Harnessing External Knowledge Flows
Twelve Trends that are Changing the Way We Think About Work — Part 5.
We see an ever-increasing rate of change, disruption, and uncertainty that is driven primarily by the rapid proliferation of new digital infrastructures, each of which is being adopted faster than the last. At the same time, the global economy has facilitated the movement of talent, products, and money across borders. This movement of workers alone compromises the closely guarded stocks of proprietary knowledge that institutions have built-in attempts to gain superiority in their respective vertical marketplaces.
The policy of protecting and defending knowledge historically maintained by companies is now increasingly under threat. While pre-existing knowledge stocks rarely have a positive impact on innovation outputs, increasing diversification and the emergence of massive business ecosystems driven by digital transformation result in the depreciation of knowledge stocks at rates unseen prior to the 4IR. Even the most successful products and services are now under constant threat of obsolescence. In today’s fluid and disruptive market environment, companies can no longer rely solely on internal knowledge in their quest for market advantage.
Allowing workers to gain access to flows of knowledge that exist on the edges or outside of the company is often more easily said than done. The acquisition of trust within and beyond immediate business ecosystems is obviously a key factor, as is the reciprocal sharing of otherwise proprietary information across company boundaries.
As increasingly non-proprietary or open-source knowledge flows between business ecosystems gain momentum, institutions will face growing competitive pressure and shrinking returns. In this regard, we will see emerging physical and virtual environments that exist between ecosystems to facilitate the back and forth flow of knowledge between institutions and workers who have acquired a necessary level of trust.
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