The Organizational Characteristics of Knowledge-Centricity

Abstract

Knowledge focused organizations are knowledge-centric, a term that embodies the creation and management of knowledge but embedded as an integral element of an organization’s strategy and performance. By devising an organizational characteristics matrix, this chapter identifies a number of essential and desirable features that comprise a knowledge-centric business. The matrix is then applied to a case study company, Black and Decker, and more specifically its European Design Center, to examine the extent to which the organization can be viewed as knowledge-centric. While the use of this first-iteration matrix is a useful mechanism for gauging knowledge-centricity, the chapter concludes with a critique of its potential limitations, with suggestions as to how it might be refined further to give a more illuminating assessment of an organization’s knowledge capabilities.