1 Transforming Knowledge Dominique Foray, Chair Transforming Enterprise Department of Commerce Washington DC January 27 th and 28 th, 2003

2 The international knowledge management survey - A project initiated by OECD/CERI and Statistics Canada Three objectives : –to build systematic data bases on KM practices –to use the unique opportunity of « official » surveys at national level to link data on the diffusion of KM practices with economic data (innovation, productivity) – indirect effect : to contribute to the stabilisation of meanings and standardisation of terminology of KM strategies Countries involved : Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden First results are now available (OECD/StatCan, 2003, forthcoming)

3 Main findings : –i) KM practices diffuse massively across the economy, like technology diffusion –ii) Clusters of practices (codification versus personalisation) are clearly identified –iii) Knowledge management matters for innovation and productivity performances (Kremp and Mairesse, French Survey)

4 Whatever a company ’s size, industry or R&D efforts, firms innovate more extensively and file more patents if they set up knowledge management policies Knowledge management also has a positive effect on labour productivity. For instance and all things being equal, value added per employee was higher by roughly 6% in companies that adopted at least one knowledge management policy compared to the companies that did not adopt any.

5 Andrew Carnegie wrote in the late 1890s how the first R&D engineer he hired greatly contributed to the improvement of productivity and innovation. He said « What fools we had been not to have hired this person earlier ! But then there was this consolation : we were not as great fools as our competitors..years after we had taken chemistry to guide us, they said they could not afford to employ a chemist. Had they known the truth then, they would have known they could not afford to be without one. » Should CEO say the same thing today about knowledge officer : What fools we had been… Should he say : I cannot afford to employ one KM officer…or..I cannot afford to be without one