Knowledge Management - Essay Example

?Knowledge Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Significance of Knowledge Management in the Organisational Context 4 Effects of Wrong Organisational Culture on Knowledge Management 10 Conclusion 12 References 13 Introduction Knowledge has emerged to be one of the crucial driving forces for the modern day business organisations. The organisations are increasingly recognising the significant benefits that can be leveraged through proper management of knowledge. Knowledge management has been a crucial component of sustaining as well as improving the competitiveness for an organisation. Knowledge management is concerned with augmenting the use of organisational based knowledge through appropriate correlation of organisational learning and information management (Wong, 2005). Knowledge management is not an updated hypothesis but is established on the basis of obligations of the organizations or the businesses. As organizations revolutionize at high pace with the improvement of technology, it affects the information availability and advancement in culture, which compels the necessity for controlling the inherent intelligence and proficiency of individuals (Asian Foundation, 2008). Knowledge management is the transmission of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and sharing it within the business organization. The main underlying concept of knowledge management is the effectiveness within the organizations to apprehend the knowledge which is analytical to them to improve it and make it accessible in most convincing manner to those people, who require it. Knowledge management is a technique through which organizations accomplish integrity from their inventive and intelligence based assets. The main perspectives of knowledge management are information management and people management. Most managers are well acquainted with the term, ‘information management’. This process widely became advanced and popular when the employees identified that information is the most evident source of supply that should be controlled to enhance the company’s assertiveness. A significant component of knowledge management is the management of people. Normally, it includes the tracking of the tacit knowledge present inside the individuals. In order to efficiently control people who comprise the desired tacit knowledge, it is fundamental to take into consideration their cultural and social values, likings and dislikings, feelings and eagerness’s for creating new knowledge (Asian Foundation, 2008). The paper includes the recognition and analysis of knowledge management as a crucial component in organisational progression and also the importance of managing the people who deal with managing knowledge in the organization as well as the effect of wrong culture on reducing the effectiveness of knowledge management. Significance of Knowledge Management in the Organisational Context Knowledge management is one of the most critical arguments in this world of globalization. It is famous both in the industry and the information research world. In reality, an individual deals with huge amount of data and information but these do not become knowledge unless certain value is found out of it. For this reason, knowledge management is required. Knowledge management deals with the processes of acquiring, creating and sharing knowledge and cultural and technical justifications that can substantiate them. Knowledge management is the collection of numerous technologies of information that are used to simplify the gathering, organizing, alteration and transformation of knowledge among employees. Knowledge management has both benefits as well as limitations. The various advantages are focused in a brief way. In every organization, there is need to find the specific knowledge which can be utilized by individual’s for future requirements. This would rather help to gain more knowledge in a short time frame. Besides, the other crucial aspect is the ability of all individual employees to use the organization’s knowledge and experiences in their own way so that it can be helpful in the path of life. Moreover, another significant point of concern is availability of the knowledge, at exact time and in right manner so that it can be transmitted according to the needs. Thus, knowledge management enables an organisation to gather required information for reference in any point of time by any employee. In spite of having various benefits, Knowledge management has a few limitations as well. Among them include the inabilities of the knowledge management to secure the proposed outcomes of the performance (Asian Foundation, 2008). According to Drucker, (1999), the most vital attribute of 21st century is to enhance the potency of the working information as well as knowledge worker. This is today’s market demand of engrossing competition. The prime urge of modern organizations is the commitment to find out the best ability and the authority level to gain ascendancy. In the author’s view, information and knowledge allocation are the outgoing resources of an information system in an organization. Knowledge is the most efficient resource of an organization. This entails to implementation of efficient knowledge management at every level, for individuals and for groups and in every sphere of the world. According to him, knowledge management has certain positive as well as negative aspects. Moreover, wrong identification of perfect knowledge, is another benefit which emphasizes on analyzing the exact need of knowledge by the worker for the future growth. It is necessary for the employees or workers to notice the accurate need of knowledge which would further assist in achievement of right information and future growth. But, knowledge management comprises of certain drawbacks as well. As there are huge number of individuals who are incompetent to make use of automated machine together with knowledge, so the path of knowledge management has become retarded. According to Drucker, it is one of the most detrimental facts of this century for effective knowledge management. Apart from this the other emphasized fact is that there is inability of a worker to handle the automatic machines due to which the expected outburst of knowledge is not delivered at the right time. However, knowledge management is believed as an innovative idea to create and improve the future base of knowledge in the organization. Drucker further states that knowledge management can become operative only if it can provide a new progressive and uninterrupted idea that would enhance the organizational learning and innovation to make an impact in this century (Drucker, 1999). Knowledge management is an ongoing process which is experiencing an evolution from early 1990’s and is going on still now. According to Senge, (2002), knowledge management is evolved with huge expectations of promotion of new ideas, engineering and business processes to mark a new era in world of knowledge. He believes that the knowledge is not an object that can be cramped to human brains. It is a process which has a continuous flow and appears during interaction and acquaintance with individuals and gets transferred from one to another. In this way, the flow of knowledge remains continuous which reaches every level of organizations to every individual in exact time. But, due to unskilled and unqualified individuals, it remains unacessed in this era of globalization and automation. Due to inefficiency of the mass, the path of knowledge becomes impaired. In spite of the barriers mentioned above, the knowledge management is believed to make a revolutionary or noticeable change at all levels of knowledge (Senge, 2002). Challenge of Managing the People Who Manage Knowledge- Analysis According to Daghfous, (2003), knowledge and management are the most vital ingredients of a firm’s performance and image. Thus, preparation of knowledge management as well as the individuals managing those who are the core resources of an organisation is necessary to make it advantageous in this competitive world. Knowledge can be both of explicit and tacit in manner. Explicit knowledge signifies which can be easily distributed to one another whereas tacit knowledge is the individual knowledge present in human brain and is difficult to codify. Knowledge management is a sequence of processes that tackles and manages the creativity, the distribution and the leveraging of knowledge flow in organizations for the purpose that right knowledge is present with the right individual at exact time in such a way that benefits timely decision making. This is the main aim of knowledge management which helps to acquire, store and codify exact knowledge. But unfortunately, due to inability of certain individuals to use the automated machines to access the exact information at exact time, both the paths of knowledge management and the employee become impaired. As knowledge is not used timely, so the expected results are also delayed. In the era of automation, structured knowledge required for different purposes remains unused and unshared due to incompetency to run the automated machines like internets, which ultimately delay the outcomes of expected performance. This generally happens as a result of poor educational background of an employee and his inability to absorb and utilize the knowledge (Daghfous, 2003). According to Malhotra, (2005), knowledge management is not an innovated concept in information system practice and research development but it has experienced rapid changes through generation after generation. Knowledge management and the challenge of managing the employees are the process of continuous improvement and collection of organized, classified and disseminated information throughout an organization in order to make it useful as well as accessible to all individual employees. According to author, knowledge should be delivered or distributed to right person at right time, so that it can be utilized by the employee needing it. Only then the effectiveness of knowledge management and those who tackles it in the organization would increase. Moreover, knowledge cannot be stored; it gets transferred from one to another. In this way, it gets distributed at all levels of organizations, communities and individuals in such a way so that it can be utilized by anybody who has the requirements. This inefficiency in employee skill management impairs the organizational growth as well. Furthermore, it loses its ability to produce its desired results in exact time (Malhotra, 2005). According to Sierhuis & Clancey (n.d.), the knowledge management means ability to manage the knowledge. This term came in to use after analyzing the benefits of information and automated techniques which are useful for improving the knowledge as well as the employees managing the knowledge. According to the author, knowledge is an asset of the organization which is to be managed by using various techniques and methods to make it useful for the individuals using it. Knowledge planning is required for interpretation of the requirement of knowledge in future. Moreover, knowledge is a technology which implies application of techniques in order to make the field of knowledge more specific so that the employees can become skilled to use it through automated technologies. This is required to improve the basis of knowledge in the organization. However, due to certain underlying defects, the knowledge management and the knowledge managing individuals have to hold back its path. Apart from this, knowledge management loses its ability to provide exact information in right time for the use of individuals. Moreover, the knowledge management and the managing employees are believed to enhance their skills and information extracting techniques to make the process of knowledge management much more successful in organizations (Sierhuis & Clancey, n.d.). The success of knowledge management lies on the person who manages it. The knowledge managers in turn depend on certain factors such as technology, culture, employee satisfaction, training, efficient company resource, employee behaviour and communication. Among these employee behaviour is taken as an example, to explain the problem, which arises in handling the individuals who manage knowledge. Employee behaviour is a tacit knowledge present in humans like selfishness. Due to this characteristic, a person might not want to share the exact information with the other employees due to dissatisfaction in the job, lack of leadership quality, lack of basic knowledge, and restricted communication problem among others. Employee behaviour is a characteristic of an individual which restricts him/her to distribute the information so that it can be utilized when required by others. This behavioural trait has to be taken into consideration to meet the challenge of both knowledge management and those who manage it (Sierhuis & Clancey, n.d.). In this context, in Siemens, the use of ShareNet became more efficient source for management of knowledge in the organisation. It is a website which allows the employees to accumulate online information which can be further utilized by people. This website has ultimately enhanced the knowledge of the employees of the organisation. Effects of Wrong Organisational Culture on Knowledge Management Today, in the world of globalization, the main emphasis of management practices is to develop new talents and knowledge. Global economy, in present day’s context is bestowed with knowledge individuals involved in research, innovation, and knowledge creation. Knowledge management is a systematic and ongoing process of collecting, creating, reserving and sharing and diffusing knowledge by individuals for achieving organization goals (International Journal of E-Collaboration, 2006). Organizations are influenced by socio-cultural context, so, culture in any organization is also counted as one of the assets. Organizational culture contains behaviours, actions and values that employees of organization are expected to follow and share. Organizational culture is a concept which facilitate in organizational change management. Implementation and effectiveness of knowledge management also depends upon a supportive culture which encourages implementation of it. Now days, in an organization, there is diversity of workforce and culture. Differences in culture affect the management practices as well. Organization culture is a series of shared values which facilitates employees to understand the functioning of the organization, structure and their thinking. Different types of culture prevail in organizations, namely bureaucratic culture, innovative culture and supportive culture among others. Bureaucratic culture implies clear lines of authority, innovative culture means high risk taking cultural motives, and supportive culture means fair and friendly attitude with everyone, which facilities in knowledge creation. The efforts of knowledge management are often hindered by corporate culture and as a result it has limited impact. Culture consists of core values and beliefs that are present as tacit knowledge, which determines the rules, the rituals and the timings among other factors of an organization. In turn, by using the knowledge a person tries to communicate and behave accordingly in an organization. Thus, it can be stated that, if the core values and ideas of an individual is spoiled, then it would transmit a wrong culture to the organization and effect the existing knowledge management (Wallach 1983). In this context, Wal-Mart can be taken as example which got severely criticized due certain wrong aspects in the culture of the organization. The company follows very strict rules on overtime but the regulations of the company prohibited it. It was seen that, at most of the stores, employees worked between 5 to 15 hours of overtime every week. However, as overtime was not allowed so at many times the store managers, who paid overtimes, were dismissed from the company. As overtime was not allowed, most store managers generally asked the workers to start their work, as soon as they enter or officially clocked in. This was a tactics to make them work more and pay less. At times, the managers used to lock the doors of the store to prevent the workers from leaving at exact time, which created a poor image of Wal-Mart. Not only this, at times the time cards were edited by payroll in chargers, to control expenditure on salaries. This wrong culture had a very significant impact on the knowledge management of the company and impacted on the proper growth of sharing of knowledge in a convenient manner. It has been identified that collaborative culture of an organisation plays a major role in facilitating uninterrupted growth and implementation of knowledge management, which can be hindered due to wrong culture (ICMR, 2003). Conclusion Knowledge management is one of the most evident aspects of this century and its success lies in the satisfaction, enhancement and improvement of those who manages it in the organization. This can be possible only if the employees are well aware about the technologies and modern information and can access the information at right time. This will lead to transformation of right knowledge from one another and ultimately direct towards success. In this process, supportive organisational culture plays a vital role in setting the appropriate path towards successful implementation of knowledge management. References Asian Foundation, 2008. Introduction to Knowledge Management. Asian Foundation. [Online] Available at: http://www.aseanfoundation.org/documents/knowledge_management_book.pdf [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Daghfous, A., 2003. How To Make Knowledge Management A Firm’s Core Capability. Journal Of Knowledge Management Practice. [Online] Available at: http://www.tlainc.com/articl54.htm [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Drucker, P. F., 1999. Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge. California Management Review. [Online] Available at: http://rfrost.people.si.umich.edu/courses/527-1/Drucker2.pdf [Accessed November 07, 2011]. International Journal Of E-Collaboration, 2006. The Role Of Culture In Knowledge Management. Case Study. [Online] Available at: http://www.ehealthstrategies.com/files/KM_culture.pdf [Accessed November 07, 2011]. ICMR, 2003. The Good and Bad of Wal_Mart Culture. The Darker Side of Wal_Mart Culture. [Online] Available at: http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/Good%20and%20Bad%20of%20Wal-Mart%20Culture-Human%20Resource%20Management%20Case%20Studies1.htm#The_Darker_Side_of_Walmarts_Culture [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Malhotra, Y., 2005. Integrating Knowledge Management Technologies In Organizational Business Processes: Getting Real Time Enterprises To Deliver Real Business Performance. Journal of Knowledge Management. [Online] Available at: http://km.brint.com/RealTime.htm [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Senge, P., 2002. Ingenious Peoples Knowledge. Conceptual Framework. [Online] Available at: http://i_p_k.co.za/wordpress/allowing_human_ingenuity_to_unfold/a_conceptual_framework_of_the_evolution_of_knowledge_management [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Sierhuis, M. & Clancey, W. J., No Date. Knowledge, Practice, Activities And People. Institute for Research on Learning. [Online] Available at: http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/AIKM97/sierhuis/sierhuis.html [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Wallach, E. J., 1983. Individuals And Organizations: The Cultural Match. Training and Development Journal. [Online] Available at: http://www.unc.edu/~sunnyliu/inls258/Introduction_to_Knowledge_Management.html [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Wong, K. Y., 2005. Critical Success Factors For Implementing Knowledge Management In Small And Medium Enterprises. Industrial Management & Data Systems. [Online] Available at: http://132.203.46.219/ef/Wong-2005.pdf [Accessed November 07, 2011]. Read More