Knowledge Management and Organizational Competencies - Dissertation Example

Knowledge Management and Development of Organizational Competencies ID 19714 Order No. 251239 10 March 2009 Acknowledgements Abstract The concept of Knowledge Management is a structured system that enables an organization to generate value from their rational and knowledge based assets. This further involves knowledge creation, organizing and structuring, processing, codification, presenting and sharing, archiving, and updating. Knowledge Management is widely recognized as the key tool and methodology that enables promotion of learning and innovation inside an organization. In this dissertation, we study the empirical generalizations about Knowledge Management as a management system and the corresponding tools & techniques used globally pertaining to the management system in a manner that all its objectives are met resourcefully and aligned towards the Organizational Business Goals. The significance of this study lies in the fact that Knowledge Sharing is linked with the culture and the IT infrastructure of an organization .This implies that the overall organizational culture along with the technology needs to be carefully aligned with these fundamental aspects of knowledge management. For this reason it is recommended that the cultural profile of an organization be studied. In order to understand how the existing organizational culture will support or impede effective knowledge sharing (Watad and Perez-Alvarez, 2007). . Table of Contents: Introduction: Knowledge Management comprises of well planned & organized activities for creation, sharing and updating of Tacit Knowledge (Knowledge stored in People’s mind) and Explicit Knowledge (Tangible documented knowledge) in the organization. In this context following is the proposed Research Question of this dissertation: What are the management culture and technologies that make up a successful knowledge management system within an organization? The sub questions to the main research question are: How does an Information Technology Platform like the Intranet or Library Portal effectively support the Knowledge Management system within the organization? What can be the cultural barriers that can occur during the deployment of Knowledge Management system within an organization also how the management can tackle them? What are the organizational competencies that are built in an organization by virtue of Knowledge Management? This research is planned to be carried out from the perspective of our school, The Commonwealth Secondary School Singapore. Given that this is an educational institution, knowledge management forms the key business system for the school in delivering against learning & development objectives of the students of the school. The school has multiple knowledge elements – Teacher’s notes, modules & class lessons, books & journals, past researches & dissertations by ex-students, white papers, essays, etc. It would be very interesting to evaluate how they have been organized in the school’s library system and how useful the knowledge management system has been to the students of all levels taking various courses and also for the teachers for their reference material in preparing for the classes. Relation to Previous Research: An old theory by Jeremy Hope & Tony Hope presented the three waves of Economic Change - agriculture wave that strengthened global economies based on the green revolution, industrial wave that strengthened global economies based on the industrial revolution and the Information wave (modern wave) that is in the process of strengthening the global economies based on knowledge revolution [Hope, Jeremy and Hope, Tony, 1997]. In order to achieve the best of the third wave, organizations need to implement a management system for conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit and then sanitize, organize and present them for the benefits of the business. Conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit requires overcoming of cultural barriers which needs to be executed by virtue of specialist skills within the management system – like technology skills, communication skills, co-ordination skills, etc. Nonaka and Takeuchi in 1995 argued that knowledge conversion follows a cycle whereby Tacit knowledge can become Explicit after an individual describes a practical experience and an Explicit Knowledge becomes Tacit after an individual believes the content and tries it. [Choo, Chun Wei, 2000] After studying some of the past researches, we discover that our research primarily needs to be focused on two essential domains of Knowledge Management –culture and infrastructure: Culture: cultural aspects of Knowledge Management depend upon human emotions – like fear of losing role, power or the job. It depends a lot upon the cultural history of the organization – like, treatment with people who shared knowledge. Knowledge Management requires substantial people involvement especially the ones that have spend long years in the organization. Hence the cultural environment of an organization may end up positioning itself as the major barriers or major enablers for Knowledge Management. [Watad and Perez-Alvarez, 2007; Abdullah and Selamat, 2005] IT Infrastructure: This domain of Knowledge Management deals with the IT infrastructure facilities that support content management, indexing, searching, learning, self assessment and updating. Choice of technology is treated as secondary issue by experts; more important is the intelligent use of IT tools that can support the key elements of the Knowledge Management framework that allows easy methods of knowledge sharing, storage, search and usage. [Egbu and Botterill, 2002]. Proposed Methods: We propose to carry out qualitative approach of research whereby a short survey shall be carried out among students & teachers using a questionnaire. We do not propose to use quantitative methods because our research is not targeted to discover quantitative aspects of the factors influencing knowledge management. The primary concern is “what” & “how” in the research questions that doesn’t comprise of quantitative aspects. The proposed Research shall be carried out in the following steps: Theory Construction: It is recommended the theory about Knowledge Management Techniques is built with the help of high quality literature available in databases (like Proquest, All Business, etc.) and the Internet. The theories shall be constructed in the form of consolidation of past researches and empirical generalizations relevant to the research questions. Preparation of Questionnaire: The understanding of the theories evolved from the literature review shall be used to formulate a set of questions. These questions shall have qualitative data and the responses shall be classified as either factual or belief. Surveys: We shall use the questionnaire to collect data from selected individuals from different courses in the school after identifying the respondents carefully. They shall comprise of students, teachers, library managers and IT staff. The questions for each of these participant types shall be framed differently. To ensure full coverage of potential respondents, we shall use the potential ways in the school to communicate with the individuals selected, and to arrange for the distribution of the questionnaire to the targeted participants. We shall first assess the willingness of the participants to participate in the survey and then will present the questions to them. Presentation of Primary Data: The responses shall be treated as primary data and are proposed to be first organized & sanitized in properly prepared formats. The bar charts or pie charts shall be formed against the data organized & sanitized in the tables such that they can be analyzed effectively. Comparison with the past literature and the research questions: It is proposed that the primary data is analyzed thoroughly and then compared with the outcome of the literature review. It shall then be evaluated whether the answers to the proposed Research Questions have been addressed or not. This evaluation shall be carried out qualitatively. Conclusions and Generalizations: The conclusions shall be drawn pertaining to application of Knowledge Management processes & technologies in the school and also in general in any organization. [Asian Institute of Technology at http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21meth.htm] Reflections: The study shall be conducted on a small fraction of the total number of respondents in the school. Hence, it is proposed that the conclusions drawn herewith shall be a gross representation of the Knowledge management culture, processes, technologies & corresponding effectiveness in the School and the results may vary if the number of individuals surveyed is increased. Moreover, it is expected that some respondents may not trust the anonymity of the survey and hence may give biased answers rather than presenting the actual facts from their perspective. This may happen against the questions that may ask about the opinion of the respondent pertaining to support & commitment by the School Management to Knowledge Management. However, we feel that these are probably the limitations of every survey based research and hence the approximations based on allowed deviations shall be applicable on this research without compromising on the sanity of the data. It is expected that good quality literature shall be available pertaining to the Knowledge Management given that this is very popular management system and is gradually being considered as the key management discipline by the global industries. But it may be a concern that good quality literature on applicability of knowledge management in educational institutions may not be available. Also, it is expected that implementation & usage of knowledge management in educational institutions would be different from those in a corporate environment. Hence, the findings of the survey from the perspective of knowledge management in Commonwealth Secondary School Singapore may be different from the outcome of literature review which may impact the generalization process to some extent. However, the theoretical framework of knowledge management is expected to be similar in the school as well as any other organization. It is expected that the respondents shall not object to their identity getting logged in the responses to the questionnaire. However, it is proposed that the survey shall be overall anonymous in nature and hence the identity of a respondent would be logged only for the purpose of checking with him/her pertaining to errors or missing data after collation and first hand analysis of the responses. This would be communicated to the respondents as well when circulating the questionnaire. However, if the respondents are hesitant to disclose their identity due to some unavoidable reasons from their perspective, it is proposed that they should be allowed to do so such that any errors in data or missing data shall be “assumed” based on the trend analysis of the rest of accurately available data. From the perspective of the school, it is assumed that the information collated and the analytics thereafter shall not comprise of any confidential information. However, it is proposed that the researcher shall execute non-disclosure agreements and other essential declarations in prescribed formats approved by the school to protect the confidentiality & integrity of information collated from the school. It is proposed that both the primary data (responses to the survey questions) and the secondary data (analytics on the primary data) shall be treated equally from confidentiality perspective. Conclusion: The topic, research questions, relevance to past literature, research design and reflections have been presented herewith. The subject of the research is pertaining to management culture and Information Technology for effective implementation of Knowledge Management in an organization. The methodology of research is proposed to be theory building using Literature Review, conducting a survey using a set of questionnaire, qualitative analysis of the survey results and presenting answers to the research questions pertaining to the School as well as in general. The next step is to collate a number of literatures pertaining to the research topic & questions. The Literature shall be studied thoroughly to build the theories pertaining to the research questions. In the mean time this research proposal shall be submitted to the school and an approval shall be awaited. Timetable: Following is the proposed time table for the research: S.No. Activity Proposed Deadline 1 Research Proposal preparation and submission Completed 2 Collation of Literature & carrying out in-depth Literature Review 3 Theory Construction 4 Preparation of Questionnaire 5 Conducting the Survey 6 Organizing, Sanitizing & Presenting the Primary Data 7 Analysis and comparison with the Literature Review & verifying if the Research Questions are answered 8 Conclusions & Generalizations 9 Submission of final Dissertation References Details of the references used in the project shall be presented herewith – in MLA format Choo, Chun Wei. Knowledge Management and the Knowing Organization. Faculty of Information Studies. University of Toronto. Retrieved on 10 March 2009. Available at http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/mgt/KC.types.html). 2000. Egbu, Charles and Botterill, Katherine. Information Technologies for Knowledge Management: Their Usage and Effectiveness. ITCon. Vol.7. 2002. Haggie, Knox and Kingston, John et al. Choosing your Knowledge management Strategy. School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Journal of Knowledge Management Practice. 2003. Hope, Jeremy and Hope, Tony. Competing in the Third Wave: Ten Key Issues That Managers Must Face in the Information Age. Harvard Business School Press. 1997. Method and Research Design. Language Center. Asian Institute of Technology. Retrieved on 10 march 2009. Available at http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21meth.htm. Morgado, E.Morales and Perenalvo, F. Garcia. Knowledge Management System to Re-Feed Learning Objects Repository. Formatex. 2005. Watad, Mahmoud M and Perez-Alvarez, Cesar. Knowledge Sharing and Cultural Diversity among IT People – Implications on Knowledge Management Initiatives. Proceedings of the Academy of Information and Management Sciences. Vol. 11. No. 1. Jacksonville, 2007. Annexure: End of Document Read More