engleski

Novel customer collaboration and networking tools for cultivating external information

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore numerous new tools, which have been developed to track and capture customer preferences, behavioural patterns and attitudinal responses, in order to improve firm’s knowledge management (KM).In this way, authors present the most important determinants of a ‘unified’ approach to knowledge management and provide directions for further research. Design/methodology/approach –We propose todevelop and present a comprehensive framework for managing knowledge, which can be acquired from external sources with purpose of improving managerial outcomes. In this context, we place a special emphasis to the ‘social technologies’, such as social networking, corporate blogging, customer/brand virtual communities, etc. These tools represent novel sources for cultivating external information which affect all aspects of management process: from ideation and new product development which nowadays rely on co-creation with customers and open-source innovation ; to process improvements and long-term relationship development with customers and other stakeholders. Originality/value – Our approach brings together in a single framework management of both the external, customer-held knowledge, as well as internal sources of knowledge, examined by the traditional knowledge management discourse. It is based on an integration of relevant theories and practices from the fields of management and marketing, which provides an inter-disciplinary approach to knowledge management. Therefore, we propose that future research equates an organization’s market orientation to the fundamental activities of knowledge management, since this would also enable researchers to use the well-accepted tools, such as MARKOR scale/questionnaire for market orientation in a new research setting. Practical implications – The outcomes of previous application of different tools, contributing to the ‘unified’ knowledge management approach are explored. In addition, potential practical benefits of such an approach are explored throughout three different dimensions: (a) managing credibility of peer-to-peer communication about an organization, its products, activities, etc. ; (b) using social media as major, low-cost customer support channel ; (c) making use of external knowledge sources to include customers’ input into the new product development as value co-creators.

Knowledge management; Unified approach; Customer knowledge

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