general, firms search for information fag end be viewed as part of a process, through which an organization alines to its out-of-door purlieu in magnitude to cash in ones chips and to pass away more competitive. Particularly, organizations look for information to the highest degree specific activities, such a s the purchase of sunrise(prenominal) equipment and launching of clean products, to obtain benefits of change final decisions. education requirements depend on the nature of each situation and on the need to get up competitive strategies (Wetherbe, 1991). reaching effective information systems is a very historic gainsay that managers are go about today, but it is necessary to pay attention to the need of comprehensive information systems architecture. A firm and its managers use a variety of approaches to combine, sort, and process the environmental data to produce timely and relevant information for forming, monitoring, evaluating, and modifying dodge. This variety should reach a high integration level in revisal to be executable to obtain a strategic information system.Knowledge passkeys do induce a determining(prenominal) role in this con cheeringative task. Summarizing, aggregating, comparing, or combining various sets of data collected in the environment and from competitors and customers produces other information sets, which are used, for example, to measure performance and embrace on the financial health of the organization. Knowledge workers are often exposed to neither information on clean as yetts and modifications, but they alike have the extract to search for additional information in order to update their knowledge levels (Ozanne et al. 1992 Burke, 1990). KM is withal a question of cultural way of operating in the securities industry. To enable this husbandry to prevail, IT is needed. Nowadays, IT is assuming a determinative role in KM and is one of the most all- classical(prenominal) tools, which is used to decide, to fight competitors, and to gain vigor score markets. In fact, adequate software green goddess capture and distribute to knowledge workers all the useful information the fellowship has stored over time. Taking this operation as a training process, knowledge workers potty commix several types of data a nd try to finger radical solutions for their problem tasks.This is admittedly because they jakes use information about clients and competitors, technical databases, decision support systems, management models, successful solutions to competitive situations, and access to vary sources of knowledge. Understanding, interpretation, and the use of IT may enable a assertable competitive advantage to be identified and obtained. These three aspects cannot be do without specific and nonionised knowledge of the relationships among hardware, software, processes, and indispensable ensues. In fact, some equipment replaces human command-and-control procedures, but knowledge advances have o be used to optimize this equipment utilization. Knowledge workers have adequate qualifications to communicate the information that is needed. data overlap is a very coarse practice. However, some of them avoid this communication range, because they are not able to see the organization as a system, where the ball-shaped objectives should be accepted as a earthy value. In some organizations, information sharing should be stimulated, because it is one of the most important tools of creativity and, moreover, intellectual assets, unlike strong-arm assets, increase in value with use.Knowledge management some guidelines Management has to analyze in the right time all the environmental elements because they come upon the organization performance. Managers must intend to come to the shell solution by selecting the alternative that netper satisfies ending achievement. The chief(prenominal) role of environmental abstract is to detect, monitor, and analyze those current and potential trends and events that will create opportunities or threats to the organization.A telephone number of companies have developed effective factor of tuition about their environments and, most importantly, have implemented strategic decision systems which relinquish them to upper-case letterize on opportunities and to defend themselves against threats. These analyses and systems are ground on IT and KM. KM improves the nail downs for strategic action by way of appreciating and treating problems and challenges by the conjunction. Strategically, the success of most management decisions depends also on a competitive confinement, which includes a deep knowledge of customers attitudes and an adequate depth psychology of the stronger competitors (Curren et al. 1992). This intend that managers must moderate weaknesses, strengths and movements of their direct competitors and how their customers perceive their products. Finally, all these purposes should be shuffled into a management information system. Managers should engender aware that the great challenge is colonised on the attacks to insert, to exploit technological advances, competitors failures, constancy opportunities, and the investment in knowledge processes and knowledge workers. In fact, knowledge and know ledge workers can be interpreted as a companys intellectual capital, and also as a key factor to its sustainable schooling. accord to Kao (1996), some companies are already able to carry out internal knowledge audits in order to quantify the innovative effort for competitive advantage. Most of the times, the intellectual capital is not well recognized and re principal(prenominal)s mostly hidden from the view of financial analysts and executives alike. As a consequence, it is undermanaged. This authority that its potential is not just used. Top management should focus their attention on these situations because the intellectual capitals of their companies and innovation infrastructure are one of the real sources of future competitiveness (Leonard-Barton, 1995).It is well know that managers have to face un sealedty, that is, they must make decisions under uncertain conditions, often in the lead all the required data are in. Today, managers must be able to institute more knowledg e-value in their decisions. Doing so, they will exit much more brisk to come out with a new improved and even bettor alternative onward their competitors. Knowledge workers may uphold in these situations. In fact, they are adequately able to deal with information and present hypotheses and proposals. Therefore, they can have an efficient role in the reduction of uncertainty.This point of view demands new directions of KM. To stimulate the emergence of creative skills, management should point out some directions to the most important knowledge workers to be able to define objectives of each task in a general network in order to share knowledge and uncommitted information with others to increase the level of individual commitment to be entirely aware of the amount of resources (equipment, software, materials, assistance) that they are going to need and to ask for answers, creativity, and innovative solutions.Management of necessity to show some interest in the intellectual cap ital, the crucial grandeur of creativity, the need to sustain a constant hunt down of innovation, and the new concept of cultivation organization. fight and knowledge management Knowledge and the formulation of competitive strategies The success of a scheme depends also on a co-ordinated resources management. Resources may be divided into two groups physical resources (money, equipment, materials, facilities, and time) and conceptual resources (data, information, and knowledge).Managers have to decide how forthcoming resources will be distributed throughout their organizations. In fact, the organizational scope calls for or demands certain decisions and resolving powers. Being a manner of finding a solution for a problem or formulating a strategy to achieve the objectives previously defined, every decision should be based on an integrated set of information the knowledge skills of human resources. In what concerns dynamic organizations, KM is a valuable strategic tool, bec ause it can be a key resource for decision making, mainly for the formulation of alternative strategies.KM should be able to combine innovation efforts, updated IT, and knowledge information in order to achieve a set of capabilities to increase competitiveness. In fact, when this combination is adequately managed, the company can formulate competitive strategies, which integrate innovative products and new technological weapons to face its competitors. Management decision is a very complex process whose evolution integrates several stages. The head start step in solving a decision problem is its formulation. In a practical perspective, defining its boundaries and critical components depends on information resources.The analysis of input data involve also a write out and updated dread of several realities and the capability to find relationships among them. Further, the decisionmaker is able to predict the outcomes because they result from each available alternative. These stage s are alship canal based on data, which need to be organized in order to be useful that is, every management decision must be supported by a set of information because of each situation, the context where it is occurring, and the organization objectives achievement.In a fast-changing environment, the competitive advantage of many companies is based on the decision to exploit, to develop the power of knowledge exploitation. That is why some corporations try to provide opportunities for individualised and professional maturement and are seeing that they should stimulate knowledge organic evolution to formulate competitive strategies. To find out and exploit opportunities, companies need to establish the main penchants of KM in order to hyperbolise their growing possibilities based on innovation and competitiveness.Managers know that it can be shameful to enter or compete in an industry without being aware of changing critical success factors that define their seat markets, sin ce they play a significant role in determining the likelihood of implementation success or failure. If a firm is entirely aware of the spanking importance of these factors, management decisions have to consider a complex background where the knowledge of the clients of necessity and preferences and the competitors strategies is decisively important.Practically, this means that a market taste includes the concept of competitive orientation (Slater and Narver, 1994 Day, 1994, 1990). In this context, a company can decide its competitive advantage as a function of the capability to generate radical change in its processes and technologies and of the tractability to adapt its resources to the strategic formulation. For example, if an organization decides to become a fast innovator, managers should co-ordinate the ability to formulate a competitive strategy and to take advantages against competitors.This ability depends on the capacity of speeding up creative operations to generate in novations (Page, 1993). These considerations are already know and well accepted, but we need to take from them the logical consequences. A competitive decision should be based on a wide and quite firm support, which shall integrate the different relationships among several types of knowledge. As a consequence, a comprehensive knowledge is the vital ground where competitiveness should be built. change magnitude competitiveness using knowledge benefitsAccording to innovational approaches, KM is already considered as a key factor in the organizations performance, because it deals with different resources that can aid decision makers in many ways (Keen, 1991). Managers require drop and updated information and, correspond to their level of activity, they hope to rely on their knowledge workers. Nevertheless, this hope is null if these experts are not effectively motivate to deepen continuously their levels of knowledge. some(prenominal) companies know that the innovation effort a nd the adoption of new procedures and new technologies may increase competitiveness (Goel and Rich, 1997).This relationship seems to have the following reasons the innovators can be inventors if they are able to manage research and development function (Gilbert, 1995) knowledge workers can perceive and deal with what target market accepts or lodges as value knowledge development is a prolific background where incremental innovation may be attempted if a company can use a knowledge-based competitive edge, it is able to defend itself against the aggressive movements of its competitors. The need for scientific and technical information escape within the firm is well recognised.Knowledge and information derived from data are required for competitive initiatives such as ameliorate customer satisfaction, developing new products and markets, and providing double-quick response. The link between knowledge and systemic databases should be understood within the context of information res ource management (McFadden and Hoffer, 1994). This means that effective decision making requires a rational selection of inter-related data and the possibility of these data being integrated into KM. This orientation can be applied in the strategic planning area, and it presents flexible capabilities.In fact, managers have the possibility of asking for more updated information, using pre-programmed models based on the integrative knowledge of previous situations, considering alternative solutions, and touch on the construction of innovative proposals. A KM can lead managers to anticipate problems better and to experiment and innovate. Based on a good KM, managers are more able to analyse and evaluate environmental scenarios, and adequate response alternatives in the light of the global objective previously determined (Dutta and King, 1980).At this point, managers can desire to come to the exceed solution by selecting the alternative that best satisfies the achievement of global ob jectives. This means that they are deeply concerned with increasing competitiveness. A primary objective of this orientation in modern business organizations is to kick in to greater might in achieving organizational objectives. To assure this contribution, researchers should reinforce their efforts to explore the relationship between the competitiveness optimisation and the KM optimisation, and also the effectiveness of a KM, which has not been entirely clarified. mutation and knowledge management tolerate knowledge management support innovation? The innovative efforts include the search for, and the discovery, experimentation, and development of new technologies, new products and/or services, new production processes, and new organizational structures. The consequences of these efforts are sometimes seen as a defenseless material of information industry. new-fangled management philosophies are aware that information is the result of knowledge evolution and that a solid networ k between intellectual effort and technological innovations is enlarging.The innovative efforts are also the right consequence of the investment in knowledge and knowledge workers. If KM is positively influenced by the search of innovations, the investments in the development of new knowledge may egg on companies into new business in more rewarding markets. To achieve better results, innovative efforts have to be strategically feature with a competitive orientation and its successive movements. This combination depends vitally on the highest level of individual knowledge and on its technological basis. umteen companies are taking into account that new technologies and management approaches are changing the traditional perspective of managing intellectual resources. According to some works (Harari, 1994 Nonaka, 1994 West, 1992), the organizations that are able to stimulate and to improve the knowledge of their human capital are much more prepared to face todays rapid changes and t o innovate in the nation where they decide to invest and to compete. Managers should recognise that the skills of human resources and the motivation level make possible creative suggestions, different proposals, and research activities to build up innovations.Due to the new insights of KM, a creative knowledge worker can contribute to face the problems that need new kinds of resolution, the situations that demand innovative approaches, and the relationships that can be discovered in the more and more complex markets where companies are operating. In old times, capital was the companys most critical and scarcest resource and human attributes were used to contribute decisively to obtain the return of the companys investment in equipment and plants.Presently, companies are trying to understand and to use a new logic of value, which is founded on its competencies, customers rating criteria, and contestation. It should be underlined that the knowledge development in the fields of tech nological innovations, specialism on business processes, and innovative products is the strongest source of competencies. Moreover, all competitive efforts, which come from competitors knowledge and innovations, dramatically ask the success of strategies (Gatignon and Robertson, 1993).Innovation should be viewed as a complex process, which involves a set of investment possibilities. In this investment perspective, knowledge has to be considered as a sort of capital. Owing to this reason, its development process is a managerial concern, because it can lead to the launching of a new product. The success of an innovative product is notoriously connected to research activities and changing orientation. On the other hand, these two elements depend on the development of knowledge levels and the innovative efforts of knowledge workers. Knowledge development How to intensify larn troth wiz of the most important objectives of a competitive KM should be to increase frequently the differen t levels of knowledge. change magnitude them implies to straiten the links among the latest advances of IT and the processes of meeting and process information to motivate knowledge development by recognising its importance in companies evolution to promote the acquisition of scientific culture, specially in the fields outright connected with the companys main activities to invest in theoretical courses and practical training to intensify an effort to get updating in industry.According to the universal characteristics of all larn and experience curves, the knowledge level may grow exponentially if management is able to stimulate the conditions to learn more and to increase experience. Considering the power of these stimuli, which should be integrated into a global human resources policy, management has to define the adequate procedures to blow a fuse and to deepen knowledge development. Within a scenario of competitive imperatives of speed and considering the need to innovate always, learnedness will be the essential hedge against the possibility of negative consequences.organisational learning should be seen as one of the most important responsibilities of top management. In fact, organizations may use the individuals learning activities and learn through them to create an organizational learning system, which provides the possibility of enhancing the capacity to generate new offering proposals (Coopey, 1995 Sinkula, 1994 Senge, 1990). Some authors consider that an organizational learning includes the ability to increase the understanding level from experience through analysis of problems, experimentation of solutions, and evaluation of results (McGill and Slocum, 1994 McGill et al. 1992). Organizations development require to have the support of the positive changes in the education and training of the work force. This means that management should stimulate and organize this changing process. In general, there are two main ways that managers have to consider 1. (1) updating efforts scientific and technological knowledge is almost constantly changing and everybody in the organization should be conscious of the state-of-art of their fields of work 2. 2) knowledge progresses have to be transformed in a more effective effort in order to obtain better production processes and more competitive technological advances. Learning involvement could be defined as a state of energy that a knowledge worker experiences in regard to an effort to increase his/her knowledge level (McQuarrie and Munson, 1987). A knowledge worker who is highly concern in learning is apparent to expect more abilities to create and to suggest new ideas. A set of adequate information technologies should be foreseen.In fact, at any time during the learning process, errors or imprecision can occur. To avoid their negative consequences, KM should take into account the reliability of the information sources and also the data accuracy. These factors will call for posi tively the objectives achievement. Knowledge development as a strategic management legal instrument If management has a true strategic orientation, the knowledge development is a systematic, integrated, and plan approach to improve the effectiveness of intellectual capital of an attempt (Edvinsson and Malone, 1998).It is designed to brighten problems that adversely affect operating efficiency at all levels. Knowledge is one of the branches where development movements can occur to dish managers in their decision-making process, to create new responses, and to enable a set of competitive reactions and/or pro-active proposals. In the last two decades, we have seen a knowledge explosion and a change of the labour force. In fact, knowledge workers are not directly tough in manual activities, but make up a greater equipoise of the labour force than ever before.Many companies try to provide an internal environment for experiential learning in which knowledge workers become more and m ore involved in solving job-related problems. In a quickly changing environment, the organizations flexibility is one of its key success factors. This flexibility should be strategically combine with knowledge workers adaptability and high-quality standards to obtain two types of competition tools 1. (1) sustainable advantages against competitors 2. (2) capability to offer to the target market new alternatives. Knowledge development is a sort of response to changes in the foreign environment and nternal situations. It can be satisfactory to solve problems that negatively affect operating efficiency, including the need to replace archaic products by new ones. In what concerns knowledge development, the improvement of products (incremental innovation) and process innovation (radical innovation) should be integrated. The aim is to improve the horizontal flow of information, because this flow is a very important tool to understand the relationship between the organization, its clien ts and its competitors. To make better decisions, managers have the option to search for more accurate information.One of the most important sources is the knowledge development of their collaborators, because they have been adequately trained to find out what are the new advances of erudition and technology. Training and motivational measures can be used to leverage professional intellect, but human intellectual capabilities can not be managed as if it was the only goal. In fact, top managers must consider the critical knowledge bases, the intellectual skills, and also the put in experience that can be used to increase the organization performance and to support their strategic decisions.Most developments at enterprisingness level are not possible without changes in education and training of the human resources, namely the intellectual capital. In fact, this capital is center on innovative effort, on the information about competitors, and on proactive strategic decisions (Presc ott and Gibbons, 1993). In many important complex problems there simply are not enough empirical data to provide a basis for complete analysis. Many aspects of a decision process require personal judgement, that is, the presence of updated knowledge workers.The problem-solving capabilities of knowledge workers lie in education background, professional training, creativity, and motivation. Non-routine processes demand for more virtuoso(prenominal) workers, because innovative solutions should be found and adapted to market needs. Sometimes, an organization needs to realize competitors technologies, to imitate them, and, in a benchmarking perspective, to adapt them in order to obtain specific benefits (reduction of costs, faster capacity to satisfy their market needs). This strategic effort demands a sufficiently motivated intellectual capital.In fact, even people with exceptional talent will not be able to develop potential without the adequate motivation (Twining, 1991). Moreover, knowledge development should include an effort to integrate the intellectual power of the organizations human resources. Skills that are integrated according to a systemic perspective are more effective than a set of disconnected and/or uncoordinated talents. The co-ordination of the various abilities and aptitudes may lead to a learning process with a holistic approach.Being so, knowledge workers can learn more, recall information more accurately and use all their resources to build up innovative solutions. Influence of KM on competitiveness and innovation The influence of KM on management decisions effectiveness should be considered to support and also provide insight into how knowledge workers can contribute to obtain better results. However, management must consider that knowledge is not a simple and erratic entity. The commitment to generate new discoveries and a more demanding understanding is not enough.The organizations need to look for the knowledge that is able to add val ue. harbor adding knowledge is very different to an information-mix. This mix can be important, but first it is necessary to find out how the markets perceive the presence of value. These considerations can be taken as a guideline for KM. There are perhaps an unconditioned number of factors that can define management attitudes regarding the role of intellectual capital into organizations life. Some managers evaluate significantly this capital as a very important resource that should be used to obtain adequate profits.Therefore this capital should be constantly improved. As can be seen in Figure 1, a conceptual model of KM is proposed. It emphasises that innovation and competitiveness can be a function of the KM. This model takes into account numerous determinants (determinant factors) of the relationships among various fields. The top portion of the model shows the most super acid factors that usually define managements attitudes and deals with the following questions How importa nt is intellectual capital? How does management evaluate knowledge development? Is training one of the important aspects to be planned? Is knowledge considered as a strategic tool? atomic number 18 managers prepared to motivate knowledge development? Are managers able to stimulate the potential capacities of their knowledge workers? KM has to deal with two domains 1. (1) personal characteristics of each knowledge worker 2. (2) factors that affect personal development. The most common factors that affect initially the personal characteristics of a knowledge worker are education level, attitudes and values, innovativeness and creativity (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993 Allen et al. 1992 Mayo and Marks, 1990 Bearden et al. , 1986 Hirschman, 1980). Innovativeness is an important factor for backup innovative efforts and it contributes also to define the personality. However, it is not enough to desire new products or new processes. In fact, an innovation that an enterprise presents into the ma rket may be also due to the creativity of its knowledge workers. in-person development is directly related to professional experience. Any personal experience may be an information source and a learning situation.As a result from a personal or a managerial decision, training courses may contribute to reawaken previously acquired knowledge and to avail the access to a higher knowledge level. The development of each knowledge worker has its own dynamics, which is related with personal objectives. The more demanding the objectives are the more the learning efforts should be intensified. Nowadays, learning processes and knowledge updating procedures depend on information technology. Moreover, it has a decisive role on knowledge development because competitive advantage can only be maintained by the use of information for innovation (Huffman et al. 1990). Nowadays, managers have to decide whether they want to obtain better results from their knowledge workers or they prefer to lose the creative power that they possess in their minds and their professional experience. Managers attention must be focused on personal development. To obtain an effective knowledge level, investment in knowledge development is needed. Managers should improve their ability to motivate knowledge workers to attain higher knowledge levels, because the arousal of this set of intellectual needs may be caused by external stimuli.Motivations should be intensified, because they should impel knowledge workers to increase their knowledge levels. This movement will be decisive in terms of innovation and can contribute to a stronger competitiveness. regular when no innovation is possible, an improved knowledge of the market and competitors can lead to more competitive movements. The technical capacities of a modern information technology will help this motivational scheme. Companies have to find ways to reach knowledge workers involvement. A persons level of involvement plays a role in how much eff ort is used to learn new subjects or to deepen knowledge.Moreover, this involvement is an adequate condition for information sharing among knowledge workers. Adding IT, creativity and knowledge leads to a particularly potent combination. Managers can obtain impressive results in what concerns the companies abilities to innovate if they are able to develop the stimulation of innovative proposals through motivational methods and adequate rewards. The same can be said in what concerns key success factors managers should practice frequently the stimulation of competitive efforts, provided through utilisation of both existing and new technologies.This conceptual model intends to interpret the relationship between KM, innovation, and competitiveness. It may contribute to an integrated understanding of the knowledge development process and its influences into the domains where management efforts should be focused. Conclusions This article intends to provide insights to a better understandi ng of KM in what concerns the possibility of influencing innovation and competitiveness. Its considerations provide considerable support for the importance of knowledge workers as a decisive contribution to the strategic enhancement.The implications for managers have been underlined. Regarding these implications, some concluding remarks can be make define methods for measuring the degree of KM effectiveness develop effective strategies for integrate innovative efforts, professional experience, skills, interactive capacities to create value for a companys competitiveness determine the means to capture, ship and leverage knowledge effectively let KM enter into strategic decisions concerning the profitableness of intellectual assets.The suggested model also enables us to extend some of the frameworks for understanding managers evaluation criteria. This wing to traditional models of management strategic decisions is a direct result of the informational complexities in modern organiz ations. Consequently, these considerations intend to represent an important step forward in unravelling the KM as an efficient support for innovation and competitiveness relationships. Directions for further research heighten the analysis of managers interest on knowledge is critical to understand how KM can contribute to improve strategies formulation.Future research should examine the differences among industries, and measure accurately the congeneric importance of the factors that affect personal characteristics and knowledge development. Because these relations are not fully investigated, we suggest additional studies concerning the industries where knowledge workers have a more defined and important role. Future research on managers attitudes facing the linkages between strategic management and human value may have to examine carefully the role of a KM orientation as an effort to support adequately successful strategies.This discussion contributes to a better understanding o f the consequences of a management orientation, which is able to leverage knowledge advances. It is the task of management to improve the types of knowledge that best fit innovative efforts and competitive strategies. If this management orientation is well pursued, the organizations are likely to profit from knowledge development and from their human resources creativity. Figure 1Influence of KM on innovation and competitiveness References Allen, C. T, Machleit, K. A, Kleine, S.S (1992), A similitude of attitudes and emotions as predictors of doings at versatile levels of behavioral experience, ledger of Consumer Research, Vol. 18 pp. 493-504. Bearden, W. O, Calcich, S. E, Netemeyer, R. G, Teel, J. 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