A COMPARISON OF TWO COMPETING KNOWLEDGE STRATEGY TYPOLOGIES

The ‘New Economy’ focuses on issues of knowledge capital over more traditional assets and the capability of organizations to harness these knowledge assets. A distinguishing feature of the New Economy is the ability of a firm to take advantage of its knowledge assets (Gold, Malhotra & Segars, 2001). In this environment “the sustainable competitive advantage of business firms flows from the creation, ownership, protection and use of difficult-to-imitate commercial and industrial knowledge assets” (Teece, 2000, p. 35). In the New Economy, knowledge capital is a critical asset that must be evaluated and protected to maintain competitive advantage (Earl, 2001). In fact, it has been argued that competitive advantage in the current environment stems more from the replication and deployment of knowledge assets than from market position (Teece, 1998). Research on strategic management in the New Economy seeks to link the use of knowledge strategies to the generation of knowledge capital.