On Internal Knowledge Markets

Abstract

In a Word In large organizations, knowledge can move rapidly or slowly, usefully or unproductively. Those who place faith in internal knowledge markets and online platforms to promote knowledge stocks and flows should understand how extrinsic incentives can crowd out intrinsic motivation. From Possibility to Reality There is no disputing the obvious: for organizations, ability and, of course, will-ingness to generate and share knowledge, especially tacit, internally across pro-fessions and disciplines––and the corporate silos that constrict them––are an essential source of competitive advantage. In the workplace, remarkable things can happen when people marry creativity and innovation with communication and cooperation. Sorry to say, mainstream organizations still make heavy weather of it. But the competition most face in the globalized economy, compounding the twenty-first century challenges we all face, compels them to move from possibility to reality if they are to raise productivity and endure. Why? Because data and information (and the contacts they can engender) have never been so cheap, so readily shared, and consequently so ubiquitous. Consequently, societies are expe-riencing unprecedented rates of change and organizational performance is © Asian Development Bank 2017 O. Serrat, Knowledge Solutions, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_110 969 increasingly defined by the capacity to capture, create, and deliver value to meet explicit or latent needs. And so, in the interest of their clients, audiences, and partners––therefore in their self-interest, organizations must put their houses in order so they may improve organizational effectiveness with knowledge solutions that scale scope. All the time more, they look to internal knowledge markets for help, hence the rise of communities of practice and other such networks.