Organizational forms for knowledge management in photovoltaic solar energy industry

In recent years. China has put great efforts into the combat against global warming and the mission of zero carbon emission. However, compared with leading countries such as Japan and Germany, China is still under high pressure to prosper its photovoltaic (PV) solar energy industry since its technologies are still far behind those countries. In knowledge intensive industry, a firm needs to develop new products as a participant within a certain industry because knowledge has become a critical factor that affects industry dynamics. In light of this situation, it is essential to propose a strategic policy to facilitate a firm in knowledge distribution, knowledge absorption, knowledge creation, and then to obtain competitive advantages. Until now, there has not been such strategic policy in China. In order to fulfill this vacancy, a conceptual model is proposed. First, the proposed model examines critical characteristics of successful PV solar energy industry in China. Second, a fuzzy analytic network process is developed to analyze suitable forms of organization for knowledge management in order to distribute existing knowledge as well as to create new knowledge. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.