Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation

Why are some companies better at innovation than others? Drawing on the candid reflections of managers at leading technology-based companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Chaparral Steel, Microsoft, and Motorola, Wellsprings of Knowledge shows that the successful innovators are companies that build and manage knowledge effectively. The book reveals lessons for creating, nurturing, and growing the experience and accumulated knowledge of the organization into renewable assets and competitive advantage. Leonard-Barton illustrates the dimensions of the core capabilities along which all organizations must innovate: skills and knowledge base, physical systems, managerial systems, and values and norms of behavior. However, these capabilities can function as "core rigidities" if not constantly assessed. Managers must design capabilities as evolving, organic reservoirs. Wellsprings of Knowledge will help managers understand the long-term, systemic, and people-based nature of technological advantage and inspire them to think constantly about the potential knowledge-building import of every technology-related decision they make.