Business Performance Management - Developing Knowledge Culture - Coursework Example

Business performance management-Developing knowledge culture Name University Affiliation Introduction Knowledge management strategy is how any organization tends to manage its knowledge for its better benefit and the stakeholders. Many benefits accrue to the organizations that take the initiative of managing their knowledge (Peters & Besley, 2006). This comes when the organization has analyzed its potential and strategizes how it can tap and modify this potential so that it could maximize its production using the same resources within the shortest time possible. It is true that a big percentage of firms do not perform to their full potential due to some inefficiency they do not address. Once particular firm rectifies these inefficiencies, it is obvious that it would boost its performance and would have a competitive advantage over its competitors. In the current business world, firms have various strategies they can adopt to manage their knowledge. A good knowledge management strategy should be closely aligned to the firm’s entire goals and objectives (Skyrme, 2002). One of the best knowledge management strategies is developing a knowledge culture within an organization. This paper concentrates on how to develop or create a knowledge culture within an organization to aid in knowledge management. Managing knowledge within an organization cannot be just implemented abruptly, but it is a process that takes time, this needs good planning to attain the desired results (Peters & Besley, 2006). Therefore, developing a knowledge culture is a process of initiating the culture of knowledge management within the firm. It is known that the best way to maintain good performance of a firm in future is to have a corporate culture where the new employees and management tend to adopt the existing norms within the organization (Applehans, Globe, &Laugero.1999). This implies that the culture of an organization is very much important to the viability and sustainability of the firm in future, thus, the culture should be build on strong fundamental principles which can withstand the future challenges. In the current world, firms’ culture has become one of the most common keys to the problems and issues to the management. When an organization strives to address the issue of culture, it helps it is dealing with the intangibles and soft issues that can be simply managed instead of setting up of long complex system and procedures. The development blocks of culture within an organization are both visible and invisible. Sometimes it is referred to as iceberg model of culture (Troxler, 2009). The visible components of culture are; behavior and rituals, symbols, products, systems etc. These visible blocks are influenced by the by the invisible blocks. Some of the invisible elements are; beliefs, attitudes, behavioral norms, assumptions and basic values (Tiwana, 2000). These invisible elements tend to affect the behaviors of the organization’s members and it aids these members to interpret and understand the behaviors of other people. The main concern of developing a culture for an organization is putting up the behaviors within the organization that would make this organization to be identified uniquely from others and improve its performance. We have several cultures that often exist in various organizations. Examples are; blame culture, safety culture, justice culture etc (Troxler, 2009). Some of these kinds of cultures bring negative impact to the organization while others bring positive impacts to the organizations. Blame culture for example is a negative culture where organization members do not accept their faults, but they try to point another person to be responsible for the mistake they have committed (Applehans, Globe, &Laugero.1999). Thus, it is good to develop a culture that eliminates this blame culture. Safety culture on the other hand is a positive culture within an organization that should be encouraged. Safety culture is all about good safety attitudes, good safety management, and high priority given to the safety of within the organization (Troxler, 2009). Good safety culture within an organization shows that it constantly scrutinizes the importance of events and matters related to safety. Just culture on the other hand adopts the procedure to identify the reason that lies behind a non-compliant behavior. This concept acknowledges that human is to error, however, it demands accountability and the sense of justice (Tiwana, 2000). Therefore, just culture, like safety culture within an organization brings positive fruits to the organization in case it is instituted well. In developing and managing knowledge culture, three aspects have to be done effectively. These three aspects are; knowledge creation, knowledge distribution and knowledge application (Hauschild, Licht &Stein, 2001). Knowledge creation is the task of creating new knowledge within the organization to boost performance. The new knowledge is required since it is the basis for creativity and innovation. This task is the most technical of all the tasks involved in managing knowledge. For companies to remain relevant and competent in the business arena, they ought to come up with new knowledge so that they can develop new quality products that can satisfy their customers (Hauschild, Licht &Stein, 2001). Most successful companies attempted knowledge creation where new knowledge was build and this led to innovation of various efficient ways of production. Another aspect is knowledge distribution; this is taking or moving the created knowledge to the areas where it can be effectively applied. This aspect greatly depends on good infrastructures that are used for spreading knowledge (Tiwana, 2000). Therefore, in developing and maintaining knowledge culture within a firm, there must be a good channel of knowledge distribution of the newly created knowledge. Knowledge application on the other hand is the correct use of the created knowledge to bring a positive impact to the organization (Hauschild, Licht &Stein, 2001). When an organization best applied its knowledge the chances of countering the challenges it normally face are high, however, when the created knowledge is not applied efficiently, then the firm would undergo struggles. The issue of developing a knowledge culture in organizations is being driven by three factors; the first factor is to capture the experience of the graying employees (Anderson, n. d). Companies are really striving to maintain the culture that already exists. The current workers who are yet to retire instituted this culture. Therefore, firms believe that when they do not safeguard the current culture, it would vanish since the newly employed workers have not adapted it fully (Applehans, Globe, &Laugero.1999).). Thus, the only option of maintaining the already existing knowledge culture is engaging in knowledge culture development to maintain and even modify it to fit the current world. The second force that is compelling the organization to engage in developing a knowledge culture is providing cost efficient way of doing business (Anderson, n. d). Today’s business environment is undergoing a rapid change. The state of the markets is forcing the business enterprises to elevate their efficiency. Therefore, companies are engaging in knowledge management to close the knowledge gap that could be causing some inefficiency to be able to offer better services to their customers. Another force is improving corporate agility (Anderson, n. d). Corporate agility is the ability of an organization to thrive in a dynamic environment through the efficient use of knowledge. Building a knowledge culture within an organization tend to give an organization a competitive advantage (Tiwana, 2000). ). This empowers them to move at a constant speed as the economy is doing to satisfy the future requirements. Thus, the urge of improving corporate agility compels the firms to involve in setting a knowledge culture. The process of developing and sustaining a knowledge culture within an organization involves many phases. The first phase is launching the knowledge management initiative. This is the critical; stage where planning takes place (Banks, 1999). The planning stage is quite important to the successful development of knowledge within the firm. At this stage, three things have to done. First, the organization should attain the corporate sponsorship at the highest level. This means that the top management should support fully the initiative in attitude as well as in actions. This initiative should be treated as a top priority, therefore, the management should support it fully since along the course, there would be strategic shifts to attain the desired success. Secondly, a strong project manager who has the potential to drive enterprise’s momentum towards the implementation of the knowledge initiatives. The project manager can keep track of the project and continue to build the firm’s support (Banks, 1999). He can only do this if he has an in-depth understanding of the knowledge management stages. This means that it is advisable for an organization that is seeking to establish a knowledge culture to appoint a potential manager who has vast knowledge in this field. Lastly, we have the implementation of the pilot project. A pilot project aims at securing confidence, defines success parameters, and put up a solid knowledge management initiative (Banks, 1999). Considering the advantages seen from a successful pilot project, the manager would be in a position to clearly define the enterprise benefits to get increased support from the management. The second phase in initiating knowledge culture is implementing a knowledge management initiative. In this phase, the project manager should now a charter that defines the documentation, which shows the position statement, strategic planning, mission, statement, assumptions short term and long-term goals, objectives. The manager should also take the stock available resources and use it to clearly define program deliverables (Banks, 1999). During the implementation phase, several steps ought to be followed. First, the manager should write a statement of how business objectives will be attained through establishment of knowledge culture. Secondly, he should specify the projects that should be undertaken which should include the order of doing it and the reason behind it (Anderson, n. d). Thirdly, he should plan for the technological implementation, which supports the promised actions. The manager should also describe the roles of sponsors and team members; moreover, he should develop the communication guidelines (Banks, 1999). The next step is to come up with guidelines for managing change and create ways to review and revise relevance of the roadmap as time goes by. When the manager has developed the project charter fully, the project manager should now pick appoint a team of members that would be given the responsibility of developing and implementing the plan. Some of the responsibilities of this team would be; first, risk management (Anderson, n. d). This a strategy for involves identifying and countering the project hurdles, the team scrutinizes along the course of the implementation and identifies the difficultness it may encounter so that it develops some mechanisms that would help it to overcome these challenges. Risk management support is a vital component to any knowledge management initiative. Risk management involves risk planning, identification, analysis, monitoring and control. The second function of the team is configuration and change management. Configuration is the information technology process of identifying, documenting, controlling and tracking the interrelated configuration components (Hansen, Nohria, &Tierney, 1999). When there are changes in the work configuration, it causes workforce imbalance this in turn may lead to resistance from the workers. Therefore, for any culture initiative to be implemented properly, the change it embraces should be managed carefully. Configuration management involves Auditing, base lining, change control board, impact evaluation and maintenance. The third function of the team in the developing knowledge culture is procurement management. This is the standardization and maintenance of the processes used to obtain the goods and the services that is required in maintaining the culture initiative (Kapitzke, &Peters, (2009). Procurement management involves planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration and contract closeout. Another function of the team is communication management. Communication management guides the guides in the generation, collection, dissemination and storage of the information that concern the knowledge culture initiative (Hansen, Nohria, &Tierney, 1999). This function involves planning, distribution, reporting and closure. Benefits of initiating a knowledge culture In establishing knowledge culture brings many benefits to the organization, some of the benefits include; improving competitive response, good knowledge culture in a firm enables it with immediate effect to respond to market changes and speed the new products time to the market (Kapitzke, &Peters, 2009). This immediate response helps in capturing a large market share before the competitors captures it. Secondly, an established knowledge culture in a firm aid in cost reduction and loss of intellectual assets. When the organization is in a position to capture the tacit knowledge make it to leverage the captured information to streamline processes and doing away with costs of retraining employees and recreation of the experts lost knowledge. The third benefit of developing knowledge culture in a firm is that it boosts job effectiveness (Peters & Besley, 2006). When an organization implements a knowledge based infrastructure, this helps to eliminate the traditional boundaries and increases the sharing of knowledge among the employees. This in turn tends to enhance job effectiveness and satisfaction. Fourthly, an established knowledge culture is a big boost to enterprise effectiveness Kapitzke, C &Peters, M. (2009). When Knowledge management tools, templates are well used accompanied with the culture of sharing knowledge among the workers tend to form a collaborative environment, this later on elevate the enterprise effectiveness. Lastly, creating a knowledge culture give the organization a strategic direction (Peters & Besley, 2006). Encouraging knowledge sharing culture increases creativity and innovation in the firm hence affecting strategic direction of the firm. A good culture would give the workers a freedom to express their view and demonstrate their talents on their job tasks. When they are allowed to do these experiments, they are develop the skills of creativity and may come up with new ideas, which can help the organization to improve its performance. Conclusion Establishing a knowledge culture within an organization is one of the modern ways a firm can opt to promote its effectiveness to remain relevant in a business. Knowledge culture as is the establishment of positive norms that encourages harmony within the organization. Examples of cultures that can be established are; safety culture, just culture, innovative culture etc. In the current business scenario, business enterprise are pushed by various factors such as competition, changes in technology, customers preferences and many more to opt to initiating knowledge culture to cushion themselves from the challenges that they face. Development of knowledge culture in an organization involves several phases, which ought to be carried out carefully to realize the fruits. Good and successful initiation of knowledge culture within a firm brings many benefits to the firm, these advantages enable it to compete effectively and remain in business. Therefore, culture development in an organization is an essential activity that ought to be considered by the management of any firm to improve its performance. References Anderson, A. Building a knowledge culture. Retrieved from http://www.robbinsgioia.com/library/whitepapers/knowledgemgmt.pdf Applehans, W. Globe, A. &Laugero. (1999). Managing knowledge: A practical web-based approach. Addisson-Wesley. The University of Michigan. USA Banks, E. (1999). Creating a knowledge culture. Vol. 48. No1, pp 18-20. Retrieved from http://www.nazconsult.ie/whitepapers/CreatingKCulture.pdf Hansen, M. Nohria, T &Tierney, T. (1999). What is your strategy in managing knowledge? Retrieved from http://consulting-ideas.com/wp-content/uploads/Whats-your-strat-art.pdf Hauschild, S. Licht, T &Stein, W. (2001). Creating a knowledge culture. No1. Retrieved from http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Creating_a_Knowledge_Culture.pdf Kapitzke, C &Peters, M. (2009). Global knowledge cultures. Sense publishers. University of Auckland New Zealand Maier, R. (2010). Knowledge management systems; Information and communication technologies for knowledge management. Springer. Peters, M &Besley, T. (2006). Building knowledge culture: Education and development in the age of knowledge capitalism. Rowman &Littlefield. University of Auckland New Zealand. Tiwana, A. (2000). The knowledge management toolkit: practical techniques for building a knowledge management system. Prentice Hall. The University of Michigan. USA Troxler, P.(2009). Knowledge culture in an organization. Retrieved from http://petertroxler.net/content/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/3.1-Knowledge-Culture.pdf Read More