Challenges of Building Knowledge Management Systems - Essay Example

Challenges of Building Knowledge Management Systems By of School Address Submission Abstract Most of the problems or challenges in building and implementing knowledge management systems (KMS) arise from the forms of knowledge reprocess circumstances and intentions. Knowledge employees could generate knowledge that they reprocess while performing organisational tasks. Nevertheless, each knowledge reprocess circumstance is distinctive in terms of conditions and setting. Every time these variations between the knowledge reprocess circumstances are taken for granted, the organisation confronts a variety of challenges in building and implementing its knowledge management processes. The objective of this paper is to identify and review the challenges of building and implementing knowledge systems. Also included in the discussion are the advantages of curbing failure factors of KMS as well as effective strategies in developing knowledge management initiatives. Introduction Identifying the challenges in building knowledge management systems (KMS) is a major concern. Bartczak (2002) claims that an intervening action towards achieving the objective of knowledge management (KM) is to determine the problems that inhibit knowledge transfer in different types of organisations. When a particular problem is recognised, organisations become capable of implementing approaches to reinforce organisational value through improved knowledge management. Knowledge is at the core of managing knowledge in organisations. In management literature, numerous studies have been proposed integrating the contribution of knowledge in enhancing management performance. Nevertheless, there are few researches about studying the chief failure causes in the domain of knowledge management (Chatzkel 2003). Through a comprehensive review of literature about the failure causes of knowledge management Malhotra (2004, as cited in Akhavan, Jafari, & Fathian 2005: para 3-4) states that: ... Prior discussion has highlighted that knowledge management system fail because of two broad reasons. First, knowledge management systems are often defined in terms of inputs such as data, information technology, best practices, etc., that by themselves may be inadequate for effective business performance. For these inputs to result in business performance, the influence of intervening and moderating variables such as attention, motivation, commitment, creativity, and innovation, has to be better understood and accounted for in design of business models. Second, the efficacy of inputs and how they are strategically deployed are important issues often left unquestioned as 'expected' performance outcomes are achieved, but the value of such performance outcomes may be eroded by the dynamic shifts in the business and competitive environments... In other words, Malhotra is arguing that the most frequent mistake in building knowledge management system is incompetence in synchronising endeavours between human resources and information technology. He also emphasises that KMS design should guarantee that adjustment and improvement of organisational performance outcomes transpires in harmony with evolving processes of the business environment. At the same time, envisioning a wide range of future courses of human contributions and information technology implanted in the KMS can reduce the threat of rapid obsoleteness of these systems. The objective of this study is to analyse and discuss some of the most apparent problems or challenges in building knowledge management systems in organisations. The first section will discuss the inherent challenges in the management of organisational knowledge, such as employee characteristics and the trend of knowledge work. Then the challenges in embedded knowledge and information systems, as well as the failure causes in KMS will be discussed. The final section will provide an overall analysis and inclusive conclusion on the knowledge management issues discussed. Challenges in the Management of Organisational Knowledge In the near future, every organisation will necessitate the same qualities and attributes that are nowadays normally related to knowledge organisations. Indeed, by the next decade, every organisation will be quite dependent on innovation that the notion of knowledge organisation will become outdated. The consequential modifications in organisational behaviour and management will completely replace all the principles and theories of organisational management of the last century. Models of human and organisational behaviour will significantly alter and will become obsolete. Therefore, new strategies and models that would suit these future changes must be created. Employee Characteristics Operations management has been based on techniques. These techniques establish management as a system wherein humans are classified as input, thus building a methodical system of man and machine or, in simple term, a factory. Even though behavioural scholars of the latter part of the last century recommended changes to this system by underlining human variations, unfortunately, they too became preoccupied with frameworks and structures and classified human behaviour and the systematised management feedback in each instance (Probst, Raub & Romhardt 2000). Traditionally, management supports everything on uniformity. For functional reasons required for the enforcement of regulations and for the benefit of minimalism, it does not recognise the presence of distinctive variations among humans in their behaviour or physical abilities. This principle functioned until the second half of the twentieth century (Thierauf 1999). Afterwards, when it turned out to be important to integrate minorities and women in the workplace, this uniformity principle had to be loosened to some extent. Large-scale variations in the human factor of the work organisation were recognised and permitted to coexist but merely as secondary to these similarities. Nonetheless, they disregarded the premise of absolute commonality among individuals. Organisations broke new ground from psychology in grasping these variations and in taking advantage of them for boosting their organisational performance. It was mainly effective for the latter part of the last century (Probst et al. 2000). On the other hand, in knowledge organisations, merely concentrating on human variations grounded on demographics of psychographics will not help them attain absolute input from their human resources. Every premise of commonality among knowledge organisation employees is evidently one-dimensional and at odds with the realities of the future batch of employees and must be disregarded in the priority list of organisations. Knowledge organisations must regard every employee as distinctively and exceptionally multifaceted and acknowledge that there are no similar patterns apart from a small number of fundamental physiological aspects (Chatzkel 2003). Managers of knowledge organisations must believe that the distinctiveness of each individual will become very well-known that theorising or standardising it will lead to deficiency in the use of one's capabilities. Managers of knowledge organisations must gain knowledge on how to match job and organisational objectives into individual employee needs. In the perspective of a knowledge organisation, the notion of organisation assumes a completely new significance. A knowledge organisation is not an assortment of individuals working harmoniously to realise objectives determined by others. It is a collection of individuals with varied individual objectives working harmoniously to attain the realisation of their own objectives making use of the organisation as a medium. In this practice, they permit the organisation they are working for, and other individuals working with them, the capacity to realise their goals (Debowski 2006). The main objective of employees of knowledge organisations must not be the attainment of the goals of the organisations but the accomplishment of their own objectives. A knowledge organisation will only function if an overlap is present; otherwise this affiliation of knowledge organisation and employees will disintegrate (Skyme 2003). In this respect, knowledge organisations initiate a significant withdrawal from the operating organisations. A Shift from Group to Self Until the workplace period started, both in Western and Eastern civilisations, humans highly prioritised family, community and the larger society. In the workplace period, work and organisation become salient for employees. Their superiors and their work behaviour satisfaction took precedence in the lives of the employees. Their families were merely second priority, particularly in the West. Removed from the top priority list were communities and society. This realignment of human priorities furnished organisations and their superiors the most influence and authority over their subordinates. Employees virtually worked and lived under the organisation's and its superior's forbearance (Thompson, Levine & Messick 1999). Knowledge organisations are readjusting all this. Employees of knowledge organisations are directed by a new primary concern; the most vital element to an employee of knowledge organisation is his/her uniqueness or individuality. Other people or things are less important, be it family, work, manager, organisation, community or society. Employees of knowledge organisation tolerate things that complement their vision or are viewed by them as satisfying their needs. They exert great physical and mental effort into attaining self-satisfaction. On the contrary, persons or things that do not aid them in fulfilling this will be disregarded, and motivating factors will become incapable in realising the projected purpose (Thompson et al. 1999). Any group will fall short in exerting sufficient energy necessary to change their motivation in this regard. Hence, a manager of knowledge organisation should first identify and value needs and motivators of each individual employee and afterwards try to deal with them separate of other work-related aspects. Knowledge work sparsely contains elements that can be examined or regularly monitored (Thierauf 1999). Hence, in order to sustain the motivation of knowledge workers, it is important that the common prospects for personal growth and professional development that have been furnished customarily only to superiors or other major personnel in business organisations, be given to everyone in a knowledge organisation. A knowledge organisation should enable knowledge employees to plan their work in a manner that suits or interests them, and it must demonstrate a work context that is organise by the individual whose work it is. Trend of Knowledge Work The adjustments in human behaviour generally and the work behaviour particularly that are anticipated during the near future are not just a challenge to knowledge organisations, but also on every organisation. These adjustments are a global trend. Such transformations in human behaviour have been discovered in dwellers of the Amazon forests, the far-flung Himalayas, the communities of New Jersey, and the inner-cities of London. Due to the fact that knowledge organisations are acquiring their employees across the globe, and specifically from preferred developing countries, it is essential that they recognise and comprehend these changes. In reality, the scale of behavioural adjustment that is taking place in 'traditional' societies is far greater than in the highly developed civilisations (Thierauf 1999). The work needs and requirements of knowledge organisations have developed into an international generation of employees with a global culture. Every occupation in a knowledge organisation must be planned and directed by the reality that all knowledge job is mental work. Hence, a work that is inadequately intellectual will not help in the performance of knowledge work. Such occupations must not be permitted in a knowledge organisation. In theory, that is the requirement for the selection of work position for direct addition in a knowledge organisation. Other operational, routine, and support tasks must be allowed in a knowledge organisation as long as they demand, at least for half of their overall work time, an endeavour that is inherently intellectual (Hariharan 2005). Even jobs in knowledge organisation that are categorised as 'physical' or 'manual' must oblige creativity, decision-making, analysis and other intellectual capabilities that were ordinarily required for the white-collar employments of the last century. There must be no physical employments in knowledge organisations (Chatzkel 2003). Basically for the sake of the continued existence of their organisations, organisation managers must revisit job assignments, tasks and processes in a regular basis to ascertain that each work task has an important innovation element in it. Preferably, each job must be filled with an intellectual element. All activities in a knowledge organisation work must be intellectual. A knowledge organisation has to promote and allow revolutionary adjustments unlike the Japanese management practice 'kaizen' that realises success through multitudes of organisational, micro enhancements in product or service design, adjustment, and distribution practices. Kaizen functioned effectively for operating organisations because it assisted them in upgrading their products and services through improved quality, a little improved functionality, or better customer service. The case is different in knowledge organisations. They will find it difficult to survive by initiating minor improvements. Their survival rests in enormous, just-in-time, innovative changes, regardless of which they impinge on, their own organisation or that of their contenders (Akhavan et al. 2005). The future of knowledge organisations rests in formulating new and ground-breaking products and/or services; developing innovative, well-organised adjustment and maintenance mechanisms; and setting up inimitable strategies of getting these products and/or services to markets and consumers. The maxim "innovate or perish" (Akhavan et al. 2005: para 2) is highly valid for knowledge organisations. Innovation will facilitate the survival of knowledge organisations in numerous forms. It can take the form of management of product design and processes and individually motivated personnel. At this point, previous innovation will be referred to as hard innovation, and the latter is soft innovation. New product, tools, machine and processes innovation are all cases of hard innovations. This form of innovation is extremely vital, but similarly or even more vital is soft innovation. Soft innovation requires creating new techniques to supervise all organisational inputs; however, the foremost must be human resources. It necessitates an understanding of behaviour, intellect, and sociology of individuals through whom the achievement of organisational objectives will emanate from (Chandran & Raman 2009). As mentioned previously, since every person in a knowledge organisation is distinctive, managers should be inventive in obtaining performance that will constantly help in the achievement of the goals of the organisations. Future managers should be exceptional soft innovators so as to be successful. A fundamental premise orienting the planning and management of knowledge organisation is that the process of innovation is the engaging competitive leverage for its success, and to gain competitive leverage, management should conform to a practice that will generate mutual relationship between employers and employees. Such symbiotic relationship is produced through functioning human reciprocity, which builds up a management structure that imitates connections that are in equivalence with fundamental human nature: "How much mutualism an organisation has to practice for its success depends on how much a knowledge organisation it is in comparison to its competitors, its position in its industry, and how far and how soon it wants to be a full-fledged knowledge organisation" (Chandran & Raman 2009: 156). Challenges in Embedded Knowledge and Information Systems As claimed by Hsiu (2004), unconstructive influences from individuals, processes and competitors could take place in the process of knowledge transfer and these challenges are complicated to be detected. Organisations should exert considerable efforts to cope with such challenges so as to smooth the progress of the building and performance of its knowledge management system. The investigation of De Long (2000) reports that organisational culture has a direct relationship with knowledge management; the study, through empirical investigation, forcefully advocates the idea that particular culture types do have an effect on the operation of knowledge management. Organisations that have a substantial awareness of the types of their organisational culture can devise purposefully and make knowledgeable decisions on the form of knowledge management programmes to utilise (Dyer 2000). In contrast, Skyme (2003) is claiming that knowledge management is the clear, open and methodical management of essential knowledge and its related mechanisms of constructing, collecting, organising, transmission, utilisation and development. It necessitates transforming individual knowledge into organisational knowledge that can be broadly disseminated throughout an organisation and properly used. This argument is further advocated by Hariharan (2005) by categorising the knowledge management's accomplishment into four backbones that will sustain the knowledge management programmes. The 'backbones' are culture, leadership and people, KM technology and process. If these 'backbones' are not present, knowledge management will merely happen to be a fleeting trend to these organisations (Chun & Montealegre 2007). Debowski (2006), in a more recent investigation, claimed that "Core values are those values which are believed to be essential to the organisation's growth and achievement of its goals; the desired core values in the knowledge and community need to be identified, encouraged and monitored" (Chandran & Raman 2009: 158). Organisational knowledge is composed of 'explicit', such as rules and regulations, routines, recorded ideas, and 'tacit', such as expertise, relationships and experience, knowledge (Thierauf 1999). Kogut and Zander (1996) highlighted the strategic value of knowledge as a foundation of leverage and launched the groundwork for a rising knowledge-based view (KBV) of organisations. This perspective transcends the long-established notion of knowledge as an asset that can take on an explicit or tacit form. Organisational knowledge is context-specific, thus creating a tricky challenge for any organisation trying to successfully build, synchronise, and exploit knowledge to reinforce an advantage. Scholars have discovered that what organisations do better than markets is to build and disseminate knowledge within the organisation. This perspective maintains that know-what and know-how are possessed by individuals, and is implanted in the organising philosophies by which individuals work together within an organisational setting. Thus, as long as knowledge is inimitable and reliant of present capacities and individuals in an organisation, it can form the foundation of continuous competitive leverage (Chatzkel 2003). The KBV claims that the foundation of competitive leverage in productive settings is not knowledge that is owned by the organisation, for the reason that the functionality of such knowledge wears away rapidly because of obsoleteness and replication. Instead, continuous competitive advantage is established by free knowledge in the shape of individual tacit knowledge (Kogut & Zander 1996). Nevertheless, since an organisations' decisions and activities normally necessitate the fusion of a broad range of expert knowledge that dwells in individuals, organisational potentials are imperative to the attainment of that advantage. Particularly, the heart of organisations is their capability to assimilate individual expert knowledge and use it to design new products and/or services. In this point of view, knowledge is related to a process occurrence of knowing that is evidently affected by the cultural and social contexts in which it takes place. Current researches on KBV of the organisation propose that external and internal motivations compel organisations to adjust the means in which knowledge is structured (Dyer 2000). Still, knowledge is not owned by organisations, but held by individuals, a crucial component of continuous competitive advantage is the capability to assimilate individuals' expert and tacit knowledge. Nonetheless, the challenge of disseminating knowledge and the tacit character of knowledge render it problematic for organisations to transform how knowledge is structure or assimilated. One basis of these incongruities originates from the way in which knowledge and information system grows to be socially embedded. The literature describes social embedded as "the manner in which the social actions and experiences of the firm-such as industry regulations, alliances and organisational culture-influence how it develops and manages its information system and knowledge" (Chun & Montealegre 2007: 39). Important aspects of social embedded knowledge and information system are (1) knowledge organisation; (2) routines of knowledge; (3) attainment and transfer of knowledge; (4) and dissemination of knowledge (Chun & Montealegre 2007: 39-40). These aspects contain inherent problems or challenges to the building and implementation of knowledge management systems. Knowledge Organisation The 'organisation of knowledge' is commonly described as the "way a firm distributes, uses, coordinates, communicates, transfers, and structures knowledge" (Thompson et al. 1999: 12). Provided that each organisation contends in a unique setting and makes use of various sets of knowledge drawn from a range of social contexts, the organisation of knowledge differs among organisations and develops to be socially embedded. Variations in socially embedded knowledge and information system create challenges for organisations when they try to transfer, disseminate and assimilate knowledge within and outside the organisation (Chun & Montealegre 2007). Routines of Knowledge Routines are "forms, rules, procedures, conventions, strategies and technologies around which organisations are constructed and through which they operate" (Chun & Montealegre 2007: 40). These routines simplify for organisations and individuals the implementation and reproduction of consistent and well-organised tasks within and all over various levels of organisation. Individuals and organisations also make use of routines to construct and sustain secure and established patterns of behaviour that typify their response to external or internal motivations. Routines of an organisation are context-specific and of minor application outside of the situation for which they were built (Debowski 2006). Thus, organisations distinctively construct and make use of routines to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Scholars have claimed that routines can also be the spring of an organisation's central inflexibilities. In the setting of rapidly evolving market contexts rigid routines can impede the resiliency and creativity of individuals within the organisation, when it disallows them from straying and adjusting their decisions and activities from the organisation specified initiatives and processes (Bartczak 2002). While making a decision to employ routines, organisations should continuously deal with the unstable and fragile balance between maintaining a competitive advantage or adding to central inflexibilities. Attainment and Transfer of Knowledge The literature indicates that organisations should be able to immediately obtain, draw out, utilise and disseminate knowledge, so as to increase value to the organisation. The literature on KBV conceives that the assimilation of knowledge through the reintegration and transmission of knowledge is a basic mechanism by which organisations acquire the gains of knowledge and in so doing generate an advantage. The capability in attaining or transferring knowledge relies on the extent to which the knowledge is structured and incorporated (Kogut & Zander 1996). On one hand, firmly incorporated knowledge furnishes workers with access to a wide-ranging group of the organisation's knowledge. Organisations that firmly assimilate knowledge provide their personnel with the capacity to quickly understand a wide-ranging group of relationships among the differing sources of knowledge (Akhavan et al. 2005). Nevertheless, firmly integrated knowledge can at times be challenging for organisations due to the fact that its inflexible integration forbids workers from grasping how to restructure and reintegrate the required knowledge assets to respond to market developments. Organisations that vie in highly competitive and dynamic markets commonly favour loosely assimilated knowledge, as it helps them in their capacity to immediately obtain, utilise and disseminate knowledge so as to increase the value of the organisation (Probst et al. 2000). An illustration of freely structured knowledge is an organisation's application of diverse and independent information systems and uses that carry out separate tasks within different divisions of an organisation. Dissemination of Knowledge Dissemination of knowledge refers to "the extent to which knowledge is or is not tightly held, self-contained, and located in the minds of individuals" (Chun & Montealegre 2007: 41) Galunic and Rodan (1998) speculated that knowledge dissemination affects the flow of knowledge all over the organisation due to the fact that it influences how employees acquire, hold, and transmit knowledge. Arrow (1974) claimed that, "the centralisation of decision making, serves to economise the transmission and handling of knowledge" (p. 69). Alternatively, if knowledge is diffused, it commonly dwells in collective arrangements of interactions between employees of an organisation. Dispersion does not imply that knowledge is broadly disseminated, as clarified by Galunic and Rodan (1998): "A picture on a jigsaw puzzle is distributed when each person receives a photocopy of the picture. The same image would only be dispersed when each of the pieces is given to different person" (p. 1196). Disseminated knowledge is normally valuable for organisations contending in several and varied market sectors since it enables employees the resiliency to structure and utilise knowledge in accordance to the market- or business-specific prospects or risks. Nonetheless, disseminated knowledge can be challenging for individuals and groups when its presence or position could not be readily determined or accessible. On the other hand, a number of organisations have a tendency to prefer knowledge that is structured at a vital position for the reason that it furnishes a centralised position for workers to access, utilise and amass an integrated set of organisational knowledge (Thompson et al. 1999). Failure Causes of Knowledge Management Systems Leading government and business organisations, such as the IBM Institute for Knowledge-Based Organisations has enumerated several fundamental barricades that organisations normally confront when building and enforcing knowledge management initiatives. These barricades are (Fontain & Lesser 2002, 2-5): 1) Failure to align knowledge management efforts with the organisation's strategic objectives; 2) Creation of repositories without addressing the need to manage content; 3) Failure to understand and connect knowledge management into individuals' daily work activities; 4) An overemphasis on formal learning efforts as a mechanism for sharing knowledge; 5) and, Focusing knowledge management efforts only within organisational boundaries. Even though these are not intended to be a comprehensive specifications, they signifies concerns that can impede the success of a knowledge management initiative, estimating organisational resources such as time, effort, money, and possibly, most crucially, their capacity to influence significant business outcomes (Akhavan et al. 2005). The major failure causes of building and implementation of knowledge management system are: (1) lack of familiarity of top management with dimensions of KM and its requirement; (2) selecting an unsophisticated and inexperienced person for leading KM team; (3) improper selection of knowledge team members; (4) wrong planning and improper forecasting for the project; (5) lack of separate budget for knowledge management project; (6) organisational culture; (7) lack of support and commitment of top management; (8) resistance against the change; (9) inability of KM team for distinguishing organisational relations; and (10) nonconformities between current systems and new systems (Akhavan et al. 2005: para 27-28). The greatest challenge confronting knowledge management system today is the presence of these failure causes. The survival of knowledge organisations clearly rests on their ability to turn these failure causes into something useful and favourable to individuals and organisations. Conclusions It is indeed true that knowledge is power, specifically in the contemporary period. That is the reason different forms of organisations are attempting to understand what their employees and customers want and how to satisfy these needs in a highly competitive market. No matter how it is referred to, as cooperation, decision making, knowledge management and others, it is the foundation that is sustaining present organisational techniques. The management of the knowledge asset of the organisation has turn out to be quite essential in the knowledge-based society. Private and public organisations alike acknowledge the importance of being successful learning organisations and hence there is an increasing demand for people who have the necessary experience and knowledge in the knowledge management position. Knowledge management is not an easy task; it is loaded with problems or challenges that managers of knowledge organisation should learn to deal with. Knowledge management entails a new working setting in which experience and knowledge can readily be transmitted and also requires knowledge and information to surface and flow to capable individuals so they can respond and act more resourcefully and proficiently. Knowledge management also requires a methodical, goal directed use of strategies to guide and manage the intangible and concrete knowledge resources of organisations, with the intention of exploiting present knowledge within and outside of these organisations to allow the construction of novel knowledge, and engender innovation, enhancement and value from it. References Akhavan, P., Jafari, M. & Fathian, M. (2005) Exploring Failure-Factors of Implementing Knowledge Management Systems in Organizations. Journal of Knowledge Management Practice . Arrow, K. (1974). The Limits of Organisation. New York: Norton and Co. Bartczak, S. (2002). Identifying Barriers to Knowledge Management in the United States Military. DAI-A , 63 (11). 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