Strategic Management in a Corporate Environment - Dissertation Example

Recent studies have been focusing on linking knowledge transfer and strategic management through competencies development within the corporate environment where increasing global nature of business, technological complexity and knowledge intensive workforce is contributing to the knowledge and competencies of the business. This has been identified in the paper industry by Laukkanen (2008) and can be found applicable to other sectors as well. As knowledge is considered as the most important and strategic resource in an organization, this internal resource is being increasingly managed strategically to derive a competitive advantage for the business.

Continuous globalization is forcing organizations to approach its strategic management towards resource-based and knowledge-based economy in a new perspective for sustainable competitive advantage (Ogrean et al, 2009). There is a need to develop a framework that can increasingly tie knowledge management in a corporate environment with the corporate strategy, which seems to be evolving. This effort also determines the success of the corporate’s business strategy in the internal environment as it is the business strategy that focuses on the effective utilization of organizational resources and capabilities (Zack, 1998).

While evidence is available that ties the importance of knowledge management to the strategic management of an organization, there is not much research available to empirically link these two concepts. It can be understood that while knowledge management itself is still evolving along with the development of newer strategies for strategic management, there is a need to further study the relation between knowledge transfer and strategy to understand and estimate their. The research aimed at identifying variables that impact knowledge transfer in strategically managed environments.

The objectives of research aimed at understanding strategic management concept through the different theories, concepts, frameworks and models of strategic management in the corporate environment. As firms create knowledge of two kinds: explicit and tacit; identifying, developing, sharing and retaining knowledge become necessary for the firms through strategic thinking, as they need to sustain in the chaotic and complex environments. Knowledge transfer within the different locations of the firm or groups of firms is a necessary task if firms need to achieve a competitive advantage in the global market.

While explicit knowledge is easy to share, tacit knowledge is ambiguous and complex requiring strategic management tools or models that impact this transfer of knowledge. Identifying suitable frameworks of knowledge transfer becomes important if firms want to achieve a competitive advantage through a resource-based and competencies-based approach to strategic management. The different case studies have helped gather data to validate the qualitative information gathered through literature review.

It is found that while the dependent variables: market share, business development, relationship development, cost focus, differentiation and collaboration; of strategic management can be measured for their impact on knowledge transfer, independent variables like HRM and performance are loosely tied to strategic management.