Knowledge Management Systems Human Dimension and Organizational Culture - Essay Example

? Knowledge Management Systems – Human Dimension and Organizational Culture In the recent years knowledge management has generated a lot of interest and become a management buzz in the industry. Organizations have now realised the importance of ‘knowing what they actually know’ and making full use of that knowledge. Knowledge is distributed throughout the organization in different forms. To keep track of this knowledge and making it available to the entire organization is a major challenge for the management. But effective use of this knowledge can be vital for an organization and make a huge impact to the overall success of the company. This paper is aimed at understanding knowledge management systems. The main focus is to understand the importance of “people” dimension of knowledge management and how wrong organizational culture can lead ineffective knowledge management. The discussion of people dimension of knowledge management is built on the following statement by Randall Sellers: “The challenge is managing the people who manage the knowledge” (Turban et al., 2007). Recent theories and practices in knowledge management are discussed and examples are given to support the discussion. Knowledge Management Systems Knowledge is gained in numerous ways and in an organizations knowledge comes out of processing information available throughout the organization in the form of data. Also, employees gain knowledge in different ways (personal experiences, individual learning, etc) and this knowledge shared with the entire organization can be of great help to the whole organization. Knowledge management systems or knowledge management is the process of creating knowledge repositories, improving access to available knowledge and sharing/communicating through collaboration. It also focuses on enhancement of knowledge environment and management of knowledge as organization’s asset. Therefore, knowledge management can be best defined as the systematic actions taken by an organization or that an organization can take in order to extract the best possible value out of the knowledge available throughout the organization (Coakes, 2003). There is nothing questioning the fact that effective knowledge management leads to greater overall success of the organization. But there are many challenges that the organizations face in implementing knowledge management systems effectively. The concept of knowledge management is relatively new and the literature is still growing. One of the main challenges in knowledge management is managing the people who manage knowledge. Randall Sellers points this out brilliantly when he says that knowledge management is only 20 percent IT and the rest is change management which mainly deals with human interfaces and cultural change (Turban et al., 2007). Knowledge Management and People Dimension “The challenge is managing the people who manage the knowledge”. By this statement Randall Sellers implies that the more important task in knowledge management is not just making the knowledge available to the employees but to convince them to participate in the process of knowledge management. Employees need to be encouraged and motivated to exchange and share their ideas and experiences. The systems need to be designed in such a way that it is easy to share. Implementation of knowledge management is definitely a change process and employees are bound to offer resistance to the change. It is this management of the people (workforce) that Randall Sellers refers to in his statement (Turban et al., 2007). Knowledge Management Systems – Importance of People Even though it is believed that the human dimension is more important than technology, the current literature on knowledge management is mainly technology oriented. It is highly important to understand that technology makes it possible only to accumulate knowledge systematically and make it easily accessible. But the mechanism by which this knowledge affects the performance of the organization is through the people. It is only when people act on the available knowledge that a quantifiable impact can be witnessed. Therefore, people involvement in the knowledge management systems is vital for its success. Hence, managing the people in an organization to effectively use the knowledge is what determines the magnitude of the success of the organization (Wiig, 2004). Stressing on the above point, the performance of the organization is dependent on the knowledge-based people-actions. The effectiveness of those actions is dependent on the utilization of the knowledge to handle the particular situation (Wiig, 2004). Therefore, any knowledge management system that is not people focused has minimal chances of making a true impact on the organization’s performance. Now, we have established the fact that people play an important role in knowledge management. In the following paragraphs, the focus will shift into seeing how knowledge is created in an organization and why managing people is the primary challenge. Knowledge Management – Knowledge Creation Knowledge in an organization is created by its employees (individuals), while technology makes it possible to organise it and make it easily accessible and available to a wider audience. The pace at which new developments and discoveries are made, there is a need to continuously build on the existing knowledge else it becomes outdated and is of very less value to the organization. Intellectual capacity of an organization is what affects its ability to build on existing knowledge. This can only be done by the individuals in the organization. Hence, it is the experienced individuals in the organization who must be given the responsibility of recognising and assimilate new information sources and produce something that is innovative and unique. This will make a positive contribution to the productivity of the team and in turn the organization (Nemati & Barko, 2004). Therefore, clearly the main challenge is not just to create systems that facilitate knowledge creation but to motivate the employees to participate in the process. As stated above, it is the individuals in an organization who are the knowledge creators. It is the people who seek for the sources of knowledge, both outside and inside, and recognise its potential to be reused in such a way that it contributes to creating new and better products/services. Knowledge creators in an organization can work individually or with other knowledge creators. It is the potential of such individuals to scan the external environment for new information sources and identify individuals inside the organization who absorb this information (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Only when an atmosphere of intellectual sustenance is provided that this potential of the knowledge creators can be completely developed. Hence, it is the responsibility of the organization to identify such individuals in the organization and effectively manage them to continuously keep the ball rolling. If the organization fails to create the needed organizational atmosphere, the potential of these knowledge creators go wasted. Knowledge Management – People Management In the earlier paragraphs, we have seen how people play an important role in knowledge creation and why they need to be managed. Now let’s look at what are the challenges that the organizations face in managing people. Most importantly, the employees must be seen as organizational assets that need to be effectively managed. This organizational asset is vital in knowledge management. A primary challenge is to get the employees to participate in the knowledge management process. The process of knowledge management demands continuous participation from the employees throughout the organization. Explicit knowledge of the employees can be extracted with a systematic approach and with set rules and regulations for participation. But the greater value for the organization is in the employee’s tacit knowledge that they have in them. It is the knowledge that people have acquired by observing and learning from experience. It is the knowledge that cannot be easily documented but needs active participation (direct interaction, knowledge exchange, etc) of the employees. Organizations must encourage and motivate employees to participate in the process. It is not an easy task to do as there is no direct benefit to the employees in participating in the knowledge management process. Hence, it is up to the management of the organization to get the employees to involve themselves in knowledge management. The fact that their participation leads to greater good for the organization and in turn to them must be conveyed. The systems in place must be easy to understand and participate in. Only when the participation process is made easy that an action can be expected from the employee. Another aspect of employee participation that challenges the management of the organization is the hierarchy of the employees. Each employee can add value to knowledge creation process but this input needs to verified, analysed and approved by a senior employee before it can be passed on as valuable knowledge to the entire organization. Hence, the management needs to create a hierarchical structure or a system that looks over the process of knowledge creation and management. And this system needs to be managed effectively. Any flaws in designing this system of people can reduce the effectiveness of the whole process. The people responsible for managing others in the chain must possess leadership skills as well as the ability to judge the knowledge that is put in front of them. They also must be able to manage their subordinates and motivate them to interact within the team and other teams. They also must be able encourage their team members to actively participate in the knowledge management process. More importantly, the top management must effectively manage these leaders and motivate them to be at their best. Organizational trust is very important for knowledge sharing to be successful at different levels in the organization. Behaviour and attitude of the employees must be managed so that they trust each other and the management to share the knowledge that they have. This is only possible when there is no foul play at any level in the organization and employees are recognised and rewarded for the participation and contribution in the knowledge management process. Therefore, people at different levels have to be managed effectively in order for the knowledge management to be effective and this is the major challenge that the companies face. Examples of People Management Leading to Effective Knowledge Management Lotus development is an example of effective management of people. Lotus Notes Database is the starting point of every solution in the company. It is easy to use and all employees participate in the process as consulting the database is how a business problem is defined by the employees and the solution is approached. Also in some departments it is standard work procedure to check with other departments. Ford also has been very effective in knowledge management and the reason being the effective management of people. Management at Ford gave more than 25,000 presentations about the knowledge management systems. In all of those it never did mention about the concept of knowledge management and asked its employees to actively take part in it. Instead, it demonstrated how the new systems would benefit the employees and make their jobs, and the result was active involvement from the employees (McDermot & O'Dell, 2001). Organizational Culture Organizational culture is best defined as the pattern of assumptions that is discovered, invented or developed by a employees of an organization in the process of learning how to cope up with the problems of internal integration and external adaptation. It is the shared values and norms of the workforce which defines the behaviour and attitude of the whole workforce in general (Pfister, 2009). In simple words, organizational culture is the organizations personality. Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management Organizational culture plays a major role in effective knowledge management. It must be understood that knowledge management is a business practice and not technology. Hence, the organizational culture must facilitate knowledge creation and sharing. It is organizational culture that defines the work systems, beliefs and values of the workforce that impedes or encourages learning (creation and sharing of knowledge). An effective organizational culture is one where support and incentives are provided and encouraged exchanging knowledge. Therefore, wrong organizational culture fails to create an environment that makes knowledge exchange possible and easily accessible (Janz & Prasarnphanich, 2003). An organization will gain competitive advantage in the market only when it develops a learning culture that will utilise the available collective knowledge in the organization. A wrong organizational culture will create a negative perception among the employees with regards to work settings and how it either facilitates or hinders learning. An organizational culture where individual performance is given more value and recognition over team performance and creates negative competition among the employees will fail to encourage the employees to actively participate in knowledge sharing. This brings down the effectiveness of knowledge management (Janz & Prasarnphanich, 2003). A perfect example of the above is the organizational culture that Steve Jobs had created in Apple in the early 1980s. Steve Jobs has created a competitive environment internally between the Lisa and the Macintosh teams (Nold, 1990). This competition leads to an organizational culture that did not facilitate knowledge sharing and mutual learning. The teams competed with each other and did not indulge in knowledge sharing. This resulted in a Lisa product that failed in the market and resulted in heavy losses for the company. If the organizational culture facilitated and encouraged knowledge creation and sharing, Lisa team could have learnt from the Macintosh team and could have produced a better product. This example clearly demonstrates how wrong organizational culture can reduce the effectiveness of knowledge management as well as the organizational performance. McDermot & O'Dell (2001) in during their research have found many examples where irrespective of well designed tools and processes effective knowledge management was not possible due to the wrong organizational culture. That is the organizational culture was such that the employees believed that they already share enough, there was no support from senior managers or no confidence in the program, etc. The primary finding of their report was that a strong organizational culture is major necessity irrespective of the commitment and approach towards knowledge management. Therefore, wrong organizational culture will prove to be critical for the success of the knowledge management process. They also found out that the companies that have enjoyed greater success in knowledge management do not change the culture of the organization but design the knowledge management tools and practices to fit the organizational culture. The vice-versa of this has not been very successful and this showcases the importance of good organizational culture (McDermot & O'Dell, 2001). The following example would best demonstrate how wrong organizational culture reduces the effectiveness of the knowledge management process. Ford today has implemented numerous knowledge management practices and been successful. But in 1970s, the company’s organizational culture was not one that supported effective knowledge management. Ford had conducted intense market research and it had considerable evidence to show that there was a huge market for a minivan and new product along the lines would be very successful. But the executives in the finance department did not buy the idea and the market knowledge was outright refused. The new idea was labelled as risky and untested. But the same idea worked wonders for Chrysler. Chrysler captured the minivan market from the very beginning because its organizational culture was such that the market knowledge was accepted and supported. Now, let’s see what was wrong with Ford’s organizational culture from a knowledge management perspective. The culture at Ford allowed the executives dismiss the knowledge and findings of the market research. Any knowledge related to external environment must be debated, interpreted and formulated in a way that it can be understood by those who are not familiar with the topic. But the organizational culture did not facilitate such a process and as a result the management made a wrong decision because of their lack of the required knowledge. If the organizational culture had allowed the executives to explore the knowledge or findings in front of them, the outcome could have been different. It is the practices and norms that shape how new knowledge dynamics is treated in an organization. The organization culture at Ford, at the time, believed that in an organization knowledge comes pre-packaged, validated and would be accepted without any discord (Long, 1997). Another flaw in Ford’s organizational culture with respect to knowledge is that it believes uncertainties reduce and control increases with the increase in knowledge as it does with increase in information. But that is not the case. Therefore integrating new knowledge into an organization is only possible when existing practices and norms shaped in such a way that complexities and uncertainties are seen as a result of new knowledge. The concept of minivan created uncertainties and complexities for the management at Ford and due to their organizational culture the idea was discarded. The culture at Ford was to go for product that had lesser risk (Long, 1997). Therefore, it is clear how wring organizational culture reduces the effectiveness of knowledge management. Conclusion The paper has successfully discussed how knowledge management is all about managing the people rather than technology. Technology is only 20% while culture and people translates to the other 80% of the knowledge management process. Only when there is active involvement and participation of the employees that knowledge creation and knowledge sharing is possible. Another important factor in effective knowledge management is the organizational culture. It is the organizational culture that determines the success of the numerous knowledge management practices and tools. Only when the organizational culture facilitates a learning environment, effective knowledge management is possible. Numerous examples are given to support the argument. It can be concluded that organizational culture and people are the primary factors that affect the success of the knowledge management in an organization. References Coakes, E. (2003). Knowledge management: current issues and challenges. PA: IRM Press. Davenport, T.H. & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Janz, B.D. & Prasarnphanich, P. (2003). “Understanding the Antecedents If Effective Knowledge Management: The Importance of Knowledge Centred Culture”. Decision Sciences. 34(2). 351-384. Long, D.D. (1997). 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