Leveraging Knowledge Management for Value Creation in Service-Oriented Organisations of Namibia

Abstract

Firms create value as a basis for their sustainability in two ways: physical transformation of inputs into high value outputs or arbitrage. This involves either cross-place arbitrage which is trade or cross-time arbitrage which is speculation. Modern economies driven by globalisation and fierce competition in which competitiveness is no longer determined by the possession of scarce capital and abundance of cheap labour but the utilisation of knowledge asset which improves with usage. In that context, knowledge-intensive services organisations stand to thrive and prosper testimony of the structural shifts in the sectoral contributions to GDP of many countries. Through conceptual analysis of documents, articles and reports, this paper suggests that emerging economies with abundant highly educated and skilled manpower coupled with natural resources endowment can leverage knowledge management as a core competency to catapult their services industry. This goal requires an understanding of critical success factors that drive successful organisational knowledge management strategies.