Introduction

Abstract

We are about to embark on a new economic order — the knowledge-based economies, playing by a new set of rules. Recent years have seen an increasing interest in firm knowledge and innovation, among both academics and practitioners. In academia this is clearly traceable in the recent developments in a knowledge-based perspective of strategy (von Krogh, Roos and Slocum, 1994) the resource-based perspective of the firm (Mahoney and Pandian, 1992), innovation processes (Nonaka, 1994), managerial effectiveness (Castanias and Helfat, 1992), organizational behaviour (Wenger, 1998) and organizational structure (Hedlund, 1994).