The dynamic capabilities of knowledge management: Learning from the case of fortune motors

Abstract

Dynamic capabilities can be seen as an integrated set of knowledge management activities that create, assimilate, disseminate and exploit the knowledge-based resources of the firm. The accumulated knowledge of customers, relationships, processes, innovations and human resources are key organizational intellectual capital that needs to be integrated for making critical decision, learned and exploited for business enhancement and innovation. Three essential ingredients of dynamic capabilities- integration, learning and reconfiguration-have become increasingly fundamental in managing intellectual capital. Integration is crucial to adapt to changes in business or technology. Learning is essential to evolutionary development of sustainable competitive advantage and creating new bundles of resource. Capability reconfiguration is critical to gaining competitive advantage and to determine firm-level strategies to exploit such advantages. Each of these capabilities is a necessary condition for managing the knowledge of intellectual capital. This paper reports the findings of a study of the management of intellectual capital in Fortune Motors. It intends to highlight how an automobile firm creates competitive advantage through developing and applying dynamic capabilities which are composed of different knowledge management activities.