| Abstract: |
Organizations of all sizes and sectors realized that an important change happened: the passage to a new “knowledge society” (Drucker, 1993; p.6). Indeed, this new society (Drucker, 1993) had several important effects on organizations and how they act and perform (Davenport and Prusak, 1998) and notably their environment that became overly moving and instable, with several and various changes coming to affect it (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). So to say, they had and have to adapt to it, by becoming more flexible and responsive (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). In order to do so, they had to focalize on their intangible or nonphysical resources (Halawi et al., 2005), and efficiently manage them. From these resources, knowledge is widely and broadly considered as one of, or even the most important one (Grant, 1996 ; Booto Ekionea et al., 2010), even seen as an unavoidable way of getting competitive advantages (Nonaka, 1991; Booto-Ekionea et al., 2010) in this new society (Drucker, 1993).
More precisely and according to the Resource based-view (Barney, 1991), resources with certain characteristics might be able to yield a competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). Barney (1991) developed a kind of model or framework, which allows the assessment and analysis of the different resources, in order to find out if they can or not grant a competitive advantage to their owning organizations, and if the latter is sustainable or not. Sub approaches have also been developed, with the knowledge based-view underlining the important role/part played by knowledge (Grant, 1996).
So, the objective of our conceptual research is first to analyze knowledge using the VRIN framework, to see if this unavoidable resource can indeed fulfill the four VRIN characteristics developed by Barney (1991). This analyze and discussion will help us see if the theoretical views are justified or not. Then, we will see if these four characteristics might be related to organizational performance, by trying to shed light on the theoretical complexities of their relations, and interactions. Finally, our research will discuss theoretical implications, in order to propose several future research tracks.
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