Strengths and Weaknesses of Neo-Functionalism Approach to Managing Knowledge in the Workplace - Literature review Example

Managing Knowledge in the Workplace Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………….…….3 2. Knowledge Management in the Organisation……………………………………………..4 3. The Approaches to Knowledge Management……………………………………………..4 1. Epistemology Dimension: Duality versus Dualism………..………………………….6 2. Social Order Dimension: Dissensus versus Consensus………..……………………...6 4. Neo-Functionalist and Knowledge Management……………………………….…………7 1. Strength, Weaknesses and Partialities.…………………………………..…………….8 2. Case Study - Mercedes-Benz and Swatch: A Smart Move?........................................10 5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….11 6. References………………………………………………………………………………..13 Managing Knowledge in the Workplace Introduction According to researchers, we are living in a knowledge-based society and only firms, which will accept this reality, will survive (Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 711). Organisations should recognise, value, develop and evolve their knowledge assets. Clearly, one issue is that the speed of change has turned inevitably faster. Bearing in mind that the half-life of products is decreasing and that it is becoming more and more difficult for a company to sustain is competitive advantage, knowledge management the limited resources, which can be utilised to keep an edge from other competitors through creativity and efficiency (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001, p. 973). One problem is that a lot of organisations have released their staff members and found out that, as employees leave the organisation, significant knowledge also follows suit. Therefore, knowledge management is not only considered as a useful asset, but also a tangle one, which is at the heart of the survival and success of the business (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001, p. 973). Knowledge management, abbreviated as KM, refers to the process of finding, developing, sharing, and successfully applying organisational knowledge. It is a multi-disciplined loom to attaining organisational goals by trying to benefit from the of people knowledge (Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 711). There are four main discources/approaches to knowledge management, which include critical discourse, constructive discourse, dialogic discourse and neo-functionalist discourse. All of these approaches, when used correctly and in the right setting, can be successful (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001, p. 973). They also have their strengths and weakness, as well as partialities. My study adopts the neo-functionalist discourse. This paper will evaluate the strengths, weaknesses and partialities of the neo-functionalist approach to managing knowledge in the workplace. Knowledge Management in the Organisation Usually, knowledge management (KM) refers to the production, representation, transfer, storage, transformation, use, embedding and securing of organisational knowledge (Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 551). It is also proposed that KM includes the creation of an environment and culture wherein knowledge can grow. Nonaka (1994, p. 14) defines KM in relation to the strategic decisions firms make concerning the information sources for their learning procedures, the speed and style of those procedures, and the breadth and depth of knowledge bases to be established. This definition stresses that concepts such as organizational learning, organizational memory, information sharing and collaborative work are strongly related to KM (Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 551; Nonaka 1994, p. 14 and Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 771). The Approaches to Knowledge Management The differences in epistemological and ontological theories, which account for different views, conflicting assumptions and contradictory findings in organisational and social research has been long researched by social scientists. Schultze & Stabell (2004, p. 552) present to us the Burrell & Morgan (1979) framework of the four paradigms. These four paradigms include interpretivism, positivism, radical humanism and radical structuralism. The Burrell & Morgan (1979) framework that Schultze & Stabell (2004, p. 552) present is a significant starting point in the research of KM. That is, the scientific endeavour is shaped towards the production, representation, transfer, storage, use, embedding and transformation of knowledge. According to Hislop (2009, p. 15) science together with religion and law asserts that a perfect memory promises to continually relate the past to the present, as well as the future. Likewise, theories concerning the nature of knowledge and reality must be doubly fundamental for research on KM as it relates openly to what is being studied. Even if Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) framework seems to be well fitted to this paper’s topic, I will revise it to respond to a number of the condemnations levelled against it (e.g., Deetz, 1996, p. 191). The criticism most applicable to this paper’s objective is Deetz’s (1996, p. 191) rejection of Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) objective-subjective dimension. Deetz (1996, p. 191) claims that this dualism has led to an oversimplified categorisation of research into opposing binaries, which comprise of the opposition between quantitative versus qualitative research, hypothesis testing versus hypothesis developing, as well as a theoretical versus a practical focus. Deetz (1996, p. 195) asserts that the object-subject dualism is damaging to science because it reifies and supports false dichotomies through rejecting the intersubjective, ‘publicly shared, historically established’ nature of events. Deetz (1996, p. 205) concludes that objectivity and subjectivity have more political compared to descriptive value. This means that they are utilised mainly as rhetorical methods to validate research programmes. Even if we concur with Deetz (1996, p. 195) that the strict separation between subjectivity and objectivity is weak and insignificant, Schultze & Stabell (2004, p. 552), we do not find his substitution of this dimension helpful for this paper’s objective. In particular, Deetz (1996, p. 195) replaces Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) ontology (objective-subjective) aspect with the aspect of ‘how and where do research theories arise,’ i.e., elite/a priori or local/emergent. Given these issues concerning about Deetz’s Deetz (1996, p. 191) framework, we discuss the strength, weakness and partialities of neo-functionalist approaches, which comprised of two dimensions: social order and epistemology. Epistemology Dimension: Duality versus Dualism Since the primary interest of this paper is to explore the strengths, weaknesses and partialities of the neo-functionalist approach to managing knowledge, the epistemological aspect of this paper centers on two different hypothetical framings of knowledge captured in the queries ‘what and when is knowledge?’ These issues form the grounds for differentiating between researches, which uses an epistemology of duality from that which uses an epistemology of dualism (Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 715). In addition, the difference between what- and when-questions echoes a creation of the world in relation to duality and dualism. Dualism means either/or thinking and a creation of the globe in relation to mutually exclusive opposites or binaries. It, therefore, offers the theoretical scaffolding for schemes of taxonomies, classification and contingency theory (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001, p. 974). In comparison, the idea of duality rejects the creation of such fake dichotomies as objective-subjective, micro-macro, as well as self-other binaries. Duality uses both/and thinking, which signifies a dialectic and also integrative strategy. Duality is linked to theories and pragmatism of practice (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001, p. 974). In addition, theories typified by duality are linked to cyclical and emergence causality instead of unidirectional and deterministic causality such as technical or social imperatives. Social Order Dimension: Dissensus versus Consensus The other set of theories, which Burrell and Morgan (1979) reflects on is related to the nature of social order. Deetz (1996, p. 196) also endorses this aspect. Social order is mainly a continuum limited to: (1) sociology of law that posits that society bends towards a perfect state of integration, order and equilibrium; and (2) sociology of essential change that posits that forces of conflict, coercion and change are constantly challenging the existing social order. Researchers who implement the sociology of law acknowledge present social structures like the division of labour, as given and trouble-free (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001, p. 975). In comparison, those who accepted the sociology of essential change dispute existing social stratification and often trace the origins of overlooked methods of classification (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001, p. 975). They investigate grounds of contradiction and modes of deprivation, domination and exploitation so as to criticise and offer alternatives to present the status quo. Neo-Functionalist and Knowledge Management The neo-functionalist approach is typified by the framing of phenomena in relation to dualisms and a theory that there is an innate tendency to social order, as well as equilibrium. The latter theory means that one of the social worries is the crash of a world that has a proper social order (Deetz 1996, p. 194), which would make it unreasonable, unpredictable and unruly. In this approach, the responsibility of knowledge is progressive enlightenment and improving management, rationalisation and control. This, on the other hand, will create optimal allocation of resources and enhancements in organisational effectiveness, efficiency and competitiveness (Deetz 1996, p. 194). The efforts for enlightenment, as well as the idea of progress, believe that there is a place of vital perfection and omniscience that both organisational KM and science projects are striving towards. This means that there is a limited stock or fund of knowledge, which can be discovered. In the neo-functionalist approach, knowledge is considered as an asset, that is, an object, which can be bought, owned and also sold to increase or maintain the company’s competitive edge (Deetz 1996, p. 194). The idea that knowledge is a mere object, which can be taken away from its knower, is one sign of the dualism that inspires the neo-functionalist approach and forms the grounds of knowledge- and resource-based theories of the organisation (e.g., Newell et al. 2009, p. 41; Little & Ray 2005, p. 56; Hislop 2009, p. 31 and Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 557). Other binaries linked to knowledge consist of individual-collective, tacit-explicit, declarative-procedural, architectural component and universal-local (e.g., Nonaka 1994, p. 22 and Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 715). It is significant to remember that the fact that they oppose each other does not mean that these binaries are also reflective of dualism. It is when such oppositions are considered as mutually exclusive or independent (instead of mutually constitutive) that such binaries fall directly into the neo-functionalist approach. In summary of this approach, the neo-functionalist discourse is typified by a building of the globe in relation to dualisms that privileges the object-like framing of events as independent objects, as well as the development of mutually exclusive classes. The resulting categorisation schemes develop the critical infrastructure for contingency theory, which permits researchers to inquire concerning the conditions in which a certain type of KM technology or solution is more suitable than another, and what the effects of each solution might be (Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 557). Knowledge is considered an asset plus its role is mainly to progress people, companies and society to the perfect state of enlightenment (or competitive edge). Strength, Weaknesses and Partialities The neo-functionalists’ concern in tacit knowledge is mainly connected to the resource-based assumptions of the organisation, which center ‘on imitability of nonpurchasable, insubstantial, firm-based and embedded forms of resources’ (Alavi 2005, p. 201). Because knowledge is considered an asset–one that is slight more mobile–it is more difficult to safeguard compared to more tangible organisational resources (Alvesson & Sveningsson 2003, p. 961), one appeal of ‘stocks of tacit knowledge’ (Bryan et al 2007, p. 2) is the natural defence against imitation, which is provided by the reality that tacit knowledge is hard to articulate. Nevertheless, not all tacit knowledge offers a firm sustainable competitive edge, but only tacit knowledge, which is so rare, expensive and with few tactically equivalent substitutes does (Bryan et al 2007, p. 2). Presuming that a section of tacit knowledge meets all four of Schultze & Stabell (2004, p. 557) criteria, there are basically two ways through which a firm can deal with them: (1) converting it into explicit knowledge (Newell et al. 2009, p. 41; Little & Ray 2005, p. 56; Hislop 2009, p. 31 and Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 557); or (2) dealing with the individuals who possess it (Nonaka 1994, p. 22 and Alvesson & Kärreman 2007, p. 715). However, both of these are difficult as the first results in the likely loss of its competitive edge through making knowledge imitable and the last strategy offers no assurance for competitive edge, or if it offers, then it is a much less sustainable competitive edge. In any case, firms whose knowledge assets are limited to individuals are at risk of attrition because their human assets are either employed by rival companies or turn into competitors themselves (Currie & Kerrin 2003, p. 1027). In reality, ‘knowledge assets being fired or retrenched (Bryan et al 2007, p.3), is one of the issues KM is anticipating to solve. What the neo-functionalist framing of tacit knowledge stresses is that dealing with tacit knowledge is counterproductive (i.e., it seems to deteriorate the organisation’s competitive edge). Alvesson & Sveningsson (2003, p. 970) argue that so as for a causal ambiguity to be considered a source of competitive edge, all competing organisations should maintain an imperfect comprehension of the connection between the resources maintained by an organisation and the organisation’s competitive edge. In other words, so as for tacit knowledge to be an organisation’s source of sustainable competitive edge, the organisation has to avoid attempting to manage it (Elliot & Coley-Smith 2005, p. 21). Therefore, a firm whose competitive edge is kept through tacit knowledge should remain unconscious as to the source of its apparent accomplishment This would seem to be a substandard situation for most organisation, nevertheless, since such a state of unawareness would make it impracticable for them to identify the likely implications of competitive changes or moves in conditions, which would make their competitive situation less safe (Elliot & Coley-Smith 2005, p. 21). In addition, if they were not able to recognise the source of their competitive edge, then firms would find it hard to protect, securitize, patent and take advantage of this valuable asset. In essence, a firm that opts not to deal with its critical tacit knowledge stocks is cannot grow or control anything, but only a specialised competitive edge. To finalise on this topic of the strength, weaknesses and also partialities of using a neo-functionalist approach to KM, the managing-the-tacit contradiction appears to be unavoidable in this field (Polanyi 1983, p. 78). This is because, in the long run, the approach is not able value tacit knowledge in its implicit form, that is, inextricably lime to an action or person. In its tacit form, therefore, knowledge is uncontrollable, and ironically, in trying to manage it, tacit knowledge’s capability to create sustainable competitive edge is shattered (Spender 1996, p. 61). Case Study - Mercedes-Benz and Swatch: A Smart Move? The Smart Move venture was joint move by giant automobile company, Mercedes-Benz, and Swiss watchmaker, Swatch, to develop a modern, subcompact and economy vehicle designed to achieve speeds of up to 130 km per hour even as consuming one gallon per 115 km (Hislop 2009, p. 115). The thought behind the joint move was to bring together Mercedes’ knowledge and skill of how to properly design and build automobiles with Swatch’s knowledge and skill of microtechnology design, as well as automated production. What we can see here is that the two companies came together to make use of the knowledge of each other deliberately (Hislop 2009, p. 115). This was a form of tactic knowledge, whereby Mercedes-Benz knew the knowledge that Swatch had and therefore they could use it to benefit the two firms. The Knowledge and knower here were two separate entities and knowledge was only seen in a stimulator of progress (Hislop 2009, p. 116). That is why the venture was successful. Otherwise, if one of the firms tried to have total control of the other, then it would be successful. Conclusion This paper has evaluated the strengths, weaknesses and partialities of the neo-functionalist approach to managing knowledge in the workplace. Some of the insights gained from the neo-functionalist approach in KM research include: assumption: there is an innate tendency to social equilibrium and order; dualism: framing of phenomena; knowledge is seen in its role of progress in reference to enlightenment at individual, social and organisational level; social fear is collapse of the social world. social world would be unreasonable, unmanageable and unpredictable; increasing rationalization, effective management, and strict control; knowledge and knower are separate entities; metaphor of knowledge: knowledge is seen as an asset; and finally there are major binaries of knowledge (e.g., Newell et al. 2009, p. 41; Little & Ray 2005, p. 56; Hislop 2009, p. 31 and Schultze & Stabell 2004, p. 557). Rooted in the insights generated by this paper of the ‘dealing with tacit knowledge’ contradiction, I would like to suggest just one avenue for future research; that is to think about additional contradictions, which capture the double-edged character of knowledge. Such a contradiction might be seen in questions circulating the value of ignorance. Even as tacit knowledge seizes one aspect of not knowing, ignorance seizes others. This paper’s preliminary evaluation of the value of ignorance is that it creates a void to be shunned away from in the neo-functionalist approach. In addition, asking questions concerning ignorance can also bring up interesting facts to do with ignoring as a mechanism for managing knowledge. References Alavi, M, Kayworth, T & Leidner, D 2005, An empirical examination of the influence of organizational culture on knowledge management practices, Journal of Management Information Systems vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 191-224. 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