Business Management Knowledge and Competitiveness: A Qualitative Case Study of Coca Cola - Essay Example

This research results indicate that knowledge and in particular business management knowledge is informed by business strategy and business mission. Although knowledge and business knowledge management have different meanings for different managers within a company, together business knowledge and knowledge is treated the same. As demonstrated by the Coca-Cola Company, a whole company policy of employee empowerment, employee involvement and an atmosphere of interdependence strengthens the socialization and sharing of tacit knowledge.

This report makes a conclusion that a majority of the employees participating in the questionnaire indicates that once employees are a part of the knowledge creation, development and sharing culture they will be motivated to learn and to share their knowledge and experience with others. However, there are also employees who do not feel empowered and feel that their contributions are not valued and thus may shut themselves off to knowledge sharing culture. Since it is impossible to promote all employees at the same time and prematurely, it is necessary for organizations to find more effective ways of empowering lower-level employees to prevent disruptions in the knowledge chain.

Although this qualitative case study involved a small population sample for gathering empirical data, the quality of the data is strong. The use of small population samples enabled the collection of rich and detailed data that allowed for far more information than information that would have been collected from larger populations.. 60 Chapter One/Introduction and Problem Development Introduction In the 1990s, knowledge management emerged as among the most effective methods of improving the competitiveness of firms (DeTienne & Jackson).

Knowledge management is believed to be the single most important asset for firms as a result of technological developments and a continuously changing business environment. Knowledge and more importantly, business intelligence, helps firms to make the necessary adjustments to developing technology and the changes in the business environment (Barnes; Cody, Kreulen, Krishna, & Spangler). Knowledge management consist of creating, validating, presenting, sharing and applying knowledge (Bhatt). Moreover, in order to make the best use of knowledge, a firm is required to have a system for regulating and organising knowledge management processes and this invariably involves changing organizational culture, technological processes and methodologies (Bhatt).

In other words, effective knowledge management manages people, technologies and methodologies and does not focus on one or the other. Gold, Malhortra and Segars argue that successful organizations have the ability to realize economic goals via stockpiling knowledge and distributing it throughout the organization. However, Argote and Ingram caution that while it is important to create and distribute knowledge within the firm, managing knowledge, particularly business knowledge is very important to safeguard against the risk of internally created knowledge is not leaked to competitors.

Regardless, Wig maintains that organization managers are persistently looking for ways to enhance the firms outcomes and performance. As a result, managers are consistently attempting to understand “underlying, but complex mechanisms such