Knowledge Management: What Can Organizational Economics Contribute?

Nicolai Juul Foss, Volker Mahnke

    Research output: Working paperResearch

    95 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Knowledge management has emerged as a very successful organization practice and has been extensively treated in a large body of academic work. Surprisingly, however, organizational economics (i.e., transaction cost economics, agency theory, team theory and property rights theory) has played no role in the development of knowledge management. We argue that organizational economics insights can further the theory and practice of knowledge management in several ways. Specifically, we apply notions of contracting, team production, complementaries, hold-up, etc. to knowledge management issues (i.e., creating and integration knowledge, rewarding knowledge workers, etc.) , and derive refutable implications that are novel to the knowledge management field from our discussion.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationKøbenhavn
    PublisherDRUID - Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics
    Number of pages33
    Publication statusPublished - 2003
    SeriesDRUID Working Paper
    Number03-02

    Keywords

    • transaction costs
    • Organizational economics

    Cite this