Relationship and Knowledge Management

Introduction

The basic question in strategy is ‘why do some firms succeed and others fail?’ Our usual and traditional answer to this essential question has been explained by the fact that successful firms have developed a competitive advantage. A challenge with this expression, and with the basic strategy question, is that the unit of analysis is an individual firm. Yet, today we know that more and more firms depend on relationships to others; also knowledge is developed and improved in relationships with other firms. That is, no business ‘is an island’; at the core of strategy is the ability to build and maintain relationships. Such abilities also reason with the Chinese ‘guanxi’ expression.

Course content

Day 1:

• Introduction to the Relational View and Knowledge Based View
• The concept of interaction, relationships and networks.
• Actors, Resources and Activities
• Knowledge and value creation
• The Actor dimension

Day 2:

• The Resource dimension
• The Activity dimension

Day 3

• The knowledge based view of the firm

Day 4:

• Trust, knowledge, and learning
• Summary