Information and Management
Information and Management
Identifying knowledge agents in a KM strategy: the use of the structural influence index
Information and Management
Organizational Reference Groups: A Missing Perspective on Social Context
Organization Science
Knowledge-based strategies: a foundation of a typology
International Journal of Information Technology and Management
Price Mechanism for Knowledge Transfer: An Integrative Theory
Journal of Management Information Systems
Identifying knowledge agents in a KM strategy: the use of the structural influence index
Information and Management
Information and Management
Customer Knowledge Management and E-commerce: The role of customer perceived risk
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
The Effects of a KM Strategy on KM Performance in Professional Services Firms
International Journal of Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management Process and Organizational Performance in SMEs
International Journal of Knowledge Management
Contributing Knowledge to Knowledge Repositories: Dual Role of Inducement and Opportunity Factors
Information Resources Management Journal
A Conceptual Model for Knowledge Marts for Decision Making Support Systems
International Journal of Decision Support System Technology
Does Knowledge Management Matter? The Empirical Evidence from Market-Based Valuation
ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS)
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Professional services firms (e.g., consultants, accounting firms, or advertising agencies) generate and sell business solutions to their customers. In doing so, they can leverage the cumulative experience gained from serving their customer base to either reduce their variable costs or increase the quality of their products/services. In other words, their "production technology" exhibits some form of increasing returns to scale. Growth and globalization, coupled with recent advances in information technology, have led many of these firms to introduce sophisticated knowledge management (KM) systems in order to create sustainable competitive advantage. In this paper, the authors analyze how KM is likely to affect competition among such professional services firms. In particular, they first explore what type (supply-side versus demand-side) of economies of scale are likely to be exploited in KM systems. In the former case, KM's role is to reduce the operating costs of the firm, while in the latter case, its role is to create added value to customers by significantly increasing product quality. Second, the authors analyze the competitive dynamics and market structure that emerge as a result of firms competing with KM systems. The results shed light on the current literature exploring the deployment of KM systems by suggesting that in a competitive setting, when firms' ability to leverage their customer base is high, KM should lead to quality improvement rather than cost reductions. In a dynamic setting, it is also shown that when firms use their KM system to improve product quality, higher ability to leverage the customer base may actually hurt profits and lead to industry shakeout. Beyond normative insights, the results also support a number of recent market trends in management consulting, including the increased emphasis on knowledge-creating activities in modern KM systems, the wave of mergers between consulting firms, and the recent emergence of "retail consulting" services.