INDEX.

1. The Knowledge Organisation.
2. The Market Value.
3. The Personnel.
4. Corporate Knowhow.
5. Corporate Image.
6. Investing in Intangible Assets.
7. Attract the Customer.
8. Attract the Personnel.
9. Develop the Competence of the Personnel.
10. Utilising Capacity.
11. Matching Capacity and Demand.
    11.1. The Vicious Circle.
12. Managing the Strategic Dilemma.
13. Customer Strategies.
14. Personnel Strategies.
15. Pricing.
16. Some Critical Incidents.
17. Management Information.

12. Managing the Strategic Dilemma.

The knowledge organisation often finds itself pulled in two directions. One direction is pointing towards the paradigm of the industrialised Service Company. (To the right in the figure). The other direction is pointing towards the "Knowledge Company". (To the left).

The forces that pull towards the right tend to come from the managers in charge of the organisation. They wish to guard the survival of the organisation, reduce uncertainty and work efficiently. They therefore:

• Replace staff with computer systems.
• Standardise service into packages that can be handled by less experienced and less costly personnel.
• Look for growth in volume rather than competence.
• Look for larger profits.

The forces that pull in the other direction usually come from the professionals. They :

• Prefer to work in small units.
• Want non standardised challenging problems.
• Want to work together with colleagues of high competence.
• Prefer close relationships with demanding customers.
• Wish support from sufficient financial resources for own R&D.

This means that there are in principle two strategic paradigms available for the Knowledge Organisation. Shall the Leader listen to the professionals or to the managers?

Steering the company along the organisational track means that the managers utilise their organisational knowhow for growth. A common action is to acquire other companies in other professional fields.

Steering along the professional track means the strategy is more in the hands of the professionals or based on the professionals' values. They tend to add new ventures utilising the existing professional knowhow but adding new organisational knowhow.

Both roads might lead to long term profitability. It depends on the business logic of the particular industry.

The dilemma is even greater if the organisation has a bit of both, needs both routine and creativity, needs both customer adaptation and standardised behaviour, as "Both-And" indicates in the chart below. The choice is then either one of the two above with the risk to loose the advantages of the other, or a third strategic paradigm: which is to balance the two paradigms within in the same organisation. Trying to develop a mixed culture which combines Liberty with Limits and small creative "Pro-teams" within larger units. This is a common (often implicit and enforced) strategy of large knowledge organisations.

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