The knowledge‐intensive company and the economy of sharing: rethinking utility and knowledge management

Abstract

Abstract Knowledge‐intensive organizations are based on their capability of making use of intangible, intellectual resources and assets. As opposed to preceding economic regimes, the post‐ industrial society is to a lesser extent dependent on production factors that are subject to scarcity. Instead, knowledge tends to grow rather than being consumed as it is shared with others. When examining the practices of knowledge‐intensive companies, an ethics of sharing underlying to the use of all knowledge needs to be recognized. Rather than conceiving of knowledge as being an organizational resource that is derived from previous economic regimes, the analysis of knowledge needs to be grounded in a different perspective. This paper is an attempt to formulate such a perspective on knowledge‐intensive organizations as being based on sharing rather than exploitation. The argument is supported by an empirical study of a pharmaceutical company wherein the distribution of knowledge across project teams, communities of practice and individuals was of key strategic interest. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.