Strategic Knowledge Management - Dixons Quote - Case Study Example

Strategic Knowledge Management Table of Contents Introduction 3 Critical Appreciation of Dixon’s Quote 4 Key Themes Addressed For the Analysis of Dixon’s Quote 5 Knowledge Management 5 Intellectual Capital & Social Capital 7 Community of Practise 10 Soft Systems Thinking 11 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction The modern world has become quite dynamic due to certain crucial factors comprising increased level of globalisation, gaining momentum of internationalisation and prevalence of extreme business market competition among others. In this regard, the notion of strategic knowledge management often plays an imperative role in dealing with the dynamic modern world and also materialising the requirement of gaining knowledge. This can be better understood with the following quote “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged and increased constantly, or it vanishes” (Hussain & et. al., 2004). Theoretically, strategic knowledge management is regarded as the advancement in the knowledge management capability, which tends to assist in attaining superior competition position. Considering the global organisational situations, it can be apparently observed that in earlier days, business firms focused on improving their efficiency based on the automation of manual labour by reducing various sorts of redundancies. However, the present scenario reflects that the knowledge base of the workers needs to be developed so as to reduce the chances of redundancy in the work procedure (Hussain et. al, 2004). Thus, it can be affirmed that the situations have been changed entirely as today’s organizations are focused mostly on developing the knowledge base of the employees at large. With this concern, the essay intends to discuss a quote of Dixon i.e. “The only way to cope with a changing world is to keep learning.” Various key themes comprising knowledge management, intellectual along with social capital, soft systems thinking and community of practice would also be addressed in the essay for substantiating the above presented quote of Dixon. Critical Appreciation of Dixon’s Quote The statement of Dixon i.e. “The only way to cope with a changing world is to keep learning”, reflects the present day’s scenario of requiring knowledge at every step to develop as well to cope up with the dynamic or the changing world (Dixon, 2013). The statement coined by Dixon reflects the requirement of knowledge in the present day context, which needs to be updated with the speedy technological alterations. The varying workforce and the varying nature of technology often necessitate the factors like innovation, knowledge and education to be taken into concern at large. It is worth mentioning that the quote indicates the development of knowledge in every sphere ranging from practical or real-life scenarios to the advancement of personal knowledge. According to Dixon, the high interdisciplinary flow of technology and infrastructure requires the development of personal knowledge for every individual in order to keep pace with this changing world (Duderstadt, 2008). Dixon on the aforementioned quote has indicated the changes that are required to be incorporated for attaining both short as well as long-term targets. Previously, there was a notion that the collective knowledge of the employees would lead towards greater organisational development. However, with the changing world, it has been apparently noted that there lays the requirement of developing a knowledge base, which would actually make all the employees to focus on a common goal (Dixon, 2013). In order to develop the analysis relating to the given quote of Dixon, certain key themes have been taken into concern that are described in the following. These key themes would certainly aid in validating the aforesaid quote of Dixon by a certain degree. Key Themes Addressed For the Analysis of Dixon’s Quote Knowledge Management Knowledge has emerged as one of the new strategic concepts of an organization. Knowledge management is duly considered to be efficient management of information within a viable organisation (Uriarte, 2008). It is often observed that while resolving any problem, one has to depend on personal knowledge and explore opportunities to conduct the same (Brún, 2005). In precise, the notion of knowledge management is principally described as a strategy of gathering, managing and sharing employees’ knowledge all through the organization (Bhojaraju, 2005; Long, 1997). Specially mentioning, knowledge management is a mix of tools, strategies and techniques that involve various significant factors such as ‘peer-to-peer monitoring’ and ‘learning from mistakes’ among others (Dalkir, 2005). From organisational perspective, it could be affirmed that knowledge management as a form of learning is one of the ways to cope with a changing world. This can be justified with reference to the fact that the strategies of knowledge management are mostly focused on converting the raw data into useful information (Hovland, 2003). Moreover, an effectual knowledge management program in turn serves as a base to store processed information, which acts as a database for organisational knowledge sharing and helps the management to extract related information of the observed situations. The process of Knowledge-Management encompasses the three broad components namely ‘Process’, ‘People’ and ‘Technology.’ This has been portrayed in the form of the following pictorial representation with detailed analysis. Process: It includes a standard predefined mechanism of knowledge contribution and maintenance, which includes the facets like accepting, processing and rejecting a data. People: One of the biggest participants of knowledge management aspect is the employees of an organisation who are regarded as the sources of knowledge creation within a particular organisation. Technology: This aspect of knowledge management model includes the activities involved in developing, updating and upgrading knowledge base of organisations. Notably, different organisations follow diverse techniques of developing their respective knowledge management model, out of which the most popular is developing a secure central space wherein the employees and the management can exchange information along with guide each other efficiently (Bhojaraju, 2003). It is worth mentioning that for several years, the notion of knowledge management system has been a key source of development and knowledge generation for an organisation, which resulted in generating effective problem solutions. Thus, with this notion, it can be affirmed that the perception of knowledge management is a way to cope up with this changing world and developing intellectual capital of an organisation in the form of progressing learning process (WLE, 2006; Alavi, 1999). It has been quite apparent that the aspect of knowledge management serves as an important factor towards developing overall business performances in terms of making effective decisions and enhancing learning process among others. In relation to this factor, it can be affirmed that the notion of knowledge management has a key role to play in developing a moderate association between the business performance and the intellectual capital of an organisation (Mahmoodsalehi & Jahanyan, 2009). For instance, HSBC Holdings plc, a world renowned banking as well as financial services based company, has effectively utilised the notion of knowledge management as a form of learning in order to solve critical problems that it face while conducting business. It has been apparently noted that effective utilisation of knowledge management theme eventually supported the company to form well-functioned business as compared to others (Pusaksrikit, 2006). Thus, based on the above analysis, the perception of knowledge management can be duly considered as one of the key themes or ways to cope up with this changing world in the form of learning. Intellectual Capital & Social Capital The idea of ‘capital’ is used to represent tangible items available within a business. It would be vital to mention in this similar context that intangible assets comprise expertise and knowledge of workforce within a particular organisation. Conceptually, the notion of intellectual capital is defined as a real-business asset, incorporating factors like employees’ knowledge, valuable resources and relevant information that support organisations to attain superior competitive position (Talukdar, 2008). Notably, intellectual capital is composed of three distinctive capitals such as ‘Human Capital’, ‘Structural Capital’ and ‘Relational Capital’ that have been described in detail in the following. Human Capital: This component involves the basic skills and talents that require by employees to execute their regular tasks required to perform as per the strategies developed by the firms. Structural Capital: This can be termed as the component inducing greater technological availability, database, information practice and the other infrastructural support that required by firms to execute strategies. Relational Capital: It is defined as the eternal relation, which an organisation maintains with its suppliers and customers for accomplishing business targets (Talukdar, 2008). Intellectual Capital: It has the potentiality to generate future cash flows, which might ultimately aid in coping up with this changing world. The functioning of the intellectual assets often varies at different levels. Considering the fact that the intellectual assets are more superior to the physical assets, it can be affirmed that these assets are of high importance to the performance of an organisation, resulting in coping up with the changing world. Intellectual capital has gained its importance with the change in the structure of an organisation. Justifiably, the structure of organisations often changes from command and control to delegation, empowerment and coaching, which in turn increased the organisation’s dependency on intellectual capital at large (Akpinar & Akdemir, n.d). The intellectual assets are often viewed as the most distinctive measures, which not only cope up with the changing world but also differentiate an organisation from the other on various spheres. These assets, if nurtured, might become an effective source, which could cope up with the changing world in terms of raising the efficiency of the organisations leading to an overall development. It is observed that by controlling these assets, a firm can develop its hold on both external along with internal governance (Talukdar, 2008). Hence, these capital needs to be measured and monitored in a frequent manner. Observably, the maintenance of relational capital specifically with the strategic partners and the distributors by one of the foremost oil and gas corporations named BP plc would certainly aid the company in coping up with the changing world by a considerable level (Feimianti & Anantaadjaya, 2014). On the other hand, ‘social capital’ deals with the quality as well as the quantity aspects and network among people and the organisations (Social Capital Formation, 2001). The idea of social capital is dependent on three types of networks that encompass ‘bonding network’, ‘bridging network’ and ‘linking network.’ From an organisational viewpoint, in order to develop effective social capital within an organisation, the decisive factor required is ‘trust.’ Trust can be therefore defined as the base of establishing a strong relationship with the external parties (Torche & Valenzuela, 2011). It is obvious that an organisation can cope with this changing world through proper utilisation of social capital due to the following reasons. The notion of social capital can alter the trading aspects through forming a wide coverage with the external business parties This helps an organisation to cater broad assortment of goods or services through developing a strong bond between various communities of society Social capital helps to develop a relationship between the organisation and the world Social capital helps to attain multiple goals of an organization through developing intrapersonal association between organisations (McGrath & Sparks, 2005). The term ‘social capital’ has emerged as the most effective source of networking through which an organisation can develop its business more efficiently. With the increased extent of globalisation, it can be affirmed that social capital has gained its importance as an effective way towards coping up with the changing world. Specially mentioning, the ideas like intellectual along with social capital support in coping up with the changing world in terms of various ways. These ways encompass enhancing the knowledge system of the organisations both at personal as well as professional level. This system of knowledge development can be well developed, resulting in enhancing the interpersonal relationship both at internal along with external organisational levels (Akpinar & Akdemir, n.d). Community of Practise ‘Community of practise’ is often established by individuals who are engaged in a process of collective learning or development. This particular aspect constitutes a group of people who work together for sharing common interests. The community of practise possesses three basic characteristics that have been depicted in the following. Community of practice is not a term, which denotes general group of friends or a network of linkage between people. Rather, it signifies group of individuals who has an identity possessing shared domain of interests The practise involves sharing information with the associates belonging to any community. One of the members of any particular sort of community is mostly the practitioners who exchange their knowledge through making regular interactions regarding their respective experiences (Wenger, n.d.). Based on the above discussion, it can be affirmed from a broader understanding that community of practice tends to establish and develop a collaborative environment with the intention of attaining certain specific goals. Thus, by increasing the efficiency of work through interacting the problems that members face while working, various adverse situations resulting from changing world could be well addressed and mitigated by a certain extent. It is worth mentioning that this particular method i.e. community of practice helps in solving various sorts of problems more quickly and efficiently, resulting in coping up with the problems of changing world and developing organisations’ intellectual capital at large (Wenger & Synder, 2000). It has been apparently observed that organisations belonging to this modern day context desire to form adequate communities of practice not only for coping up with the changing world but also for reaping several significant benefits. These benefits can be measured in terms of raising profitability, enlarging market share and accomplishing superior competitive position among others (Probst & Borzillo, 2008). For instance, a global retailer giant namely Tesco PLC desires to follow an effective community of practice within its business through enhancing social structures and generating a direct linkage between operational performance and learning (Tesco PLC, n.d.). Soft Systems Thinking The word ‘system’ means a set of aspects working together as a part of mechanism towards the attainment of organisational targets. ‘System thinking’ can be demarcated as a process of determining about how things that are considered to be the part of a system are inter-related with each other. This particular concept i.e. system thinking can be segregated into two measures i.e. ‘hard system thinking’ and ‘soft system thinking’ (Williams, 2005; Goldsmiths, n.d). It is worth mentioning that the notion of Soft Systems Modelling or Thinking helps in formulating and structuring favourable procedures in complex situations. It is a conceptual model, which is based on human activity system based on the understanding of human reactions towards complex issues and comparison of the same with the real world. Apart from the notion of knowledge management, the approach of soft systems thinking also help in coping up with the changing world through realising the needs of the employees and resolving numerous complex problems. This perception eventually adds up to the knowledge base of an organization and serves as a model for future similar references (Goldsmiths, n.d). The Soft System Modelling is based on a process through which the adverse situations that generate from changing world can be addressed as well as mitigated through visualising the prevailing scenarios in a distinct manner. It has been quite apparent that the above discussed approach i.e. soft systems thinking can be regarded as an effective way of coping up with changing world and developing intellectual capital as it is highly dependent on the creativity of individuals and largely rely on making effective decisions (Molineux & Haslett, 2003). Specially mentioning, the notion of soft systems thinking methodology can develop individual learning through inducing people towards focusing on the progression of entire learning system (Larsen & et. al, n.d). For instance, another banking as well as financial services British based company named Barclays PLC developed an appropriate soft systems thinking approach through incorporating various business principles including integrity, stewardship, respect and excellence among others (Barclays, 2014). This would not only support the company towards coping up with the changing world but also attaining its predetermined business targets. Conclusion Based on the above analysis and discussion, it can be affirmed from a broader understanding that the modern world is incessantly changing due to the factors like increased extent of globalisation along with internationalisation and the existence of superior business market competition among others. It would be vital to mention that most of the organisations are inclined towards improving the knowledge, which is required for developing the operational performance of the organisations. The notion of knowledge management system is designed to develop the work process, culture and technological aspects of an organisation at large It is worth mentioning that the present day requirement of continuous monitoring and development at organisational level is met with the help of this systematic approach i.e. knowledge management. This eventually depicts that it is an effective way to cope up with the changing world. Thus, it can be concluded that the above discussed themes have the capability to cope with the changing word in the form of developing learning process and also supporting organisations to attain their respective business targets. Thus, the statement provided by Dixon can be substantiated through realising that keeping learning in the form of aforementioned themes is the ultimate way to cope up with this changing world and attaining both long as well as short-term benefits. References Alavi, M., 1999. 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