Unravelling Hurdles to Organizational Sustainability by Virtue of Sharing and Creating Knowledge

Introduction

In the last few decades, the business world and more specifically the way organizations behave, has changed dramatically. The main changes are related to technological progress, internationalization of the economy, as well as demassification and accessibility of markets (Moreira, 2011). All of these changes are aligned with innovation processes which are considered the source of sustainable competitive advantage. However, competitive advantage is also based on the challenges that urge organizations to be agile in order to maximize their operational efficiency (Appelbaum, Calla, Desautels, & Hasan, 2017). This organizational agility is directly dependent on the need for dynamic competencies in order for organizations to successfully compete and anticipate change. This organizational agility feeds on continuous training, acquisition of new skills for both people to manage adversity and be multi-skilled. It is a way to respond quickly and efficiently to market challenges. However, innovation is directly dependent on the pool of knowledge within the organization, approaches in which knowledge is communicated and disseminated, internal capabilities, experience, as well as methods of how tacit knowledge is transmitted and applied within the organization. Innovation is an undeniable source of competitive advantage (Tushman & Nadler, 1986), although it is not a straightforward process (Cheng & Van de Ven, 1996). These authors are cognizant that teams face chaotic periods in the early stages of innovation development processes, this chaos tends to diminish towards the final product development stage There are exogenous factors adjacent to the innovation process that may condition its implementation and/or development. For this reason, these authors (Cheng & Van de Ven, 1996) maintain that chaos enables the economic agent to become aware that the innovation process is not a straightforward system, it is messy and unpredictable, a reality that shows organizational learning through a non-linear prism and unstable conditions. This approach highlights both the internal and external sources of innovation (Drucker, 1985). In this process, human resources are a source of sustainable competitive advantage (Porter, 1985; Barney, 1991; Rasheed & Shahzad, 2017). Elmquist (2008) also places special emphasis on productive efficiency and innovation. However, at times there are errors and stalemates when companies assume that innovation can disrupt their technological base. This reality demonstrates some ignorance and illiteracy about innovation within organizations and their sources of sustenance. Therefore, organizational illiteracy is spread upon its culture, the typology of knowledge and its management, as well as to the typologies of knowledge creation within the organization. Nevertheless, within such an environment, one might ask the following, what is the social and organizational architecture of the new century? Is this architecture identical to that of the recent past, with competitive advantages not based on technology and knowledge?

These questions refocus the discussion about performance, organizational sustainability and its objectives, seeing that, in the 21^st century, the organization should be at the service of humanity to create synergistic relationship value. Here, cooperation is an element of high importance because it applies and creates knowledge and manages innovation processes. Moreover, when such cooperation is accompanied by trust and transparency, a sharing environment is created, which capitalizes and multiplies the value of output, with direct impact on the marginal tendency to innovate.