Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning - Essay Example

The fundamental role of knowledge management is to extract tacit knowledge and make it available for others to use2. Explicit knowledge exists in the form of words, documents, data, computer programs or software and other explicit forms. Knowledge management involves planning, organizing, motivating and controlling of workers and arrangements in the firm to make sure that knowledge related assets are improved and effectively employed. By motivating the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge, KM initiatives help organizations embed knowledge and learning into organizational processes so that it can improve its practices and behaviors to achieve its goals.

Organizational learning helps the organization sustainably improve its utilization of knowledge. OL is the capability that enables organizations to practice the most suitable and precise management practices, structures and actions to facilitate and encourage learning. Recruitment and Selection Recruitment is the process of hiring a pool of people who are capable of working in an organization. Selection involves the use of specific instruments to choose from a pool of applicants the persons who are most likely to excel in a job relative to the management’s goals and legal requirements3. . When organizations hire workers who possess relevant knowledge, skills and aptitudes, the process plays a pivotal role in shaping an organizations effectiveness and performance.

The organization recruitment process should be modified to accommodate knowledge management practices. The most innovative organizations in knowledge management select individuals with the appropriate skills and attitudes as such employees have the ability to assimilate knowledge from various sources.4 Traditional approaches to selection may be revised to capture unpredictable knowledge flows especially in innovation projects. This is because it may be difficult to specify the requisite knowledge and expertise in advance for such projects.

The social process model of recruitment and selection derived from social psychology has been adopted by different firms. This model assumes that people change constantly in the course of their careers and that subjective self-perceptions are critical to their work motivation and performance. Self-perceptions are influenced by assessment selection procedures, and that modern jobs involve interaction, negotiation and mutual influence, which take place in multi-skilled, flexible and self-directed work teams.

5 Firms use the social model to recruit persons who are most likely to share and acquire knowledge. Some researchers have argued that traditional recruitment and selection practices obstruct knowledge sharing among groups or departments in firms organized in accordance to the functional principle. For instance, in one pharmaceutical company, the assessment centers for selection of graduates were functionally focused with sales assessment centers and marketing assessment