Grasping knowledge based value creation dynamics in 21st century organizations

Purpose – Recently one of topics that has greatly drawn scholars’ attention regards the complex dynamics through which knowledge resources take part to company’s value creation. This is because even if there can hardly be any doubt that knowledge resources and their management may have significant positive effects on organisational performance, more remains to be understood about how intangible resources can be coherently and successfully converted in value, what are the “right”, or appropriate approaches to assess and manage these resources, and how these approaches can disentangle the mechanisms by which those resources contribute to improve companies’ capability to compete in today’s competitive scenario. In this introduction to the special issue the aim is to develop some insights concerning the understanding of how knowledge resources translate into value and how evaluating the effects of knowledge resources management on organisational performance. Design/methodology/approach – The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the 8th edition of the ‘‘International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics’’ organized in June 2013 in Zagreb, Croatia. At this conference leading experts explored the relevance of knowledge resources and their management for supporting business organizations as well as regional and urban systems to evolve and become smarter in the twenty-first century competitive landscape. Findings – The outcomes of this introduction and the contributions to the special issue reflect the emerging discussion about the role of knowledge resources in value creations dynamics of 21th century organisations. This discussion is largely focused on the importance of developing appropriate and shared models, methods and approaches to grasp knowledge based value creation dynamics, against new emerging challenges such as the business sustainability on several fronts ranging from social and cultural to economic and environmental. Originality/value – This introduction as well as all the contributions to the special issue deal with different aspects which are important in advancing knowledge concerning how knowledge resources and their management contribute to improve performance and value created in 21th century organizations. In particular, the issue provides a substantial contribution to the subject in terms of methodology and investigations on field according to different perspectives of analysis and shows approaches, tools, methods and techniques to better disentangle the mechanisms by which knowledge resources separately or interdependently, contribute to improve companies’ organizational performance.