Research DOI No. 10.5958/0973-9343.2018.00004.2 22 JIMS 8M, January-March, 2018 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS CAPABILITIES FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: A COMPARISON OF IT MULTINATIONALS IN INDIA Vaneet Kaur* Versha Mehta** The present era of new economy has overturned the existing explanations for gaining an edge in industry and has ushered in novel means for attaining organizational advantage. At the time of the current revamp, organizational precedence lies not merely in the possession of superior knowledge but in harnessing it to build superior knowledge- based competencies. The present study empirically analyzes not only the relationship between Knowledge Capabilities and Competitive Advantage but also compares the level of deployment of such capabilities in Indian-origin MNCs vis- a-vis the Foreign-origin MNCs operating in India. The study also analyzes the effect of company's country of origin on its competitiveness as well as the strength of such capabilities. The results show that Knowledge Capabilities significantly impact competitiveness of a firm, with Combination Capability having the maximum impact, followed by Acquisition Capability and Protection Capability respectively. This relationship was found to be true irrespective of the country of origin of MNC. Also, comparison of companies highlighted that Indian MNCs do largely differ from their counterparts as far as the deployment of Knowledge Capabilities and competitiveness is concerned. Furthermore, individual capabilities of the organizations under study are analyzed and strategies to enhance the competitiveness of each organization are suggested. Keywords: Knowledge, Management Process, Capabilities, Acquisition Capability. The present era of new economy has overturned the existing explanations for gaining an edge in industry and has ushered in novel means for attaining organizational advantage. The pivotal role of concepts like economies of scale and economies of scope in organizational transcendence are now the things of the past. Similarly, the traditional factors of production namely land, labour and capital have lost their role as the prime ratiocinates for triumph in the latter-day business environment characterized by rapid market shifts, proliferation of technologies, cut-throat competition and obsolescence of products overnight. The ingredients for organizational success in such a dynamic milieu lie in advanced notion of economies of knowing which aggrandizes the importance of knowledge as the decisive business factor in the competitive battle among corporations. Besides, even this battle between industry players has ceased to remain categorical with the dawn of the new economy. The competitive landscape has undergone a transfiguration to become knowledge-based competition and at the time of the current revamp, organizational precedence lies not merely in the possession of superior knowledge but in harnessing it to build superior knowledge-based competencies, which in turn are the hallmark of the knowledge economy. Against this backdrop, Knowledge-Based View emerged as a predominant paradigm to study firm competitiveness. The view propounds that differences in the performances of firms exist due to differences in the stock of knowledge possessed by each firm as well as firm's individual capabilities in developing and utilising this stock of knowledge. The proponents of the view suggest that organizational capabilities and resources evolve through knowledge processes and this capability of organizations to learn faster than competitors is thought to be the only source of competitive advantage. The reason for selecting Information Technology (IT) sector for the present study is that the cut-throat competition in such a high technology industry mandates the need for a novel paradigm to guide firms in gaining distinctive advantages. IT sector is the most knowledge- intensive sector and the companies which come under the purview of this sector hold an edge in developing such knowledge-based competencies in comparison to companies belonging to other sectors. In addition, Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are more apt for studying such capabilities than firms with purely a domestic focus as the environment that such companies face is characterized by fierce global competition, uncertainty, complexity and rapid technological change * Research Scholar, The Business School, University of Jammu. ** Professor, The Business School, University of Jammu.