Individual and Organizational Knowledge Interface - Term Paper Example

Individual and Organizational Knowledge Interface Employees and management is the key to the environment of every organization. The combined essence of the accurate performance of each individual upon their respective position enables the successful execution of the processes within the organization as a whole. The embedding and intrusion of Information Technology into modern day business processes has strengthened the globalization of organizational competence. Comprehensive knowledge processing at Individual levels, in the light of the modern day information technology strengthens the Knowledge Interface of Organizations and the corporate world. For the required strengthening of the knowledge Interface of an Organization, it is essential that a few areas be addressed in particular for their accurate functioning. These are discussed in the text that follows. TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES FOR THE IT MANAGEMENT ENVIRONMENT The Information Technology Equipped Managing Strategy for a business environment needs to be critically assessed for its requirements. The Development of Organizations’ personnel in monetary terms and in terms of time spent upon their grooming with respect to the organization’s environment is one of the foremost IT management requirements of present day. The ongoing advancements in the field of Information and Communications technology make it essential for businesses to remain equipped with the latest technologies and trends related to IT Management. It is required that in order to do the best possible job, the business should budget for training and developing their staff and encouraging it to participate in the training lessons whenever possible. Staff Familiarization is another essential phenomenon. The routines of the staff should be made familiar to the management. This way, better cordial relation is possible which in turn enhances the knowledge sharing paradigm within the organization. Communication Flow is essential. The better the flow of communication within an organization, the better is the adaptation to ever growing technical trends and scenarios. It should be ensured that communication should flow freely and easily between management and workers. Information should not be hoarded at different levels of an organization. Embedding of better technical features is more likely to easy flow of information. Adapting to Best IT Practices. The best IT practices suitable to the environment of the organization should be assessed, applied and understood. The current stature of the company should be assessed against them from time to time and the required IT related improvements should be incorporated in order to keep up with growing business and consumer needs and requirements. SIGNIFICANCE OF DATA MODELING IN DATABASE ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENTS Data Modeling is the arena that is responsible for handling the management of data within an organization. In the simplest of terminologies, data modeling refers to the way in which data is maintained within a database. Data, as mentioned by Teorey and Lightstone in their book ‘Database Modeling & Design: Logical Design’ (2005) “is the smallest named unit of data that has meaning in the real world”. With respect to each corporate arena all data that has meaning for it is integral to it. The better managed the data of an organization is, the better is its overall performance and operation. Since, “A data model describes how the data in an information system is represented and accessed.” (Oppel, 2009) the information systems within an organization are mainly base on how well the data models incorporate the data used by them. The better the modeling of data is, the better is the running of information systems and thus targeted and efficient the output. Since data and its modeling transcend the systems within a business environment, the entire roots of the tasks of a manager and database administrator are directly proportional to the appropriateness of the earlier mentioned terms. No matter how much the systems of an organization may evolve the basis of the data and its well-structured models stay the same and are seldom altered. Studies quote that data models have evolved into the basis for data warehouses that in turn “deliver good information quality, system quality, individual impacts, and organizational impacts.” (Ariyachandra, Watson, 2008) Thus it may well be interpreted that for an administrator of an organization’s database to be efficient, it is essential that the data models of the company’s stakes be straightened first. CRITICAL THINKING IS APPLIED TO DECISION-MAKING PROCESS IN THE IT ARENAS With the onset of Information technology based decision support systems, the process of decision making improved greatly. A Decision Support System is a kind of information system that assists organizations or businesses in decision making. Decision Support Systems are usually based on database management systems that store and manage historical data that is needed to explore various types of information trends. The data that these information systems usually exploit is stored and maintained in the form of data warehouses. Data warehouses are capable of storing and managing multi-dimensional data related to a business or an organization. The nature of data stored is usually time based or historical. Unlike transactional or operational data, data warehouses contain de-normalized data which is used to draw different views that present different historical trends. These times based trends can further be used to predict and analyze the futuristic trends and to compile the business and policy decisions. Data warehouses support OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) that is used to create and execute the queries for decision making. A typical data warehouse comprises of hypercube core and materialized views. The hyper cubes can either be implemented through Multi dimension to Relational Mapping (ROLAP) or through Native Multidimensional Model. (MOLAP). Critical thinking plays a vital role in designing Decision Support Systems. It actually triggers all the main functions that are associated with thinking like observation, writing and reading, listening and speaking. Designing of data warehouses demand critical thinking to be involved continuously as an ongoing exercise. Be it the cyclic process of transformation of data, data integration or data modeling, critical thinking plays a vital role at all stages. The un-conventional nature of queries and the requirements of Decision Support Systems discriminate data warehouses from normal databases. Well thought of planning and powerful anticipation of results well before time are highly essential tasks that are needed to be deployed as critical thinking process for designing a true decision support system. REFERENCES: Ariyachandra, T., Watson H. J., (2008). Technical Opinion: Which Data Warehouse Architectureis Best? Communications of the ACM. 51(10). 146-147. Ambler, W. S., (2011). Data Modeling 101: Techniques for Successful Evolutionary/Agile Database Development. Retrieved from http://www.agiledata.org/essays/bestPractices.html. Martinsons M. G., Davison R. M. (2006). Strategic decision making and support systems: Comparing American, Japanese and Chinese management. ScienceDirect. Decision Support Systems 43 (2007) 284–300. Oppel, A. (2009). Data Modeling. United States: McGraw-Hill Publications. Sisco, M (July 18, 2008) 10 skills that can help you land an IT manager job. Tech Republic. Retrieved from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-skills-that-can-help-you-land-an-it-manager-job/384 Simsion, G. C., Witt, G. C., (2005) Data Modeling Essentials. The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Torey, T., Lightstone, S., Nadeau, T., (2005). Database Modeling & Design. United States: Morgan Kaufman Publishers. Ward, J. (July 17, 2007) 10 tips to being a better IT manager. ZDNet. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com.au/10-tips-to-being-a-better-it-manager-339280091.htm Read More