Strategic Learning in a Knowledge Economy defines unique and powerful ways that organizations can foster learning at the individual, group and organizational levels, a capability critical to both strategic objectives and business performance. The book explains how individuals and organizations learn, clarifying cognitive and social aspects of the topic. Readers will understand how learning enables organizations and individuals to better create, assimilate, and transfer knowledge. Strategic Learning in a Knowledge Economy helps managers create individual and collective processes that maximize the quality of the knowledge created and learned and ensures this knowledge is effectively used. The book appropriately redefines the frequently narrow and technology-oriented view of learning and explains how an effective learning strategy ensures that a broad base of employees learn and implement vital organizational lessons. Strategic Learning in a Knowledge Economy features focused discussions of organizational core competencies, learning and innovation, communities of practice, assessing organizational learning capabilities, and other important learning topics. This authoritative compendium helps readers master organizational issues crucial in today's knowledge economy by:

Jon-Arild Johannessen examines the history of knowledge management in order to highlight the contributions that the discipline can make to twenty-first-century strategic challenges.

Accordingly, this volume also examines processes within firms that improve both the creation and application of new knowledge in competitive and cooperative interactions between organizations. Strategic Learning and Knowledge Management challenges many notions prevalent in current discussions of knowledge and learning, such as the strategic value of 'tacit knowledge' and the need to rely primarily on internal learning processes. Using case studies from American and European companies, the contributors bring you up to date with current thinking about managing strategically important knowledge in organizations.

This book is intended to spark a discourse on, and contribute to finding a clear consensus in, the debate between conceptualizing a knowledge strategy and planning a knowledge strategy. It explores the complex relationship between the notions of knowledge and strategy in the business context, one that is of practical importance to companies. After reviewing the extant literature, the book shows how the concept of knowledge strategies can be seen as a new perspective for exploring business strategies. It proposes a new approach that clarifies how planned and emergent knowledge strategies allow companies to make projections into the uncertain and unpredictable future that dominates today’s economy.

Marcus Goncalves discusses the importance of transforming traditional organisations into learning organisations - entities that foster a culture of continuous learning so that external change in all its facets can be recognised when it happens and internal change can be effected and managed when necessary.

Due to the dramatic shifts in the knowledge economy, this book provides a significant departure from traditional strategic management concepts and practice. Designed for both advanced students and business managers, it presents a unique combination of new strategic management theory, carefully selected strategic management articles by prominent scholars such as Gary Hamel, Michael Porter, Peter Senge, and real-world case studies. On top of this, the authors link powerful new benchmarks in strategic management thinking, including the concepts of Socio-Cultural Network Dynamics, Systemic Scorecards, and Customer Knowledge Management with practical business challenges and solutions of blue-chip companies with a superior performance (Lafite-Rothschild, Who's Who, Holcim, BRL Hardy, Kuoni BTI, Deutsche Bank, Unisys, Novartis).