The knowledge creation with view to innovation as a dynamic capability in competitive firms.

1. INTRODUCTION

The firms have different levels of competitiveness that turn them more competitive or less competitive. That could be related to intangible factors existing in the organizations, which create value, are rare and difficult to copied (WERNEFELT, 1984; BARNEY, 1991). Those intangible factors can be how the firms deal with the knowledge it has and creates. Two questions arise from that: which makes the firms be competitive nowadays, and which makes them deal differently with knowledge? One of the potential answers for those questions can be found in the literature, since several authors defend the innovation as a key factor to the competitiveness, what answers the first question (SCHUMPETER, 1934). The innovation is considered source of competitive advantage (PORTER, 1992). In order to innovation can happen, however, it is essential that the organizations are capable of dominate the organizational learning (NONAKA; TAKEUCHI, 1997). This answer conducted to the following research problem: How the organizational knowledge creation capability can become an organizational dynamic capability. As a technique it is considered the individual learning approaches, which lead to the organizational learning, that in turn conducts to the organizational knowledge, and finally to the innovation. The objective here is to verify if the knowledge creation with view to innovation acts as a dynamic capability and how it occurs.

This study used an exploratory and quantitative research approach. It was necessary the comparison between organizations that had opposite competitive position in their markets. To determine that it was used the firm's official published information. A non probabilistic sample was used, for which it was applied a six-point Likert kind scale, assumed as an interval scale, and developed specially for this study. Descriptive statistics and factorial analysis were adopted to analyze the data gathered from the 105 questionnaires answered by the employees of prospected organizations in the product development area in eight different firms. The analysis permitted to point out predominant characteristics in the organizations considered more innovative, as well as in the organizations considered less innovative.

The study corroborated the proposition that the organizational knowledge creation can be considered a dynamic capability as well as to outline an amplified organizational knowledge creation process in comparison to that proposed by Nonaka e Takeuchi (1997). This new process embodies the organizational learning inside a knowledge creation in a constructivist approach that contains two macro dimensions: the enabler conditions (challenge, commitment, decision process and orientation towards the external environment) and the knowledge conversion process.

2. THEORETICAL SUPPORT

Last century showed an increasing transformation. A Industrial Era claimed the capital and labor as the basic resources, which competences were based on technical aspects and fragmented work as the main source of productivity, emphasizing learning as a mere repository of information, as well as incremental changes DRUCKER, 1991, 1997, 2002; DAVENPORT, PRUSAK, 1998; STEWART, 1998).

The Post-industrial Era reinforced the employment movement from the agricultural fields to the service area, amplifying the concept of work to something much higher than just surviving, given emphasis to the initiative attitude, to the risk consideration, to the continuous change and training. The globalization and the production offer lower than the market demand, promoted the change, i.e. the customers and consumers dictate the market rules, reinforcing the individual capacity of systemizing the knowledge as a main resource for the organizations, which saw the need of developing organizational competences based on the individual ones, to answer the transformation faced in the business environment (DRUCKER, 1991, 1997, 2002; DAVENPORT, PRUSAK, 1998; STEWART, 1998; PRAHALAD, HUMMEL, 1995).