What is Knowledge Organizations

The starting point for this chapter was to bring together the research fields of organizational theories, innovation and change and knowledge management. The focus was on innovation in the perspective of organisational studies and the process of knowledge sharing in organisations. The main idea was not to create an historical framework of these theories but to use them as analytical models. The chapter begins with a description of the main features of organisational theories, including navigation in organisational innovation context: types of organisational innovation and nature of innovation. It also includes the conceptualization that individual knowledge is a critical source of organisational knowledge and explores the link between individual knowledge use and organisational innovation processes. This literature review tries to create a frame for the organisational innovation process. In this context it was important to analyse its implications to the effective use and share of individual knowledge, linking it to the knowledge management theories. However the importance of organisational innovation for competitiveness is not explicit and the choice between investing in technology and investing in people always raises some questions about short and long term survival of the organisations – being the new digital configuration of organizations another way to reach organizational success.