THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INNOVATION: A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Abstract

With the emergence of knowledge management (KM) as a new discipline for studying what needs to be done in order to get the most out of organizational knowledge resources, linking knowledge management and innovation becomes a necessity. Nevertheless, there are few studies that address the relationship between KM and innovation. While the thing- and process-oriented approaches adopted in these studies are helpful in understanding the relationship between knowledge management concepts and innovation concepts, they have failed to account for the impact of this relationship on the effectiveness of the innovation process. In order to study this impact, cognitive fit theory is used to develop a model that describes how the compatibility between knowledge manipulating activities and the type of knowledge associated with innovation will affect the success of the innovation process.