F Bailly: Les individus sont différents dans l'approche de leur propre carrière Certains élaborent des stratégies conscientes, jouent des coups, d'autres beaucoup moins Est-il possible

de mettre en évidence des différences dans la manière d'élaborer et de gérer son réseau selon que des individus se rapprochent plutôt d'un type de profil ou d'un autre ?

James N. Baron: Vous avez raison: il existe des profils différents. Normalement, l'analyse les prend en compte de manière indirecte Nous avons en effet centré la recherche sur les

promotions intervenues dans le cadre d'une année, mais nous avons pris en compte les promotions antérieures en reconstituant le cheminement de la carrière.

Emmanuel Lazega: Vous faites une distinction entre les réseaux qui véhiculent de l'information stratégique et ceux qui véhiculent de l'identité. Croyez-vous que cette distinction est opératoire? L'identité est véhiculée dans tous les réseaux et elle structure ce qui est véhiculé dans tous les réseaux: l'information qui est donnée, le secret qui est gardé, ou qui est divulgué mais de telle sorte qu'on ait confiance en la personne à qui on le divulgue pour ne pas le divulguer à son tour, tout cela a à voir l'identité.

James N. Baron: Vous avez raison. Je pense pour ma en termes de continuum, avec deux extrêmes: l'impersonnel versus le personnel. Il y a des liens qui tiennent àdes fonctions, à des postes, donc de nature relativement impersonnelle. D'autre tiennent quasiment uniquement aux personnes. Et l'échelle de l'un à l'autre extrême est continue.

II. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Johan ROOS

Professor, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Georg Von KROGH

Professor, University of St. Gallen Markus VENZIN

Research Associate, University of St, Gallen

Rapports :

Armand HATCHUEL, CGS, Ecole des Mmes.

Florence CHARUE-DUBOC, CRG, École Polytechnique. 25 janvier 1996.

INTRODUCTION

Hewlett-Packard, Rank Xerox, Phillip-Morris, Dow Chemical, Phillips, Skandia, and General Motors, and many more companies that are not forwarded in business magazines and/or academie journals, put signifïcant emphasis on sorne form of "knowledge management". A manifestation of this are the many new, high-status positions in large companies, for instance, 'Vice President, Knowledge Transfer' (Buckman Laboratories International), 'Director, Intellectual Capital' (Skandia), 'Principle Core Knowledge Team' (Booz Allen & Hamilton) or 'Knowledge Exchange Manager' (GE Capital Services). It is the responsibility of these knowledge specialists with different fields of expertise to identify, define, and develop existing knowledge, to transfer knowledge both internally and externaIly, and to transform knowledge into new products, systems and processes. Why do companies embark on the knowledge management vehule ?

Do not be surprised. Peter Drucker predicted something like this sorne 40 years aga when he discussed the decline of the industrial society and the subsequent emergence of a "knowledge society" where knowledge has taken precedence over traditional organizational resources such as labor, capital and land (see Drucker, 1994), During the last five years other business school professors and writers in business magazines have helped to phrase what has already happened in business. Management guru Ikujiru Nonaka of Japan put it like this : "ln an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge" (Nonaka, 1991 : 96). Business writer Thomas Steward has another take at this topic : "(lntellectual capitalï.: is becoming corporate America's most valuable asset and can be its sharpest competitive weapon. The challenge is to find what you have - and use it" he said (1991 : 42). These daims are common sense, you might say, We agree. As far as we know, nobody has argued with these insights. But as Mr. Leif Edvinsson, Director Intellectual Capital, Skandia AFS, says it might very well be common sense, but is it 'common practice ?Here, we are afraid the answer is no.

The objective of this paper is to conti bute to the conceptual development of the emerging domain of knowledge management, both from a theoretical and practical perspective. The first section examines the theoretical daim of knowledge as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Based on a review of existing literature the second section categorizes the findings of research undertaken in this area. The final section integrates these findings into four tasks of know1edge management : identification of knowledge, development of lrnowledge, development of competencies, and transformation of these competencies into new products and services.

THE THEORETICAL ARGUMENT

For long management theory was dominated by a focus companies' environment rather than to the company itself, manifested in the tremendous impact of the writings of Michael Porter. That is where the true sources of competitive advantage lurkes The message was clear-cut : worship the environment, not the inside of the firm !

Yet, over the last 10 years sorne scholars established a second opinion of where the true sources of competitive advantages were to be found, Although its roots can be traced to the 1950s (see Selznick, 1957 ; Penrose, 1959), the "resource based view of the firm" did not really surface in the academie discourse until the 1980s. Its proponents exp1ained competitive advantage not via different product-market positions but by differences in equipment and combinations of critical organizational resources (e.g., Wernerfeld, 1984 ; 1989 ; Dierickx and Cool, 1989 ; Amit and Schoemaker, 1993). Contrary to the 'environment based view' this perspective allows for sustainable differences in the resource endowment since resources cannot always be transferred or imitated .. Voilà !

Barney's effort (1992) to evaluate resources in respect to their potential benefits for generating sustainable comparative advantage was a milestone in developing a more practical approach to management. He developed four criteria for assessing what kinds of resources would provide

the competition, (3) imitability and (4) substitutability. Of course, the last two criteria are the decisive factors for whether potential competitive advantage can also be sustainable. Not surprisingly, imitability and transferability of resources have received a lot of attention in the management literature. And, not surprisingly, the only resource that holds against all four criteria is "knowledge", in the guise of many different concepts (see below).

Thus, the contribution of the resource based view is to connect the concept of sustainable competitive advantage with imitability and transferability of knowledge.

Rumelt (1984 ; 1987) introduced a broad spectrum of mechanisms that stand in sorne relation to the notion of knowledge or knowledge creation: 'team embodied skills', 'unique resources', 'special information', 'patents and trademarks', 'consumer and producer learning', 'information impactedness' and 'communication goods'. Consequently, many management scholars discuss "invisible" (Itami and Roehl, 1987) and "intangible" assets (Hall, 1992 ; 1993 ; 1994), and "imitation impediments" (Rumelt, 1984 ; 1987), for example, licenses and patents, data bases, individual's skills, and personal or organizational networks.

Ifknowledge is viewed as a resource which is potentia!ly value creating, and difficult to imitate or substitute, not surprisingly, the management of knowledge becomes a central concem of any management in all companies. As Gary Hamel puts it : "...global competitiveness is largely a function of the firm's pace, efficiency, and extent of knowledge accumulation" (1991 83). But, what does managing of knowledge, or knowledge management mean ?