Management of organisational knowledge is a very important aspect for an organisation, before the discussion about it, i would like to deliver about what knowledge means to organisation. By considering the present corporate world, most of the organisations started using knowledge in an efficient manner that tend to be more of value and resulted as success as the time past. Stewart (1997) states that knowledge is increasingly are being recognised to be an most important resource in any organisation and also have become the key differentiating factor in business. At the present stage, innovations and responsiveness have taken the place of being a major source of competitive differentiation, hence human components have been as knowledge creator, decision makers, and sense makers as per the statement of (Choo,1998, Davenport and Prusak, 1998, Nonaka1999) of knowledge have impacted on the firm’s valuation which has driven the knowledge to be viewed as asset that should be managed carefully, and this asset represents properties of the mind and are now personified in people and process, and also in the objects like trade mark, patents and copyrights(Brooks,1997), as the continuation the necessity of managing knowledge had led to an explosion or an expansion of knowledge management initiation within the organisation(Edvison & Malone,1997:Stewart,1997).
Now, let me start with the discussion about , can knowledge be managed..as large number of organisations are implementing or starting with knowledge management initiatives. the strategic motivations exists for the purpose of managing knowledge, which implies to the speed of change, shift to service based economy and as of today everything in a organisation are being done in an organised manner, due to the implementation of much improved technologies , the organisations know how to manage their knowledge(Lank,1997).it is being a belief of many, that knowledge can be managed with the help of technologies like internet and intranet that globalises the knowledge sharing.
Knowledge has been classified in to two types according to Nonako(1994) and Polanyi(1966), namely, Tacit and Explicit. To look in to the management of these two types of knowledge in the organisation, explicit knowledge is much easier to be managed, as it can be easily articulated and codified, on my view, organisations always helps to deal with tacit knowledge as it is being considered as the important part of the knowledge in organisation, however most of the time is spent with explicit, as the reason for this being the difficulty in expressing the tacit knowledge, hence the ability of codifying tacit knowledge becomes a challenge at times. Organisations are now well equipped with technologies in order to assimilate information at instance and convert then in to competitive advantages, many of the organisations have sufficient technical facilities to manage explicit knowledge efficiently, for example: data ware house and data mining.
Practical implication
It is now well understood according to the details stated above, that knowledge can be managed, in addition to it, the organisations are equipped with technologies to manage knowledge that provides capabilities to record, organise and recall information according to the operational needs, however to make an employee in the process and illicit from them a codification of tacit knowledge in an informatically usable way becomes a challenge, it becomes a bit difficult to bring out the tacit knowledge, however couldn’t be left as it is, for which there should be some solutions like encouraging employees in sharing knowledge by providing incentives and hence the tacit knowledge could also be managed in an efficient manner.
References
[1]Stewart, Thomas A. (1997). Intellectual Capital:The New Wealth of Organizations, New York:Currency Doubleday.
[2]Choo, C.W. (1998). The Knowing Organization:How Organizations Use Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, andMake Decisions, New York: Oxford UniversityPress.
[3]Davenport, T., and Prusak, L. (1998). Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know, Boston: Harvard BusinessSchool Press.
[4]Brooking, A. (1997), "The Management of Intellectual Capital," Long Range Planning,Vol. 30, No. 3
[5]Edvinsson, L., and Malone, M.S. (1997).Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company's True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower,New York: Harper Business.
[6]Nonaka, I.N. (1994). "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation," Organization Science, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.14-37.Stewart, Thomas A. (1997). Intellectual Capital:
Thursday 2 April 2009
THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN SUCCESSFUL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ORGANISATIONS
In today’s corporate world, the importance of knowledge is rising as a significant business resource, that constrained the CEO’s of the organisation to look at the knowledge beneath their business giving rise to Knowledge management initiative in the organisations, it is also been seen in many organisations that due to the advancement in IT is making the life easier in acquiring, storing and distribution of knowledge in an efficient manner than ever before. As a result most of the organisations are implementing IT in order to smooth the progress of knowledge sharing and integration; however there should be a consideration of KM complexity and type of IT available in the market and here comes the challenge of selecting the right kind of IT that supports the KM of that particular organisation.
Tierney, Nohria and Hansen,(1999) have stated that there are there lies two basic concepts on which IT could support Knowledge management , and those are codification and personalisation. Where the codification deals with more of explicit and at the same time the structured knowledge is being stored in Knowledge bases after is been codified, this is in order to the share and usage of knowledge by the people from a common storage area, the electronic knowledge repositories is an suitable example of IT tool for codification. Personalisation deals with more of tacit and the unstructured knowledge being shared personally through communications, and here IT plays the role of connecting all the people by improving communication in order to achieve complex knowledge transfer. And an example for personalisation is knowledge expert dictionary and video conferencing tools.
With respect to the implementation of IT in KM, the organisations are classified on two different dimensions, namely product based vs. Service based and high volatility context vs. Low volatility context. The importance of this classification is in order to describe the basis of competitiveness of the organisation and for the application of suitable KM approaches and the role of IT in KM.
The competitive base are different in product base and service based industries , the product base industries not only compete for physical products but the services an processes of marketing is also important, were us service base industry mainly competes for the services offered. Hence product based industries have more of diverse area in which knowledge could be made use of, in order to gain competitive advantages. and here a computer manufacturing companies like Hewlett Packard would be a good example, were it can enhance its sales knowledge , its sales person, that will also enhance the product development., companies like Erns & Young would be a good example for service based industries who’s concentration is being on service oriented knowledge giving cost-efficient services to their customers
The volatility dimension has an impact on business changes and leads to a situation where knowledge can be re-used.the business environment here is being referred to the market status, technological, regulatory and socio-cultural context.
In the high volatility context the knowledge is being time sensitive and hence the stored knowledge need to be refreshed often, for example, the Microsoft corporation who’s software products have short term life cycle and need updating often (Clayton and Foster,2000) were as in low volatility context, the knowledge comparatively less time sensitive and the lifespan is also longer without any up gradation.
According to Teigland, Fey and Birkinshaw(2000), the above stated types of organisations and contexts can be related to each others as,-product - based organisation in low volatility context, product based organisation in high volatile context, service based organisation in low volatile context and service based organisation in high volatile context.
Implication for practice
In accordance with the discussion and analysis of the above stated content, the personalised approach is to be adopted by the product based organisation in low-volatility context to compete on the basis of physical products, and also the combination of expert directories with collaboration tools like discussion forum and video conferencing would enhance employee communication and hence the knowledge.
Both personal and codification need to be adopted by the product based organisation in high volatility context, where again the expert directories and collaborations tools would support personalization approach ti knowledge management and common knowledge base with support codification to knowledge management .
Service based organisation in low volatility context must go with the codification approach to knowledge management where apart from technical aspects of knowledge, employees are to be provided with attractive incentives to encourage knowledge sharing.
The service based organisation in high volatility is to adopt personalization approach to knowledge management, which also would require IT tool support like media. As the knowledge is being shared on the basis of one to one, it should be encouraged by returning the calls by the employees by the executives, and by rewarding the employees sharing the knowledge. And hence in this way, the role of IT would be success full in knowledge management.
References
[1]Atreyi Kankanhalli, Fransiska Tanudidjaja,Juliana Sutanto, and Bernard C.Y. Tan.2003. THE ROLE OF IT IN SUCCESSFUL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM.vol-46, issue-9.pg-69-73
[2]Clayton, S. and Foster, P. Real world knowledge sharing. Knowledge
Management 4, 2 (2000); 26–28.
[3]Hansen, M.T, Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. What’s your strategy for
managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review 77, 2 (1999), 106–116.
[4]Teigland, R., Fey, C.F. and Birkinshaw, J. Knowledge dissemination in
global R&D operations: An empirical study of multinationals in the
high technology electronics industry. Management International Review
40, 1 (2000), 49–77.
Tierney, Nohria and Hansen,(1999) have stated that there are there lies two basic concepts on which IT could support Knowledge management , and those are codification and personalisation. Where the codification deals with more of explicit and at the same time the structured knowledge is being stored in Knowledge bases after is been codified, this is in order to the share and usage of knowledge by the people from a common storage area, the electronic knowledge repositories is an suitable example of IT tool for codification. Personalisation deals with more of tacit and the unstructured knowledge being shared personally through communications, and here IT plays the role of connecting all the people by improving communication in order to achieve complex knowledge transfer. And an example for personalisation is knowledge expert dictionary and video conferencing tools.
With respect to the implementation of IT in KM, the organisations are classified on two different dimensions, namely product based vs. Service based and high volatility context vs. Low volatility context. The importance of this classification is in order to describe the basis of competitiveness of the organisation and for the application of suitable KM approaches and the role of IT in KM.
The competitive base are different in product base and service based industries , the product base industries not only compete for physical products but the services an processes of marketing is also important, were us service base industry mainly competes for the services offered. Hence product based industries have more of diverse area in which knowledge could be made use of, in order to gain competitive advantages. and here a computer manufacturing companies like Hewlett Packard would be a good example, were it can enhance its sales knowledge , its sales person, that will also enhance the product development., companies like Erns & Young would be a good example for service based industries who’s concentration is being on service oriented knowledge giving cost-efficient services to their customers
The volatility dimension has an impact on business changes and leads to a situation where knowledge can be re-used.the business environment here is being referred to the market status, technological, regulatory and socio-cultural context.
In the high volatility context the knowledge is being time sensitive and hence the stored knowledge need to be refreshed often, for example, the Microsoft corporation who’s software products have short term life cycle and need updating often (Clayton and Foster,2000) were as in low volatility context, the knowledge comparatively less time sensitive and the lifespan is also longer without any up gradation.
According to Teigland, Fey and Birkinshaw(2000), the above stated types of organisations and contexts can be related to each others as,-product - based organisation in low volatility context, product based organisation in high volatile context, service based organisation in low volatile context and service based organisation in high volatile context.
Implication for practice
In accordance with the discussion and analysis of the above stated content, the personalised approach is to be adopted by the product based organisation in low-volatility context to compete on the basis of physical products, and also the combination of expert directories with collaboration tools like discussion forum and video conferencing would enhance employee communication and hence the knowledge.
Both personal and codification need to be adopted by the product based organisation in high volatility context, where again the expert directories and collaborations tools would support personalization approach ti knowledge management and common knowledge base with support codification to knowledge management .
Service based organisation in low volatility context must go with the codification approach to knowledge management where apart from technical aspects of knowledge, employees are to be provided with attractive incentives to encourage knowledge sharing.
The service based organisation in high volatility is to adopt personalization approach to knowledge management, which also would require IT tool support like media. As the knowledge is being shared on the basis of one to one, it should be encouraged by returning the calls by the employees by the executives, and by rewarding the employees sharing the knowledge. And hence in this way, the role of IT would be success full in knowledge management.
References
[1]Atreyi Kankanhalli, Fransiska Tanudidjaja,Juliana Sutanto, and Bernard C.Y. Tan.2003. THE ROLE OF IT IN SUCCESSFUL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM.vol-46, issue-9.pg-69-73
[2]Clayton, S. and Foster, P. Real world knowledge sharing. Knowledge
Management 4, 2 (2000); 26–28.
[3]Hansen, M.T, Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. What’s your strategy for
managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review 77, 2 (1999), 106–116.
[4]Teigland, R., Fey, C.F. and Birkinshaw, J. Knowledge dissemination in
global R&D operations: An empirical study of multinationals in the
high technology electronics industry. Management International Review
40, 1 (2000), 49–77.
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