Creating Knowledge within a C-Business Context: A Customer Knowledge Management View

Abstract

Abstract. Recent advances of virtual networking technologies are gradually forcing companies to focus their knowledge management efforts to external knowledge resources, in order to complement their existing knowledge bases, find expertise, but also harness collective intelligence that is dynamically produced in the virtual environment. Access, exchange and co-creation of customer knowledge is of central importance for companies in this context, as customers who take advantage of Web 2.0 connectivity and social networking tools are gaining importance as competitive and cooperative knowledge actors in companies' C-Business value networks. In this paper the authors attempt to cover important issues concerning customer knowledge flows between companies and customers through virtual interaction and the important factors that determine value-adding relationships of cooperation with customers for effective knowledge co-creation. They emphasize the need for the formation of a strategic co-opetition perspective for managing these relationships. In this direction, the authors present a theoretical framework that describes Customer Knowledge Management within a C-Business context.

Customer knowledge management antecedent factors: A systematic literature review

“…Trust between customer and company This refers to a reliable and trusting relationship in which both sides could feel secure and motivated in knowledge transfer. S12,S19,S22,S26, S41 Although the relationship between company and customers is sensitive by nature, to cultivate a reliable and trustworthy platform in which both sides could feel secure and motivated in transferring knowledge could be realized as the main challenge in CKM system (Skotis, Katsanakis, Macris, & Sfakianakis, 2013) Technological factors…”

Business-IT Alignment in PSS Value Networks - Linking Customer Knowledge Management to Social Customer Relationship Management

“…"for", "about") or customers to firms (i.e. "from"), to a bi-directional relationship through productive dialogue and cooperation of a company with its customers for mutual benefits and joint value creation, which is called knowledge co-creation "with" customer (Buchnowska, 2011;Skotis et al, 2013;Smith and McKeen, 2005).…”

“…A customer knowledge management (CKM) capability has been introduced as a strategic capability of an organization to employ an ongoing process of creation, storage / retrieval, transfer, and usage of customer knowledge with an emphasis on a bi-directional interaction between firms and their customers to the benefit of both customer and firm (Belkahla and Triki 2011;Buchnowska, 2011;Gibbert et al, 2002;Lin, 2007;Lin et al, 2006;Skotis et al, 2013;Zhang, 2011). These processes improve a firm's ability to identify real customer needs (Belbaly et al, 2007).…”

“…An example of a definition is: a SCRM capability is the ability of a firm to integrate traditional sale-and marketing-centric CRM systems with emergent social media applications, to engage customers in collaborative conversations and enhance customer relationships (Trainor et al, 2014). Additional features of social CRM such as social networking, two-way communication, interactive relationship, and user-generated content enables a SCRM capability to provide support for the management of co-creation knowledge with customers (Kärkkäinen et al, 2011;Küpper et al, 2014;Skotis et al, 2013); (Kärkkäinen et al, 2011;Küpper et al, 2014;Skotis et al, 2013).…”

“…Since research in the field of SCRM is still in progress, previous studies have been mostly dealing with the question such as how to integrate customer-centric functionalities provided by social media applications in the traditional sales-and marketing-centric CRM system in order to get additional value of SCRM in CRM processes (Alt and Reinhold, 2012;Trainor, 2012). Skotis et al, (2013) in their conceptual work discuss on how emergent social media tools and networking technologies facilitate CKM processes with more emphasis on knowledge co-creation with customers. Chua and Banerjee (2013) by doing case study (2014) by conducting four case studies explain how SCRM activities can be prolific in organizational knowledge creation cycle.…”