Abstract
Knowledge management has been identified as one of the most important resources that contribute to the competitive advantage of an organization. This is due to the fact that knowledge management helps the organization to create, acquire, share and use knowledge in order to enhance learning and performance in the organization. It also allows the organization to sustain its "organization memory" - all the data and information stored from the creation of the company throughout its life activity and which can be brought at any time to bear on present decisions. This encourages avoiding the error of managers' poor organizational memory. Knowledge management also creates a culture which values learning and this way it better prepares managers to learn from past experiences and helps adapted to future contingencies. For instance, Cisco Systems built up a detailed organizational memory on managed acquisitions and the integrated acquired companies. Cisco derives almost 40% of it revenue from these acquisitions. Once an acquisition is consummated, Cisco uses a documented and repeatable process for integration. Moreover, knowledge management focuses on the organization's most important economic asset: its employees. It shows the value of promoting employees and placing emphasis on both departmental communication and inter-departmental communication. It shows that building and fostering social networks can lead to the increase of collective dispositional knowledge and can turn explicit the remaining tacit knowledge. In order to gain a more concrete vision of knowledge management issues within a company, we will analyze the case of the organization "Celtic linen".
