Knowledge Management- Group analysis - Case Study Example

Workers, particularly the scientists, are not willing to give up their current practices which they have been practicing since 20 years in the organization (Debowski, 2006). These employees were engaging in the behavioral evolutionary path to learning whereby past practices reflect current learning. Learning by doing was being practiced at an individual level through repetition of practices (Easterby-Smith & Lyles, 2005). A major inhibition to knowledge sharing in this case is significant hoarding of knowledge by new staff that places greater emphasis on individual performance on job as opposed to collective performance.

Also, as per the social learning theory, these employees lack motivation towards knowledge sharing at an individual level by considering it as lowering rather than increasing productivity. Furthermore, there the lack of positive reinforcement to reward “learning” behaviors is evident. As per the behaviorism view, ignorance of behaviors leads to their extinction (Phillips & Soltis, 2004). This shows how lack of ‘group’ rewards has contributed towards the extinction of knowledge sharing practices amongst scientists who are worried about securing ‘individual’ gains. . A few key recommendations may be offered in view of the above.

Knowledge management must be viewed as an integrated process with an alignment of the new technology, HR and practitioners (employees) (Jashapara, 2004). Hiring a consultant is not enough; there needs to be a systematic process involving interviews, questionnaires and behavioral research to understand the practical issues employees face. It seems at present that there is nil cross-functional communication as far as project teams are concerned. Hence, team members must gather after a project team is formed to discuss the way forward.

Managers handling past projects must be encouraged to devote time to sharing their experience with the new project’s team so that they can learn from past mistakes. Furthermore, employees who work on “eight consecutive projects” must certainly not be categorized as temporary employees as this way the company loses their crucial contribution to knowledge creation. The organizational structure ought to be redefined with specific terms of service attributed to temporary and permanent employees.

Additional staff also needs to be hired because some employees are simultaneously working on two jobs which increases stress and leaves little scope for knowledge sharing. Keeping in view the geographically dispersed nature of projects in Engineering Division, the development of Communities of Practice (COPs) is encouraged. Finally, there is little attempt towards learning from the best practices of other similar firms. There seems to be no benchmarking which compares the organization’s progress against that of others.

Knowledge-oriented firms often operate in a