Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning - Essay Example

? KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING …………………. College/ ………….. …………. Introduction Knowledge management is a relatively young academic discipline, but a well established management interdisciplinary that has been in practice for years. A better understanding of the various perspectives and theoretical concepts of knowledge management can help an organization achieve high performance working and thus to enhance sustainable competitive advantage. A business organization may use various different resources, but all they can yield better results only if human resources are managed effectively. Knowledge management has recently emerged to be a successful management strategy that can help organizations manage the available human capital in the business (Noe and Hollenbeck, 2004, p. 1-3). People in the organization are most valuable assets and therefore recruiting and retaining knowledgeable, skilled, experienced and productive people have become highest priority of modern human resources management. This piece of research paper described knowledge management, as an HRM interdisciplinary and examines how it becomes relevant in today’s business landscape. This paper presents various elements that are relevant in the knowledge management process and examines various strategic perspectives as well as suitable technologies for fostering knowledge management in the business. Knowledge Management As Noe (2002, p. 168) noted, knowledge management is a management process that the performance of a business can be enhanced by designing, implementing and strategically aligning various tools, processes, systems, structure and cultures with a view to create and share knowledge among its people and to use for overall business purpose. The very basic three elements included in Knowledge management are 1) creation of the knowledge through some effective strategies, 2) sharing of the created knowledge among people and 3) making it available and useful for any business purpose. Knowledge Management has been found to be useful for the organization as it helps it get the products to the target market quicker, develop innovative ideas, serve the customer well in order to maintain customer loyalty and retention and achieve sustainable competitive advantages. As Boxall and Macky (2009, p. 10) emphasized, knowledge management helps a business achieve high performance working through various strategic processes and organizational development programs. Knowledge Management has emerged to be a management tool that focuses on data, information and knowledge among the employees in an organization (Awad and Ghaziri, 2007, p. 26) and encompasses the processes by which experience, skills, expertise, knowledge and abilities are gathered, then shared among the people and utilized so that these can be converted to collective organizational learning process (Foster, 2005, p. 397). Knowledge Management Models Explicit and Tacit Knowledge Knowledge management talks about creating, storing, sharing and utilizing data, information and knowledge either throughout papers, documents and database, or throughout the minds of people. This is a classification of knowledge based on where data and information are stored. When it comes to the management aspects, pure data and pure information have relatively less impact for a manager whereas structured data and information are relatively highly useful and effective measures that can be used to analyze and find solutions to issues (Noe, , 2002, p. 170). Based in the above classification, knowledge management is systematic process and strategic approach for obtaining and making use of knowledge in the business throughout papers or documents or computers as commonly referred as explicit knowledge or sharing and making use of the knowledge throughout the people’s minds as commonly termed as tacit knowledge. To be more specific, KM is managing either explicit knowledge, or tacit knowledge or both together effectively. In managing tacit knowledge, the human resource management is entrusted to look at the skills, abilities, experiences, perceptions etc and thus to implement all the strategies that can help knowledge freely transfer from one to the other, share among the people and help some learn from others. It is a systematic way to foster organizational learning as well. In managing explicit knowledge, the human resource management is responsible to look at data, information and processed knowledge that are stored in manuals, papers, computer hardware etc in order to make them available for assessing, analyzing, interpreting and presenting them for further organizational purposes. Collecting data and converting them to information in order to use them for organizational benefits is critical to knowledge management process. As Nonaka and Takeuchi (2007) believed, Japanese companies have long concentrated on Knowledge management and that in turn has helped them pursue a continuous and comprehensive innovation policy. Quite specifically, knowledge management has been found to help foster innovation in organizations. Theoretically, innovation most commonly derive from better ideas and this is possible only if knowledge is managed well. As Nonaka and Takeuchi (2007) viewed, organizational learning is the ability of an organization to create new knowledge, disseminate it in the organization and embody the same in product and services that the business target customers with. They argued that the success of Japanese companies has been influenced by the strategic approach to convert tacit knowledge in to explicit knowledge. As depicted in the figure above, the interaction of knowledge between tacit and explicit knowledge conversion is in fact based on the principle of knowledge sharing. The four possible knowledge conversion modes are:- 1- From tacit to tacit, that is known as socialization, 2- From tacit to explicit that is called externalization, 3- From explicit to tacit that is internalization, and 4- From explicit to explicit that is called combination. (Magalhaes, 2004, p. 79). KM as an integrated process between People, Process and Technology People and technology play pivotal roles in a successful knowledge management practice. Knowledge management has also been defined as a process that links between people, process and technology. Sallis and Jones (2002, p. 58) emphasized that effective knowledge management required a hybrid solution of people and technology. A knowledge management school of thought sees computers and modern data base as taking over the role of knowledge managers. No organizations would be able to manage its knowledge without technology and technology without human resources. As Sallis and Jones (2002, p. 58) noted, all technology tools that are used in knowledge management provide channels to effectively manage explicit knowledge. When it is viewed as a systematic management tool that aligns people, process and technology, HR practitioners have technology background and they perceive technology as the central and very integral part of the KM process. Artificial intelligence, logical and theoretical reasoning, re-engineering, etc are of quite significant matters. As and when an organization becomes successful in managing the knowledge, the organization would possible become able to create an environment of organizational learning that the employees are free to learn from others. Role of Skills and experience in KM Skills and experience, perhaps very common terms that most people would like to see them highlighted in their curriculum vitas, are of extreme significance in knowledge management. More skilled and more experienced people have relatively more knowledge than those who are less skilled and experienced. A person can be said to have knowledge when he has acquired information, experience, perception and wisdom. Knowledge occurs in a person when his information, experience and wisdom intersect each other. Small and Sage (2006, p. 154) stated that wisdom is typically applied knowledge and it is of tacit in nature. As depicted in the diagram below, experience, information and wisdom play significant roles in the creation and development of the KM process. Why most of the companies worldwide give more importance to experienced and skilled people? Why most companies are trying to retain older workforce rather than retaining others? Why many businesses spend more in maintaining and retaining older and experienced employees despite the fact that keeping them increase the liabilities like medical and other insurance? The answer is that older workforce are more experienced. More experience is almost equal to more knowledge. By recruiting more experienced people, the business organization benefit that other people may get benefited from his knowledge and experience provided that the management is required to take strategic steps to help them all share their knowledge each other. In order to foster this knowledge share, the business may promote team work, reward and recognition programs, collaboration etc. According to the very conceptual framework of knowledge management detailed above, it can be understood that skill, experience and wisdom are some of the elements that interact in knowledge management. Companies target older and experienced people rather than in-experienced because older people are more experienced and companies prefer their experience due to that it helps companies transfer knowledge from them to younger employees. As Shultz and Adams (2007, p. 165) observed, older employees are rated lower based on their ability to learn quickly and think creatively, but they are found to be higher in academic skill levels, attendance, ability to get accustomed with others and their knowledge as well. Hosie and Sevastos (2006, p. 305) said that recruiting, selecting, training and retaining older workers are most likely to be used as a competitive strategy among companies. Organizational Learning Organizational learning is one of the various outcomes of knowledge management. Knowledge management can help a business gain higher profitability, high performance working, increased productivity of employees, efficient resources utilization, sustainable competitive advantage and more importantly organizational learning. Organizational learning refers to an organization culture in which employees are motivated to learn some thing more. As part of organizational learning, different companies implement different learning strategies including knowledge share activities, intranet or internet connection for workers, easy access to data base etc. Organizational learning occurs only when each and every members in the organization engage in all the steps of experiential learning style. Rather than individual learning process, the organizational learning system promotes collective learning (Dixon, p. 66). As organizational learning is a collective learning process, all organizational members are to engage in such practices that are meant for gathering information from external parties like customers and supplies. Elements of organizational Learning Organizational learning is a continuous process that promote people to create knowledge, share it and making these knowledge available for business purposes. The main elements are listed below; Organizational learning is collective learning rather than individual learning, There are many strategies like collaboration, team work and cooperation that can help the business improve academic performance. Conclusion This piece of research paper has highlighted theoretical and conceptual aspects of knowledge management, mainly in relation to its application and benefits to organization. This paper has presented different views and underlying principles about various elements included in the process of knowledge management, and has examined different classification of KM definition such as KM based on tacit and explicit knowledge, role of people and process and significance of retaining older people. This research paper has also described what is organizational learning and explains how this is achievable through KM itself. 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Sallis, E and Jones, E, Knowledge management in education: enhancing learning & education, Routledge, 2002 Shultz K.S and Adams G.A, Aging and work in the 21st century, Illustrated Edition, Routledge, 2007 Small C.T and Sage A.P, Knowledge management and knowledge sharing: A review, Information Knowledge Systems Management 5th edition, Information Technology Center, The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA, retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com, 2006 Read More