Harnessing the power of knowledge management for innovation

Innovation, the successful exploitation of new ideas, is integration of knowledge with action. Researchers have discovered that knowledge, which includes what the organisation knows, how it uses what it knows and how fast it can know something new, offers a competitive edge to an organisation (Adams and Lamont, 2003; Sinha et al., 2012; McLaughlin and Caraballo, 2013). This paper makes a contribution by conceptualising and empirically testing a knowledge-based framework for innovation by taking up the case of the Indian IT/ITeS sector, specifically, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) members. The authors surveyed 435 respondents from 46 companies. The findings reveal that five out of nine knowledge management (KM) practices surveyed are relevant, namely culture and leaders' support, KM processes and networking and alliances. However, statistically, the fourth practice, namely, KM strategy, and the fifth, training and development of employees for KM, are not very successful as predictors.