An approach to filling firms' knowledge gaps based on organisational knowledge structure

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to propose a practical and operable method to identify and fill organisational knowledge gaps during new product development. Design/methodology/approach – From a microscopic view, this paper introduces the tree-shaped organisational knowledge structure to formalise the knowledge gaps and their internal hierarchical relationships. Based on the organisational knowledge structure, organisational knowledge gaps are identified through tree matching algorithm. The tree-edit-distance method is introduced to calculate the similarity between two organisational knowledge structures for filling knowledge gap. Findings – The proposed tree-shaped organisational knowledge structure can represent organisations' knowledge and their hierarchy relationships in a structured format, which is useful for identifying and filling organisational knowledge gaps. Originality/value – The proposed concept of organisational knowledge structure can quantify organisational knowledge. The approach is valuable for strategic decisions regarding new product development. The organisational knowledge gaps identified with this method can provide real-time and accurate guidance for the product development path. More importantly, this method can accelerate the organisational knowledge gap filling process and promote organisational innovation.