Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage - Assignment Example

Presentation on Jackson’s Solution Part One: Jackson’s Decision There are several factors considered in making a decision in an organization. The First factor is the perception issues that involve how the individuals interpret their environment. The issues that govern individual’s perception are their background and experience, the personal values, the personal expectations, the personal interests as well as the situation. Jackson had two years’ experience when he suggested the implementation of a new global knowledge-sharing application that he intended to cut down the development time and cost to half. He came up with the idea after carrying out an extensive research on the knowledge-sharing system. Even though he was for the idea, he garnered support from others as the Information Technology Director at global powerhouse ADM. The object refers to any person, event or an item that has an impact on the way people perceive it. For example, a judgment passed on one person by a group of actions of the entire team instead of making on themselves on their own individual merits. The Second factor is the organizational hierarchy, which refers to organization’s management structure. Different levels of management exist in organizations, which defines the degree of authority to which an individual can make a decision. It is right for Jackson to seek permission from the president of McConnell Spice Company. The permission was in the format of a project, agreed upon by many in the board on implementation of a global knowledge-sharing system. Organizational politics is the third factor to consider as it refers to the behavior displayed by individuals and groups to influence others. Individuals and groups use politics to advance their careers, interests or ideas and to increase their rewards, as well as cater for their beliefs, values, and interests. The decision-making process involves four major steps. The first step is the description of the situation. The description of the situation used in the case study is a new global-knowledge-sharing system in the name of a proposed project to assist the company’s competitiveness. The listing of possibilities as the second step defines all the available solutions to the company’s challenge. After investigating for the best company to implement the project, Jackson listed three companies as assigned by McConnell. McConnell suggests that Jackson should shortlist Standard Systems. After investigation, he found out that Standard Systems belongs to an uncle of McConnell’s son-in-law. The third step is choosing selection criteria; in the case study, the employed approach is evaluating the cons and pros of working with each firm. The last step is acting on the agreement. Jackson’s decision; the two firms were better in the position of offering the required expertise than Standard Systems. Therefore, he recommended not to engage Standard Systems in selected companies. Furthermore, the board was to meet to give the final decision in the next meeting. The hidden problems were coloring the decision in lieu to the president. Many owners of companies have the ultimate say in critical decision-making but still Jackson had to push for the other companies. The bias would be so dangerous if Jackson recommends on the Standard Systems firm because he knows that the business is small and operating locally. Besides its smallness, he realized after doing some research on the company that it could not handle the complex project as large as it was. He also knew the firm’s capacity could not handle the engagement for the best of the company’s operation in the department of the chief information officer. Part Two: Presentation to the Board Considering the Standard Systems firm for the work of implementing the global knowledge-sharing system at McConnell Spice is indifferent from retaining the old system, even though, the other firms are at disagreement per se. The question of deciding the company that should implement the sharing system should take consideration of the project size, the company’s capability, the company’s record of successful projects and the set constraints. The chosen company should be able to do the task exhaustively with clear cost implications. This presentation to the board contains the decision on the choice of company to complete the installation work basing on system requirements, available types of the distribution system, expertise, as well as limitations of the systems. A knowledge sharing system becomes successful when the implementer meets the essential requirement. The requirements of the knowledge management according to Ordóñez are as explained (2015).The required system should be able to collect and arrange information systematically from different sources, minimize up-front knowledge engineering, exploit user feedback for maintenance and evolution, integrate into existing environment and actively present useful information. Incident report database, alert systems, best practices database, lesson-learned systems as well as expertise locator systems constitute types of knowledge sharing systems. The procurement department heavily relies on these packages for two reasons: efficiency and accuracy. The state of the art does not support old versions of the systems because of their inefficiencies like low speed, small capacity and lacking advanced features. The advanced features make it possible to perform the latest knowledge sharing application as SAGE Expert Finder locates financial experts in Florida. Commonly, most of the applications involve expertise to act as the instructor (Harorimana, 2010). As the world keeps evolving, the technology keeps changing for the benefit of the end user. The latest technology assures the ease of use of a new package in opposition to the old packages. It also ensures that the firm remains competitive globally (High Technology Small Firms Conference, & Oakey, 2009). The success of the knowledge management initiative is in line with employees’ positive attitudes and intentions to share knowledge, their willingness to share and their actual engagement in sharing as a voluntary act. The technological advancements give rise to improved features that solve the drawbacks of the old versions. Different principles do exist, but the most useful policy is the current, which has evolved over time into new practices. In addition, the modern packages offer online and inbuilt tutorials, procedures and wizards that assist the user in completing an assignment. Consider SAGE and QuickBooks, SAGE is the most recent accounting package that offers solutions to some of the limitations of QuickBooks (Harorimana, 2010). For instance, Expert Finder, an additional feature in SAGE, locates experts in Florida while Expert Seeker locates experts at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in United States of America (USA). With this kind of locating packages, getting to experts is quite easy and fast. The large memories, a characteristic of the new knowledge-sharing system, make information collection or retrieval, processing and storage promptly. In contrast, the Standard Systems specializes in accounting packages only. However, on the other hand, there are constraining factors to implementing the state of art technology. The main problem with the new knowledge sharing is teaching the new colleagues and sharing the possessed knowledge. The total exposure of acquired knowledge poses the danger of an expert losing his or her work, which is a personal reason. The knowledge sharing for the sake of sphere of activity changes inside the company, workplace changes among the employees and career possibilities is the biggest challenge nowadays. At the changes of professional fields inside the company- particularly if both employees continue their work inside the company- knowledge sharing become difficult (Ordóñez, 2015). As knowledge acquisition happens at the same time in the new position as education diminish in the former position, the situation leads to stress and strained relationship, which degrades organizational knowledge sharing capabilities. Therefore, human resistance to change that is inborn inhibits the power of the knowledge sharing. In order to overcome this barrier in companies adopting new systems, the board should ensure that employees’ reshuffle takes place at departmental levels but not at organizational levels. Knowledge sharing causes relationships among employees to become impersonal. This distribution makes employees keep away personal relationships as the knowledge is public to all the users. Easier knowledge sharing occurs when the company is small than when the company is large since colleagues know each other so well (Ordóñez, 2015). In addition, informal relationships and trust make stronger relationship at the company that supports knowledge sharing. The two facts cause the atomizing of knowledge. In fact, the company’s primary objective of implementing the knowledge sharing system is to improve company’s competitiveness (High Technology Small Firms Conference, & Oakey, 2009). Despite the two advantages of the old system, priority is on the global company’s competitiveness in the market of company’s products and sources of raw materials for sustained operations that characterizes the new knowledge-sharing package. Companies with new knowledge sharing systems have greater advantages over those companies with old systems in relation to their competitiveness. When it comes to procurement, especially to the McConnell Spice, where the supply of raw materials is global, and the company must install the modern state of art knowledge-management system. Contracting a company with vast experience in modern systems will produce the best work. A company that upgrades the old equipment will lead to cutting down the cost of development. ADM, the company with the best expertise in modern packages installed on an old hardware, is my best option for the job. However, Standard Systems is a small consulting firm, which from investigation seems having not done work related to global knowledge sharing applications. In addition, the Standard Systems belongs to an uncle of our president’s son-in-law. The Standard Systems has a good reputation and excellent people, but the project is large and complex, which may take the company a very long period to implement to the required standards. Additionally, the company may not complete the project because it is just a consultancy firm with local expertise. As such, there is a need that the decisions that the company makes be inclined to the results that it desires. References Harorimana, D. (2010). Cultural implications of knowledge sharing, management and transfer: Identifying competitive advantage. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. High Technology Small Firms Conference, & Oakey, R. P. (2009). New technology-based firms in the new millennium: V. 7. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. Ordóñez, . P. P. (2015). Knowledge management for competitive advantage during economic crisis. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Read More