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ial costs and depreciation of fixed assets). ? Environmental uncertainty is measured by the changes in technology (measured by the number and importance of patents) and product lifecycle. The Chosen Industries Env. Uncertainty Knowledge Intensity Low High High Banking IC Design Low Steel Semiconductor Foundry Twelve Knowledge Types ? Twenty panies were chosen (five in each category) for study. ? Value chain activities are used to differentiate 12 categories of knowledge, such as raw material acquisition, product manufacturing, distribution, marketing, customer services, strategic planning, general management, financial management, quality management, human resource management, RD, and IS management. Data Collection ? A group of experts was invited to fill out the questionnaire for assessing the relative importance of a particular knowledge in an industry and the relative strength of the twelve types of knowledge among the panies ? A total of 58 responses were collected, among which 17 for semiconductor, 16 for IC Design, 15 for banks, and 10 for steel. Data measurement ? IT capabilities: mean score on the IT capability question from experts ? Knowledge intensity: mean score of the other 11 types of knowledge ? Knowledge diversity: using the entropy to measure it ? Firm performance: Earnings per share in the past five years (means and variance) Relative Importances K. Type IC Design Semiconductor Bank Steel Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank RD 1 1 1 1 Acquisition 2 10 5 9 Strategy 3 4 7 11 Production 4 2 2 3 Marketing 5 8 3 12 Quality mgt 6 5 9 2 Distribution 7 12 11 4 IT appl. 8 6 8 10 Service 8 3 4 7 General mgt 10 7 6 6 HRM 10 11 12 8 Finance 12 9 10 5 Data Reliability IC design Semiconductor foundry Banking Steel Raw material acquisition Production Distribution Marketing Customer services Strategic planning