The Influence of Knowledge Management on Organizational Business Processes and Employees Benefits - Assignment Example

The Influence of Knowledge Management Name: Institution: Date: The Influence of Knowledge Management on Organizational Business Processes and Employees’ Benefits Q1. Other areas affected by knowledge management This study has explored the influence of knowledge management on employees’ benefits and organizational business processes’ but knowledge management affects many other areas in an organization. There are other vast areas which are affected by knowledge management since it is crucial for creativity, innovation and generally new product development. Knowledge management has an effect on the corporate culture of an organization. When knowledge management is introduced in an organization, it dictates how things are done in to encourage generation, sharing, storage and dissemination of information (Yang & Chen, 2007). For the purpose of encouraging these activities it is importance there will be a change in the corporate culture or organizational culture that will promote knowledge management in order to achieve positive results. The behavior of workers and the management has to change to accommodate the implications of knowledge management system. It is not possible to implement knowledge management without affecting the corporate culture of the organization. People will have to change the way they share, retrieve, disseminate, and generate knowledge. Managers who are successful pay close attention to factors which are crucial in the maintenance and establishment of a competitive edge of the organization. The corporate culture has to be greatly affected by knowledge management system. Knowledge management has to impact the organizational culture to encourage members to embrace the importance of knowledge management system. Any implementation of a new strategy has an impact on the organizational culture of the business. Knowledge management is no exception since it affects the organizational culture of the firm. Development of databases for storage of information depends on the effectiveness of knowledge management within the organization (Rasli & Maseri, 2008). Further research can also be carried out on the impact of knowledge management on organization performance. Knowledge management has an impact on the business processes hence the organizational performance of the organization. Employee behavior that affects the organizational culture has an impact on organizational performance. Human resource capital is an important ingredient to organization performance. Innovation affect new product development in organization hence has an effect on customer satisfaction in terms of meeting their needs. Employee turnover and retention has an impact on knowledge management and vice versa. The impact of knowledge management on human resource management can also be investigated. Impact of knowledge management on human resource determines the future of the organization with regard to retention of competent and experienced workforce. Technology plays an important part in an organization and knowledge management uses the infrastructure laid down by technology. Technology enhances the implementation of knowledge management system within an organization (Fugate, Stank & Mentzer, 2009). Organizational business processes’ and employees’ benefit are not the only areas that are affected by knowledge management but there are many other areas that knowledge management has an impact. There is no harm if the impact of knowledge management can be extended further to other areas in organization. Q2. The inclusion of University students in the sample ALHOSN University academic staff and faculty were used in the study in order to meet the requirements of the research question. The research questions the impact of knowledge management on employees’ benefit and organizational business processes’. Students are products of universities hence representing external factors about the organization. Including students in the research would have stretched the scope of the research to hence making the results not to be a reflection on internal processes of the organization. The results would be more generalized and formulation of hypothesis would have to be extended to cover the student part. This study has touched on issues like organization effectiveness, organization efficiency; organization level of innovation, employee adaptability, employee learning, employee and satisfaction (Rasli & Maseri, 2008). These areas touch on organizational processes as well as employees’ benefits. Including students would require that other aspects about students to be investigated in order to be incorporated in the results. ALHOSN University faculty and academic staff provide a manageable sample that results can be analyzed within the stipulated time. The sample size was 84 respondents which is quite manageable. The filled-in questionnaires were collected within a period of two weeks and three teaching assistants together with the others were used as a data collection committee. This could not be the case of students would have been included in this study. It would be tedious for the same data collection committee to be used since students are many. Validity and reliability of data analysis would not be assured with such a bloated sample (Yang & Chen, 2007). More time would be required to analyze the data and present the final results. The study has analyzed the effect of knowledge management on internal businesses and employees’ benefit. The study hypotheses cannot be analyzed well when students are included in this study. The hypotheses have focused on internal processes and employees’ benefit and students would not add value to the research findings but instead introduce new challenges to be dealt with. It will mean that issues to do with clients’ benefit have to be analyzed. To evaluate path analysis it would require the addition of another column that also examines efficiency, effectiveness, learning, innovation, adaptability, and innovation on the part of the student. The results would have to consider other external factors like competitors hence stretching the resources available. The study objective was identification of the impact of supporting knowledge management processes using a corporate portal on employees’ learning, job satisfaction, and learning; and businesses processes’ efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation. The inclusion of students would force the elements being investigated to be extended to them. The research results would not focus on the internal processes of the business and employees’ benefits but would be focused to cover the client part which is another wide area. The path analysis will be expanded and constructs being investigated would have to be added in order to increase reliability and validity of the results (Fugate, Stank & Mentzer, 2009). University students can appear on the corporate portal as external factor. The increase in constructs will mean that more items have to be analyzed hence making the results not to be specific to the organization but reflect other external factors. Moreover, knowledge management has to bring out organizational processes’ effectiveness and not to evaluate client satisfaction because the clients may not be directly involved in the internal knowledge sharing. Including students may not give the results that will reflect exactly on internal processes of the university. The sample size will not provide adequate time to have detail analysis hence there will a lot of assumptions and generalization that affect the validity and reliability of the research. More time would be used in analyzing the student population whose sample would be bigger in order to capture the correct representation of the population. Students bring a separate factor that has to be analyzed on its own in order to be elaborate and comprehensive (Chen & Huang, 2009). Knowledge discovery and knowledge sharing has to within the organization and students will introduce a new dimensions and multiple characterization. Some of the elements of employee effectiveness and efficiency cannot be analyzed in the safe breadth as students since it mean focusing product delivery and not business processes’ effectiveness. Therefore, the inclusion of students would have stretched not only the scope of the research but also the time and resources required to complete the study successfully. Q3. The academic and practical contributions of the study There are many academic and practical contributions that this study. Organizations can draw inspiration on proper application of knowledge management for proper delivery of services. Practically this study gives important lessons to managers and CEOs about knowledge management within their companies. It traces the vital areas that appropriate knowledge management has to accomplish if implemented in the right manner. The findings of this research can be aptly applied by managers who are trying to implement a knowledge management system in their firm operations to enhance generation, storage, sharing and dissemination of knowledge from one department to another or from one individual to another. Knowledge management helps people within the organization to share their best with others and contribute to the growth of working corporate culture (Jennex, 2006). The use of knowledge management in organizations is able to enhance their capacity of creating, sharing, managing and application of their knowledge. It encourages business intelligence and results in better managerial decisions efficiency as well as effectiveness and focus on better business performance. Knowledge management is entrenched in the concepts of organizational memory and organizational learning. Individual production can be enhanced through elaborate communication of ideas in the organization. It is costly to invest in knowledge, and since new knowledge creation is an inherently uncertain process, it is not a guarantee that value-providing knowledge can be distributed evenly amongst organization members. A high level of knowledge will enable an organization to come up with better products or come up with more efficacious and efficient production methods (Chen & Huang, 2009). Majority of the function of knowledge management is focused on explaining how systems and technology can result in a good environment for knowledge sharing, management and storage. Organization will understand how to apply technological advances to create and disseminate. The importance of employees in knowledge creation and dissemination is elaborated in this study. Worker involvement in knowledge creation, sharing, and storage is indispensable. Managers are able to learn the importance of knowledge management and its real meaning. This study has explained the meaning of knowledge management from different scholars’ perspectives. It has further enumerated and elaborated elements that constitute knowledge management. Managers and other business stakeholders can understand knowledge management processes (Yu, Kim & Kim, 2007). This study explains the importance of corporate portal as well as knowledge management and the connection between them. Members of the organization can interact successfully using the corporate portal in order to share, generate, and be interactive about knowledge. This study is an eye-opener to line managers and heads of department on the importance of knowledge management within any organization. Academically this study will act as a good platform for other researchers who would want to explore the knowledge management in organizations. This study was about organizational business processes’ as well as employees’ benefits, there are other areas that that can be investigated to determine the impact of knowledge management or knowledge management system in an organization. The limitations of this study can be used for further research by other scholars who what to pursue the subject in an elaborate manner. This study has projected where further research has to be conducted (Jennex, 2006). UAE being a member of GCC countries there is need for the same study using the same model to be carried out in other GCC countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia. The results obtained these studies can be used to verify the study model that was used in one of the university in UAE during this research. This research suggests the importance of culture related variables as determinants of knowledge management application and success. These are areas that there is need for further research in order to determine the impact of knowledge management within organizations. Further research can narrow down on areas that have been pointed out in this study. Academically this research has added value to the literature and data about knowledge management in organization. Students and lecturers can use the results and literature of this study to understand some elements of knowledge management. Information presented in this research is of vital academic important to institutions of learning and particularly where knowledge management is concerned. This study has used Becerra-Fernandez et al (2004)’ model to investigate the impact of knowledge management on organizational processes’ and employees’ benefits; but it is important to use other theoretical frameworks to investigate these relationships and compare with the current results. References Becerra-Fernandiz, I., Sabhrwal, R. (2004). Knowledge management challenges, solutions, and technologies, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Chen, C. J., & Huang, J. W. (2009) Strategic Human Resource Practices and Innovation Performance—The Mediating Role of Knowledge Management Capacity, Journal of Business Research, 62(1), 104-114. Fugate, B. S., Stank, T. P., & Mentzer, J. T. (2009) Linking Improved Knowledge Management to Operational and Organizational Performance, Journal of Operations Management, 27(3), 247-264. Jennex, M. E., (2006). Knowledge Management System Success Factors, the Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, Idea Group, USA. Rasli, A. & Maseri, W. (2008), Project Performance Framework: The Role of Knowledge Management and Information Technology Infrastructure, Asia Journal of Business and Accounting, 1(2), 39-64. Yang, C. & Chen, L.C. (2007) Can knowledge capabilities affect the knowledge sharing behavior? Journal of Information Science, 33(1): 93-107. Yu, S.H., Kim, Y.G. and Kim, M.Y. (2007) Do we know what really drives KM performance?” Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(6): 39-53. Read More