2.2 Knowledge Management Enablers and Organizational Performance
Drew [14] presented the results of a research on benchmarking and confirmed that benchmarking was one of the best
tools for promoting organizational performance. However, he suggested that benchmarking be not equally desirable or
effective for all types of firms and that benchmarking be not always a fast or low cost solution to knowledge acquisition
and organizational change. He used self-reported measures to measure organizational performance.
Simonin [40] proposed that the experience of a firm have to be transformed into know-how before it could improve
organizational performance. To prove this theme, he tested the relationship between collaborative experience and
collaborative know-how, and the relationship between collaborative know-how and the achievement both of tangible
and intangible performance. In this study, performance was divided into tangible like financial benefits and intangible
like learning or knowledge based benefits. Based on the empirical test, he suggested that firms do learn from the past
collaborations by developing skills in knowledge transfer.
Bierly and Chakrabarti [5] tried to identify groups of firms with similar generic knowledge strategies, determine how
these strategies change over time, and compare profit margins of the groups. Through analyzing knowledge strategies of
21 U.S. pharmaceutical, they divided groups into explorers, exploiters, loners, and innovators. They suggested that the
firms in innovator and explorer groups be more profitable than the firms in exploiter and loner groups.