“Knowledge is power.” — Francis Bacon
As we move from the industrial age into the information age, knowledge is becoming an ever more central force behind the competitive success of firms and even nations. Nonaka has commented, “In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge.”1 Philosophers have analyzed the nature of knowledge for millennia; in the past half-century, cognitive and computer scientists have pursued it with increased vigor. But it has turned out that information is much easier to store, describe, and manipulate than is knowledge. One consequence is that, although an organization’s knowledge base may be its single most important asset, its very intangibility makes it difficult to manage systematically.2
The goal of this paper is to present a framework for measuring and understanding one particular type of knowledge: technological knowledge, i.e., knowledge about how to produce goods and services. We can use this framework to more precisely map, evaluate, and compare levels of knowledge. The level of knowledge that a process has reached determines how a process should be controlled, whether and how it can be automated, the key tasks of the workforce, and other major aspects of its management. Better knowledge of key variables leads to better performance without incremental physical investment.
Two examples illustrate the... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this and all MIT Sloan Managmeent Review articles.
Buy this article. Purchase one or more copies of this article in PDF form.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this article and the entire archive of MIT SMR articles.
Upgrade your existing subscription to premium
Sign in if you are a premium subscriber.
Do you subscribe the MIT Sloan Management Review in print? Enter the email address and password you used when ordering. Don't remember? Lookup your subscription account information
- Register for free access to recent articles and the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
- Subscribe and read articles from the past three years online.
- Premium subscription give you access to the entire archive of articles.
