The Knowledge Management Reflection - Literature review Example

The Knowledge Management Reflection Name: Student’ Number: Course: Knowledge management is very important in every organization so as to ensure that there is a continuous flow of information in the organization. Knowledge management involves organisational capital which is the company resources that should ensure that the organization live according to the public expectation. In this case the knowledge being managed is how the asbestos material should be handled so as to ensure that there are no risks involved in handling the asbestos material. The knowledge of the skills and handling of asbestos materials could cause a lot of problems because careless handling of the materials. This is because the removing of asbestos from their pits requires special skills and knowledge which should be provided by the company permanent employees who are trained to do so. The technics used to remove the asbestos from the pits was being alleged that the methods would expose workers and the general public to problems that come with danger of asbestos. Knowledge management involves the resources and company assets such as organization capital which includes financial, physical and intellectual capital. The financial capital is the company resources in terms of monetary assets that are directed to knowledge management. This includes the funds the company sets aside to ensure that knowledge is properly maintained and the company lives to its standards. The physical capital includes the company infrastructure such as buildings and machinery used in ensuring that there is a working knowledge management system. This has been advocated for in various knowledge management system materials. The company should invest in infrastructure that will help in passing the knowledge from one generation to the other without any risk of losing it. The company should ensure that equipment such excavation tools are available to their employees so as to ensure they do not touch the asbestos with their hands. The company should also have cans where the asbestos materials will be put after being removed from the pits so as to avoid any effects being passed to the employees or the general public. The company should also invest in research and development to ensure that the current knowledge is improved and passed to the new employees. This will help breach the knowledge gap that may arise during employees’ engagement in their duties. The company should also have a developed software and hardware system that will ensure that the current knowledge is stored in a save mode for easy access by the employees and any other person who might be interested in information about the asbestos. The company should use their website so as to improve the knowledge of the general public about the asbestos. The information should be produced in the printed media such as newspapers and printed papers that should be available to the general public especially in the public libraries. The company should also go an extra mile to building their libraries that will be open to the general public. This will ensure that knowledge is imminent and the general public is well protected from any harm that will arise from handling of asbestos materials. The company should also have stores and warehouses where the equipment will be kept so as to allow easy access by the employees and so as to maintain them for the future. The company should have network connections in their premises so as to ensure that workers can access knowledge from the central server without going to the main offices. This will help in saving time during knowledge research and network is also a very important storage tools. The intellectual capital is the human contribution towards the knowledge management. These are the skills that those in the knowledge handling status possess and contribute in ensuring that the best elements of knowledge are disseminated to all the parties involved. Intellectual capital is the only type of resource that is believed to gain value on its continuous use. This means that the more an individual is experienced the better they tend to perform their duties. The intellectual property involves the whole human resource department and the skills that are instilled in the employees through training. The company should high invest to ensure its intellectual property is of high quality. According to Firestone (2013) there should an interaction in an organization between the old and young members of a company staff. This will help the dissemination of knowledge from those who have great experience to the young members of the staff. This will help the young employees to gain experience and acquire the company knowledge. This will be a form of maintaining the company’s knowledge without incurring any extra costs. This calls for teamwork among the employees so as to ensure that the company’s information and knowledge is maintained with the system. This is according to various researchers who have identified teamwork as a great way of maintaining information and knowledge in the company. Voluntary dissemination of knowledge is the most important way on passing knowledge from one party to the other. Forced passing of knowledge can make some parties to withhold vital information which could help in improving the performance of the company. Knowledge management requires creation of a knowledge management system which is the technological based tools which connects different departments of the company and ensures that the employees have a way of communicating with each other. This sharing of information among the employees ensures the knowledge is maintained and distributed in the right channel. After creation of a knowledge management system there is need to define a knowledge management process to ensure that creation, discovery of knowledge is done in the best way possible. The company should also ensure there are ways of capturing any emerging knowledge that will enable the company improve its performance. This will enable the company distribute the required knowledge to their staff members. The company should also define ways of improving the knowledge managed and disposing the knowledge which the company finds not necessary for the company use. This will help the company reduce on the knowledge maintenance cost. According to Michael and Jessica (2004) there have also been calls to ensure that companies manage and evaluate the knowledge they possess. This evaluation will ensure that the company does away with the unnecessary knowledge. The reason behind this is to identify the knowledge gaps that the company needs to bridge so as to improve on how it performs its duties. This will also call for defining a performance management policy that will be defined to ensure the company achieves its objectives. The company should have a performance management system so as to keep on reviewing the success of the company’s strategies. The performance management policy will ensure that knowledge is improved at any given time to ensure that they are responsible in the best way possible. A KMS should be regularly reviewed to ensure that it is meeting the objectives identified in the strategy and requirements. The company should device a way of getting feedback from the general public on how successful their strategies are. The company indicators of success will be the feedback from the general public and review of its policy after every three months. Any gaps that will arise during the reviews and feedback from the general public will be addressed in the best way possible. The measuring of the success will be on how the company removes the asbestos from the pits without any harm to the workers and the general public. In case there is no harm and exposing of the asbestos materials the company will be on the right track, but if this is not the case the company will have to improve on its strategies. The strategies should be able to handle the laid down requirements. The company strategies should be analysed once in a while so as to identify any gaps that are limiting the performance of the company. The analysis should be done by the employees and will involve their experience during carrying out their duty. The employees will have to write reports on their experiences and identify ways to improve the services of the company. The reports will act as an audit to the company so as to ensure the company is moving on the right track. The company should highly invest in research and development to ensure that there are no gaps in the service delivery. According to Stuart (2002) a company should identify a strategy that will benefit the majority and performing its mandate while achieving their goals and objectives. Any strategy taken should ensure safety to the majority people. For example, the company employees have gone a lot of training on how to handle the knowledge about asbestos. Training being the source of knowledge should have ways to improve how it is disseminated. The knowledge dissemination includes the risks that come with careless handling of the asbestos materials. The company should also ensure that security of the company is not breached in any way. This will ensure that sensitive information that belongs to the company is not given to the employees and even does not go to the general public. The company principles and policies should follow the set rule and regulations on how to handle the asbestos materials. According to the Australian law there are laws that shows there are minimum requirements to be followed by the companies handling the materials. The knowledge in the case study is that the asbestos being exposed to human can cause infections and therefore, the company NBN removing the material from the pits was not in a manner that was protecting the workers and the general public. This could expose people to infections that would result into diseases. The knowledge about asbestos effects should have been handled in a way that will not affect people’s health. The company should even ensure that the knowledge is available even to the general public so as to ensure that they are safe from any harm caused by asbestos. The strategies should be within the law Australia there are laid down laws and rules on how asbestos should be handled and disposed. This knowledge was available to Telstra Company because it had a function of removing the asbestos from the pits so as to allow room for installation of fibre optic cables by NBN. Given that asbestos are harmful and can cause numerous infections among them cancer, this calls for high level of precaution and care so as to eliminate this problems. Therefore, there has been breach of the law by the Telstra because it did not take any steps to protect the general public and even the employees from the harm caused by the asbestos. According to the senators and all the other parties involved they have shown that the company did not ensure that the subcontracted companies have the required knowledge and skills to handle asbestos. According to Michael and Jessica (2004) technology is one of the most important tools of maintaining and management of knowledge. Technology and especially servers and computers this can be used to share information with a lot of people. The system will ensure that the company’s knowledge of how to handle the asbestos materials is maintained and disseminated in the best way possible. The government should ensure that the knowledge is being maintained and distributed in the best way possible. The company will ensure that there is internet in the company to ensure easy access of the knowledge by the employees. There have been recommendations to introduce units government should about the asbestos and their harm to the people to be studied at all levels of education in the country. This will equip most people with the basics about asbestos this will help protect any arising harm. The company will also have to keep on training its employees on the asbestos. This training will be offered after every 3 months to ensure that the employees have the required knowledge. The company can also offer to have open days where it will be training the general public on the issue of asbestos. References Michel, Avital, Jessica, Carlo. What Knowledge Management Systems Designers Can Learn From Appreciative Inquiry. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2004. Stuart, Bairnes. Knowledge Management Systems: Theory and Practice. Cengage Learning. 2002. Firestone, J. M. 2013, Riskonomics: Reducing Risk by Killing Your Worst Ideas. Chapter 2 - What is Knowledge? http://www.kmci.org/media/Whatknowledgeis%20%28non- fiction%20version%29.pdf Read More