Leadership in Action: Knowledge Management - A New Challenge for Leaders

New Organizational Structures

Knowledge assets underpin competencies, and competencies in turn underpin products and services in the market, Teece says. Therefore, the goal of leaders should be to develop organizational structures that can shape and reshape clusters of assets in the distinct combinations needed to meet ever-changing customer needs.

But business schools, as noted earlier, have not prepared managers for working with nontangible assets. Leaders in successful knowledge organizations are high in both professional and organizational competence, Karl Erik Sveiby notes. Leaders who are not experts in the profession of their business may make important decisions, but the experts in the company may not heed them. A leaderless knowledge ...