Organizational Communication: Development of Internal Strategic Competitive Advantage

Many organizations are experimenting with structures (new organization forms) that are designed to facilitate empowered cross-functional communication. The challenge is to become more efficient or competitive by reducing barriers to com munication and to eliminate boundaries which impede the understanding of end-to-end workflows and better performance on strategic goals. Horizontal organization processes such as cross-functional teamwork and empowered decision making at lower organization levels are based on more participative management styles (new management technologies). This paper builds a theo retical model and provides propositions showing how knowledge creation and communication are the foundations of the new organization forms. An organiza tion's capability for creating and communicating knowledge is seen as a resource which can create global strategic competitive advantage. A longitudinal research program is proposed to study the progress of experiments by organiza tions utilizing the new organization forms and management technologies (NFMT).

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