Modeling the Effect of Team Collaboration on the Creation of New Knowledge

To survive global competition in a knowledge economy, respective fields of the enterprise knowledge must be upgraded constantly. There are two means to achieve this goal: inducing new knowledge from outside of the enterprise, or by creating new knowledge from within. The advantages of creating new knowledge from within are to create the core knowledge of the enterprise directly, easily protect commercial confidentialities, especially when the knowledge cannot be acquired from the outside, and since the knowledge is tailor made within enterprise, advantages such as higher applicability and higher compatibility can be achieved. When an enterprise has decided to create new knowledge from within, the following attributes must be contemplated: selecting suitable members, determining the kind of knowledge needed, knowledge complexity, knowledge level, the pressure of time, and the like. This study develops a mathematical model, which utilizes team collaboration in the creation of new knowledge, and helps select a suitable team under limited resources, while achieving the best benefit for knowledge creation. In light of the target knowledge, three knowledge dimensions must be considered concurrently, namely, knowledge complexity, the knowledge level of each employee, and the knowledge correlation between existing knowledge and target knowledge. Furthermore, the model can quantify the contribution of team collaboration on the creation of new knowledge, growth of the new knowledge of members, the time required to increase knowledge, and the total time required to create the target knowledge.