Zusammenfassung
Competitive pressure, individualization, and constantly advancing technologies require manufacturers to gain
knowledge about their customers to offer well-adapted solutions.
Despite being an indispensable resource for achieving a competitive advantage, managing customer knowledge is an enormous
challenge that quickly becomes a complexity trap, unless targeted
processes are available. From the literature, it is known that the
target-oriented knowledge management systems are required to
map knowledge structures, which help to improve the organizational knowledge lifecycle and advance organizational learning. In
this article, we extend research on the intersection of knowledge
management and customer integration by proposing a framework
for the persistent representation of customer knowledge for product development. This allows companies to integrate customer
knowledge into development processes, adding value, and also
leading to organizational learning from the knowledge-based view.
Knowledge management systems with respect to the customer
knowledge are relatively unexplored, and the literature on knowledge management often lacks empirical data. Empirical data are
collected through a case study of a leading commercial vehicle
manufacturer to explore the link between customer integration
and knowledge management. Practitioners are provided with a
practice-oriented concept that offers guidance on how to structure a
knowledge representation from the company’s point of view, aiming
at achieving a competitive advantage.
Nutzer
