The Influence of the Application of Business Continuity Management, Knowledge Management, and Knowledge Continuity Management on the Innovation in Organizations

Introduction

In the present situation characterised by dynamic changes, organizations concentrate their effort on efficient management aimed at gaining a competitive advantage. In the course of their activities, organizations are threatened by both the external and internal environment. This is why organizations pay more and more attention to the so-called Business Continuity Management whose task is to help anticipate potential threats and their consequences, which might have a negative impact on organizations’ key processes as well as organizations as a whole. In order for an organization to be successful in the market and improve its performance, it is necessary to monitor all changes and ensure not only the continuity of processes, but also of knowledge as, in compliance with the resource approach, this contributes to achieving a competitive advantage.

The dynamic changes directly or indirectly impact all organizations including higher education institutions. Those changes are connected with both information and communication technologies, and with the age and national structure of students at the universities and involve requirements on international cooperation in the research and development. It is important that the pedagogues have interdisciplinary education. The BCM, KM, and KCM significantly participate in such interdisciplinarity, and the pedagogues ability to adapt to changes in global environment.

Organizations wish to have efficient management in place. In order to achieve their goals, organizations have to ensure the proper and efficient functioning of individual innovation-based processes in which organization employees, who are the holders of knowledge, take part. If employees change their positions, they take the knowledge with them, and this may affect the quality of such processes. The problem of not ensuring the transfer of knowledge results in time and material losses in the quality of process management.

Based on the analysis of primary and secondary data, this chapter will attempt to identify the following:

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  The importance of knowledge in the process of innovations and modern areas of management that also employ knowledge.

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  The impact of the implementation of these areas on innovative development that determines an organization’s performance.

The primary sources have been obtained through a survey. The data for the evaluation of benefits has been gathered through a quantitative survey (i.e. a questionnaire survey), in which 167 higher and middle management managers from 580 various organizations took part; the branch in which the organizations operate has not been taken into account in 2010. The questionnaire was distributed to 814 respondents. The overall questionnaire return was 20.52%, i.e. 167 respondents took part. 55.1% hold a senior management position, 68.9% have university education, 45.5% are in the age group 46-62 years, 70.1% are employees of Czech organizations, 51.5% work in tertiary sector, and 38.9% work in the primary sector. 76.6% of respondents were male. The data have been processed by means of absolute and relative frequencies using the LimeSurvey application and the Excel 2007 programme.

The secondary sources include research works targeted at Business Continuity Management (hereafter BCM), Knowledge Management (hereafter KM), Knowledge Continuity Management (hereafter KCM), and innovations. Data obtained has been processed by methods of induction, deduction, analysis, and synthesis of knowledge and through the review of outcomes of the survey carried out among middle- and higher-level managers in organizations in the Czech Republic. On the basis of the survey, we have identified areas in which the application of BCM, KM, and KCM turned beneficial.