The Importance of Concepts of Knowledge Management and Learning Organization in Managing the Knowledge-Flow in Organizations

Knowledge economy imposes new demands and imperatives. To achieve a sustainable competitive advantage today means to achieve primacy in knowledge. Therefore it is not surprising that the move towards knowledge-based competitive advantage has become an imperative, not only for individuals, but also for organizational and national strategies. The drastic shift from products to services, observing knowledge as the product, constant innovation, the necessity of managing intangible assets, and the free flow of knowledge, present some of the postulates for modern businesses and organizations. Organizations today seek not only the simple generation of knowledge, but also to provide the knowledge that will create added value to the organization. In this sense, special attention is paid to the concept (s) of knowledge management and learning organization, which should provide the right knowledge at the right place at the right time. By applying the above (s) of concepts, organizations achieve their competitive advantage based on what they know, how effectively and quickly they acquire and use their knowledge. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to determine whether and how the organizations are conscious of the importance of knowledge as the key issue in modern businesses, (2) to explore the ways that organizations use to modernize their knowledge in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and (3) to analyze how knowledge is exchanged between employees and what are the main barriers to knowledge-flow in organizations.