Knowledge Profiles Boosting Innovation

Knowledge integration is not only one of the most critical factors for organizations' competitiveness, but is also crucial due to the constraints of the nature of knowledge. Sharing knowledge and effectively integrating it in the organizational practices and processes seems to be a very powerful strategy and, at the same time, a very difficult achievement. Knowledge is an intangible asset, mainly embedded in people, and can only be applied and integrated by them. Workers integrate their knowledge in different ways and using specific tools related to their role in the organization. This paper focuses on how knowledge is integrated within the work processes by groups of workers with different characteristics. The different groups will be created according to a factorial analysis resulting in specific knowledge profiles. Therefore, the research objective is to identify different knowledge profiles in organizations and to analyze their contribution for innovation.