5. Knowledge Strategies

This chapter treats one of the central topics of the book: the notion of knowledge strategy. It is a concept that has started to become popular in the managerial literature only recently, and mainly due to the upsurge of the idea of knowledge economy and the diffusion of knowledge management (KM) programs. As we have seen in previous chapters, knowledge has always been a key topic for strategic formulation. However, the notion of knowledge strategy means more, because it suggests that a company should adopt a strategy to manage its knowledge assets. So, in addition to planning production and delivery of products and services, deciding goals regarding profits and markets, expressing objectives about competitive positioning, a knowledge strategy represents the effort to plan activities of KM and, more generally, all resources and processes that, in a company, are devoted to developing knowledge and competences of people, boosting learning processes, facilitating storage, sharing and reuse. As the chapter will show, the definition of knowledge strategy is however difficult, and it is still necessary to clarify its contents and boundaries. Also, there is some confusion with other terms used in the literature (such as KM strategy or knowledge management strategy). In addition, there is the need to clarify if a knowledge strategy is just a part—or a derivation—of classic strategic formulation of companies, or if it has a special and distinct place that also deserves specific approaches and methods.