What is Pre-Knowledge

In tandem with the growth in knowledge management (KM) interest and practice over the past twenty years, competitive intelligence (CI) activities have also mushroomed. Although knowledge assets benefit from full collection and dispersion, such activities, particularly given their digital nature, also make proprietary knowledge more vulnerable to CI by competitors. Any firm looking to better manage knowledge assets needs to evaluate both the benefits and the potential losses from spreading valuable knowledge more widely. In some cases, the optimal strategy may be refraining from full development of these intangible assets in order to effectively protect them. Strategic firms can also take some fairly simple steps to better protect their knowledge assets.