Knowledge Management Strategies - Essay Example

Knowledge Transfer Literature Review al Affiliation: Knowledge Transfer Literature Review Definition of Knowledge Knowledge is defined as the perceptual experience of the agreement or disagreement amongst two or more ideas. Human beings have sensory organs that will produce ideas of sensation when stimulated and in turn the sensation directs the mind to produce ideas of reflection. Ideas make up knowledge, and it comes into the human mind through reflection of the senses. Knowledge is limited to ideas and one’s knowledge cannot exceed their ideas. Knowledge is made up of ideas that can be either simple or complex (Quintas, Lefrere, & Jones, 1997). Simple ideas are one-sided views about something while complex ideas are made from a combination of simple ideas on the subject. Simple ideas are the building blocks of knowledge and the difference in knowledge between people is determined by the number of simple ideas one has. Knowledge can be divided into three groups, intuitive knowledge, demonstrative knowledge and sensitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge entails the ability to recognize the agreement or disagreement of ideas, and it results into perfect certainty. This kind of knowledge is seldomly available to a human being since the person in possession of it is very sure and certain about his arguments (Quintas, Lefrere, & Jones, 1997). Demonstrative knowledge is the perception of agreement or disagreement through a series of simple ideas. For example, a person may know that mathematics is difficult than English and English is difficult that geography and hence they immediately know that mathematics is difficult than geography. Demonstrative knowledge is backed up by having very many simple ideas and relating them in order to come up with conclusions. Sensitive knowledge is caused by the ability to use body senses and have an idea of something even if the cause is unknown to the person. An example of such occasion is when one knows that there is a sweet smell, but they don’t know what’s causing it. Knowledge can also be defined as the relationship between mental objects in the mind of a conceptualizer who is an intelligent human being (Simonin, 2004). Knowledge is hence subjective and must not necessarily have any absolute meaning. Knowledge can also be defined as the intellectual patterns that lead to the existence of external reality. Knowledge differs between many people since it is what an individual’s mind accepts as true, and it gives that individual the ability to distinguish true from none-true. Knowledge about something is not always true since every individual has their mental certainty, and there is always a possibility of coincidental correctness and certainty based on erroneous reasoning (Svensson, 2000). Knowledge involves familiarity, operation and distinction and the combination of all the three factors makeup true knowledge. Knowledge is classified into two major groups which are explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (Anaya, 2012). It can further be divided into other types of knowledge which are empirical knowledge, philosophical knowledge, theological knowledge, historical knowledge and experimental knowledge (Anaya, 2012). Empirical knowledge is based on scientific studies and is acquired through sensory experience. Theological knowledge is the information, or reasoning one has based on their religious beliefs. Philosophical knowledge is one that one attains as a result of critical reasoning and has proof of the truth based on experiments. Historical knowledge is obtained from past activities, and it guides a person to making decision based on a past experience. Experimental knowledge is based on practice and experiences that a person has gone through. The level of knowledge exists in three levels which are immediate knowledge, rational knowledge and categorical knowledge. Immediate knowledge is that knowledge that true to everyone and there is no reasoning required to have it (Alavi, & Leidner, 2001). Categorical knowledge is that which the mind compares two experiences and makes up a decision. Rational knowledge is that which a person gets after believing proofing something is true after a long period of believing it is untrue. Rational knowledge is characterized with limitless certainty and the person possessing it is affirmed it is true and cannot be convinced otherwise. An example is when a person is told that there are lions in certain forest, and they at first don’t believe it, but they later believe it after being in the forest, and having an experience with the lions. Knowledge is the acquaintance of facts, ideas, arguments and principles from a study or an investigation (Alavi, & Leidner, 2001). It is also the familiarity and conversance of a person’s mind in a learning subject. Knowledge is subject to change since over time new inventions and discoveries are made, and they encompass knowledge. The evolvement of a human being also changes their perception and understanding of various thongs and hence their knowledge on different subjects keeps changing with time. Definitions of knowledge are subject to criticism, and no definition can stand by its own since knowledge is wide and entails a lot of things that cannot be described in a single definition (Svensson, 2000). Knowledge management Knowledge management is defined as the strategies put in place to ascertain that information is captured and shared so that performance and competitiveness are maintained (Alavi, & Leidner, 2001). It is described as a process of ensuring that people capture, distribute and use knowledge effectively. Knowledge management involves promoting an integrated approach towards apprehending, appraising, retrieving and distributing information. Information could be stored in documents, academic books, policies, expertise or policies and procedures. Knowledge management is important since occasionally; disciplines and organizations borrow knowledge from one another and hence the knowledge passed and distributed should be worthwhile. Knowledge management is crucial since it focuses on eliminating the existence of a knowledge gap. It ensures that people in a career have a lot of information, and they pass the information to other new entrants into the career. Effective Passing of knowledge ensures that knowledge is accumulated and hence better productivity is guaranteed (Wiig, 1997). Knowledge management can be done using technology-based systems or softer systems depending on the prevailing situation. Technology based systems involve programs and databases whereby an organization or institution operates an intranet that one can access and add information. Technology based systems are faced by the challenge of having the right person to update an ascertain information posted in the database. Softer systems involve sharing knowledge through meetings and organized forums. This allows people to connect and share information and hence improve one another. Effective knowledge management systems focus on ensuring that the group being managed is controllable and that every person is free to share information (Quintas, Lefrere, & Jones, 1997). However, a good management system should implement both softer systems and technology based systems so that explicit and tacit knowledge is combined (Earl, 2001). Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Dimensions Explicit knowledge is the information that one can easily pass to another person without necessarily documenting it (Cavusgil, Calantone & Zhao, 2003). It is easy to identify, collect and retrieve and is easily managed. Explicit knowledge is simple in nature and is considered as less important by most theoreticians. It does not have rich experience since it is based on know-how that generates a competitive advantage. Explicit knowledge is codified and is transmitted in formal and systematic languages. Explicit knowledge can either be discrete or digital, and captured records are accessed on a sequential basis. It is stored in archives, databases and libraries and can be words or numbers that create meaning (Cavusgil, Calantone & Zhao, 2003). Most scholars consider general knowledge as explicit knowledge due to its nature of being readily transmitted between individuals. It is generated via logical deductions and experience Tacit knowledge refers to intuitive knowledge that not easily explained in words, and it is founded on long-term experience. It is the subconscious awareness that a person has on certain issues or a specific subject. In an act of tacit knowing, a person attends from the proximal terms to the distal term (Smith, 2001). An example is where a person playing a guitar concentrates more on the music that what the hands are doing since they already have tacit knowledge on playing the guitar. Tacit knowledge is important since it leads to high standard performance. Most organization will look for people with tacit knowledge since they perform better in terms of quality of output. Knowledge management systems find it hard to handle tacit knowledge since the tacit knowledge holder cannot codify the skills or information they have (Cavusgil, Calantone & Zhao, 2003). For example, reading facial expression is a form of tacit knowledge, and it is difficult to teach someone how to read facial expressions. Tacit knowledge is in the form of cultural beliefs attitudes, skills, and capabilities and the holder cannot describe it easily. Tacit knowledge is only transferred through understanding the subject knowledge and interacting with the knowledge holder to build up a better understanding. It cannot be acquired unless one has practical experience of the context. Tacit knowledge is personal and is no easily aggregated since it increases with more involvement and understanding of the subject (Herschel, Nemati, & Steiger, 2001). Knowledge transfer Knowledge transfer is the process by which information is passed from one institution to another or from one coeval to the other (Jasimuddin & Zhang, 2009). Knowledge transfer poses a challenge to institutions and organization, and its importance has continually grown in the last decade. Knowledge transfer is important to learning institution since it forms academic assets. Technological changes have impacted knowledge transfer positively and hence should be utilized in transferring information from one group of people to other (Soon-Ki, Jong-Chang & Byung-Ho, 2013). Knowledge transfer is a crucial element in the education sector and must be guided by a set of policies for knowledge to be effectively transferred. Knowledge transfer can be broken down into various components and stages. It occurs systematically, and each stage/component is crucial since it determines the eventual effect. The process occurs in five stages that are, creation of ideas, sharing the ideas, evaluation the ideas, dissemination of information and eventually adoption of the final idea (Nokes, 2009). The five stages occur sequentially but are subject to change since some stages may overlap or even two stages could be combined. Each component offers crucial feedback and influences the whole process (Nokes, 2009). The first component is creating of ideas that are intended to create a pool of creative ideas. During this stage, the members of the group should ensure that the ideas presented are valid and innovative. It entails bringing together the views and opinions of different people. The second component is idea sharing and may have partly occurred in the initial component. People with similar interests come together and listen to the ideas of each other, and they scrutinize each idea (Soon-Ki, Jong-Chang & Byung-Ho, 2013). This stage creates room for evaluation of ideas and ideas can only be disseminated after all the members involved have evaluated it and passed it as valid and beneficial. Each idea should be easily interpreted by other group members. In the event involving skills, the member presenting the idea should be able to code the skills so that each member can read them. The method selected in sharing information depends on whether the knowledge is tacit or explicit. The people sharing ideas must be free with one another so that flow of information occurs smoothly ( Martin & Salomon, 2003). This stage is imperative since it determines the available information to be transferred to other people. Idea evaluation involves weighing the benefits of the presented ideas. It involves establishing the workability of information or skills and the truthfulness of the information. It can be done by researching whether such skills or information has worked in the past and evaluating its probability of working in the present (Chen, Chsiao, & Chu, 2014). Idea dissemination involves distributing the now proven ideas. This stage is crucial since too little information is not effective and too much information can create an overload and eventuate to being less useful. An example is the internet that offers too much information which at times is not beneficial or might confuse the reader. Dissemination is aimed at ensuring that the target group gets the information, and it benefits them. A good strategy in this component is concentrating the information on the target and making the information purely organizational. In the case of universities sharing information, they may come up with a forum whereby all materials from the universities are shared on one forum whose access is limited to members of the involved universities. Idea adoption is the major component of knowledge transfer since it is the stage whereby a person without the knowledge gets to have it (Peterson, & Sharma, 2003). In most cases, scholars present their ideas in complex theories than other people cannot comprehend and hence the information ends up not being adopted by the reader. The collected information should hence be presented in an easily understandable format that will facilitate the adaptability of the information by the reader (Turner, 2012). Knowledge transfer mechanisms are defined by the degree of tacitness of knowledge. In cases where knowledge is explicit (easy to code), it can be transferred using LIR mechanism and if tacit (difficult to codify) is transferred through HIR mechanisms. Tacitness of knowledge increases by degree and hence the larger the knowledge, the high the quality of HIR required. Knowledge transfer mechanisms have an element of converting all forms of knowledge to being explicit. Transfer mechanisms involve view information from the perspective of, processes, means and governance. Any transfer mechanism should, therefore, be easily communicable; the transfer tool should explicit and should be easily controlled. Good transfer mechanisms consider the ability of the recipient of the information to internalize and socialize the knowledge as opposed to externalizing and combining knowledge. For a transfer mechanism to be effective, all the recipient expectations must be considered and must personalize the information with emphasis on the knowledge that is being transferred. The relationship between the transfer mechanism and the recipient should be good so that knowledge is successfully diffused. Transfer mechanisms differ based on the kind of knowledge being transferred, the target of the information and the infrastructure available (Agrawal, 2001). The most common transfer mechanism is the media that offers platforms for knowledge exchange (Argote et al., 2000). The mode of presentation of information by the media determines how well the recipient of the information understands and applies it. Organizational training offers a platform for knowledge transfer and employees get a chance to learn from experts (Chen, Hsiao, & Chu, 2014). Project cooperation also makes people transfer knowledge between them during the process of working together. Project cooperation differs from training since the involved parties learn from one another as opposed to training where information comes from the trainer. In learning institutions mechanisms such as researches stored in libraries tools of knowledge transfer (Chen, Hsiao, & Chu, 2014). Group discussions and academic contests are mechanisms of knowledge transfer that should be monitored to ensure that they transmit knowledge effectively (Agrawal, 2001). Knowledge transfer can either lead to accumulation of information or can lead to destruction of information. Transfer of information should hence follow the correct strategies to ensure that the next generations have correct and more helpful information. Universities being institutions of higher learning should employ high-quality transfer mechanisms so that students benefit from past information and better their careers. References Agrawal, A. K. (2001). University‐to‐industry knowledge transfer: literature review and unanswered questions. International Journal of Management Reviews, 3(4), 285-302. Alavi, M., & Leidner, D. E. (2001). 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