Abstract:
Most organizations respond to an economic crisis by focusing on operational efficiency and/or on intellectual
capital utilization and innovation. The conjecture is that intellectual capital confers distinct competitive
advantage to an enterprise via knowledge management and knowledge spillovers and improved
innovation capacity. Despite mixed empirical evidence to support this claim, intellectual capital and
knowledge management remain at the forefront of an organization’s agenda during an economic downturn.
Recent surveys from the field indicate some dissatisfaction with practical knowledge management. These
findings are difficult to interpret because at the same time organizations appear to adopt the position that
management of knowledge resources is extremely important from a strategic perspective. The objective
of this chapter is to provide some new perspectives on what drives success in the knowledge economy
and to demonstrate how knowledge management is the ideal response to the challenge of innovation