Gilles Lambert

Completion of knowledge codification: an illustration through the ISO 9000 standards implementation process

This paper looks at the role played by the ISO 9000 registration process in contributing to the knowledge codification within the firms. The ISO 9000 standards concern the way a company should elaborate a quality system by providing guidelines and models. They are considered as a code, i.e. a common language, which leads to communication and industrial relationship. This paper focuses on how this code might be used within the firms to enhance knowledge codification. It explains the standards implementation process by studying the three steps needed to complete codification within the firm: (1) the starting point of the implementation; (2) the subject of the codification, that means the material and behavioural characteristics of the production process; (3) the impact of the ISO 9000 implementation on knowledge accumulation within the firm. This paper addresses the fact that the ISO implementation is related to knowledge codification through a learning process, which includes both individual and collective knowledge conversions.

A new role for small business in innovation networks: an industrial perspective

The strategies implemented by businesses to preserve or improve their competitiveness evolve over time since they are inscribed in an economic environment that is in a natural and permanent mutation. The central position of radical innovation in an environment marked by the intensification of competition, the need for returns on investment and the permanent acceleration of technological evolution is expressed through numerous organisational innovations related to the innovative activity of companies. One of the outstanding characteristics of the introduced innovations is the extension of Research and Development (RD SMEs are among these unusual partners.