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Strategic Knowledge Management, Innovation and Performance: A Qualitative Study of the Footwear Industry

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the first phase of research that sought to encourage discussion and to promote a better understanding of the effects of strategic knowledge management (SKM) on innovation and performance in the Portuguese footwear industry. The rationale for the research is based on the understanding that innovation has played a major role in the recent good performance of this industry, building up its global market share and increasing employment and value in the context of Portugal’s economic recession. This empirical study, to our knowledge, is the first to examine the interface between SKM, innovation and performance in the footwear industry. The research used a qualitative methodology, gathering data through semi-structured interviews with three chief executive officers of footwear firms and three academic specialists in SKM and innovation. After doing content analysis, we found support for our initial expectation that SKM effects can be inferred whenever shifts in a firm’s performance occur as a result of technological and/or organisational innovations. We further propose a model of relationships between SKM, innovation and performance, which will be assessed in a second phase using a quantitative approach.

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Notes

  1. For more information about this footwear cluster in the north of Portugal, see Eiriz et al. (2013).

  2. A word cloud is a graphic representation that gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in given texts (e.g. responses to open-ended survey questions or interview transcriptions), displaying them differently by size, colour and brightness. Thus, for example, the words in the largest font size are those most commonly encountered in the texts.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology through its project PEst-OE/SADG/UI4011/. The authors also wish to thank those who commented on this research at ECKM 2014. Any data or computational errors in this paper are entirely our own.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Sociology and Management & CETRAD Research Unit, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5000-801, Vila Real, Portugal

    Carla Susana Marques, Carmem Leal & Carlos Peixeira Marques

  2. University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5000-801, Vila Real, Portugal

    Ana Rita Cardoso

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  1. Carla Susana Marques
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  2. Carmem Leal
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  3. Carlos Peixeira Marques
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Correspondence to Carla Susana Marques.

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Marques, C.S., Leal, C., Marques, C.P. et al. Strategic Knowledge Management, Innovation and Performance: A Qualitative Study of the Footwear Industry. J Knowl Econ 7, 659–675 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-015-0249-4

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