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Chapter 15
Marié Cruywagen
University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa
Juani Swart
University of Bath, UK
Wim Gevers
University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa
The Role of a Knowledge-
Centric Capability in Innovation:
A Case Study
ABSTRACT
The ability to provide an organisational context for the creation, sharing, and integration of knowledge,
called the knowledge-centric capability, is a key strategic resource of an organisation and an enabler
of innovation. This view is informed by dynamic capabilities, which focus on the ability of an organi-
sation to modify and renew its resource base by creating, integrating, recombining, and releasing its
resources in order to adapt to current changes or to affect change in its environment. A knowledge-
centric capability comprises three core elements that enable innovation. Organisational intent is the
resolve of an organisation to provide the context in which knowledge can serve as a strategic resource
in the organisation. Knowledge orientation is the way in which an organisation orientates itself towards
its knowledge environment in terms of knowledge types and the role of knowledge in the organisation.
Enactment includes elements of knowledge coordination, creation, use, and integration. The authors
review how the extent to which the three core elements that are present in an organisation could give
an indication of the organisation’s ability to innovate by comparing these insights with the practices of
Fundamo, one of the world’s leading specialist mobile fnancial services companies.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1969-2.ch015