At every level there is a fundamental importance attached to knowledge. Customers are only delighted when everyone they talk to is “in the know”. Products are only extraordinary if design, manufacturing, quality and marketing and service support (etc.) share the same ideas about them. Processes are only successfully implemented if people understand the processes themselves as well as the products which they operate on. People only achieve competence through learning and understanding which are both implicitly founded on knowledge creation and sharing.
So for organisations into the 21st Century a key value additive will be the ways that knowledge can be used to business advantage. Inversely, to ignore knowledge issues is to risk a loss of customers and a wholesale adoption of short-termism. It is clear that this may already be the case for many organisations. Garratt (1994) points out that organisational inertia can mean that brain-dead are often maintained on life-support for many years. Eventually the plug is pulled, usually by the bank, and the organisation dies. On a more positive note, whilst still on life support there is a chance of revival.
The Global Perspective
It is being increasingly recognised that we are on the brink of a new paradigm. Some have called this “post-modernism” (Blackler, 1994), others the “age of design” (Conklin, ??). Lyotard (1992) provides a commentary on the changing nature of knowledge in post-modern society. He claims that most of the 20th Century has been oriented towards this shift and that the resulting society measures knowledge by its value in the marketplace. Whilst this shift can be seen in the growing number of organisations in the knowledge sector (consultancies, etc. ????), it is important to realise that, as with trademarks, for many organisations knowledge has a greater value within the organisation than as an external saleable commodity. However, the ability to charge for knowledge in the 21st Century is a sign of its importance and therefore the necessity to understand and utilise it.
At a recent TeamIT meeting the paradigm shift was discussed and ages were classified and compared on some factors, as part of a workshop by Jeff Conklin of Corporate Memory Systems Inc., TE, USA.
The table that was brainstormed is presented here in Table 1.
*GAFI= Gather, Analyse, Formulate theories and Implement
This new paradigm is emerging from the realisation that the “age of science” has been invaluable to creating the world we now inhabit but which can be a limiting approach to understanding the world. Knowledge is one such case since we are dealing with experiences, awareness and learning. These three terms tend to be seen as ‘weak’ by science, but as important socially constructed (?sociology reference?) phenomena to be maximised under the new paradigm. Rather than replacing the paradigm of science, it is suggested that a new age will subsume it. Science is valuable and can’t be thrown away but we need more. For knowledge management this means that we rest on the important breakthroughs of ‘scientific’ research in computer systems, databases and artificial intelligence for information management, but that knowledge management is a separate unique process requiring more than formal methods and storage mechanisms. Let’s look again at the ages to draw the distinction between Information Management and Knowledge Management (a commonly blurred distinction).
At this point it is interesting to note that Japanese organisations are astounded at the current Western interest in Knowledge Management. Their view is that they have always done it, that it is unconsciously managed (i.e. not controlled as we tend to try to do), and that to do anything else would be absurd. The Japanese view that they have always done it, is different to the Western view that says we have always done it, because this usually alludes to companies that have always managed data and information. KM is rarely successfully practised even now in Western markets. The reason for the difference in approach to KM can be found in the cultural differences that exist between the east and west in terms of reliance on scientific explanation and scientific management. It is easy to suggest that we might simply transplant the Japanese methods of KM into Western organisations. In reality of course, the cultural differences in the organisation of work and life are so great that what works for Japan would simply not fit into our Western organisations.
So, we must develop a theory of Knowledge Management that will work effectively for Western organisations With the distinction of what we are trying to manage (Table 2), we can go on to define an approach to KM.
The How of KM
To understand how knowledge can be managed, it’s useful to look at how we, as individuals, approach this task in everyday life. Human beings create, retain and develop knowledge - we call this memory. In turn we use this knowledge to guide our future behaviour. An important aspect of human memory is that we learn things whether or not we consciously attend to them (Anderson, 1990). Equally, we rely on our memories to guide our behaviour without always consciously analysing the memories themselves. For individuals, the process of memorising and recalling knowledge is not always a conscious (i.e. controlled management) act. True learning organisations need to develop KM methods that are both intentional and incidental to capture the full range of knowledge that is valuable.
To claim that humans have no problem with KM will concern some of my readers. Those who are now thinking about the last time they attempted to learn for a test or examination should stop to consider that this task equates to Data Processing or Information Management. Organisations are usually more effective or at least aware of these tasks (witness reams of procedural databases, manuals and weekly reports). However, knowledge creation and management, given the above definition (shifting solutions tied to conditions of creation under an environment of shared understanding through cultural interaction) do not come naturally to organisations. It is useful to see why.
Some Barriers to Knowledge Management
The social approach inspired by the Age of Design is contradictory to many of the characteristics of Global organisations. All social groupings are in some way bounded by their physical, cultural, structural and chronological environment. Some of these boundaries are legacies of scientific management, and may eventually wane, but many are implicit within global organisations. There is no fix for the fact that employees in Australia and the UK do not share a working day. There are ways of reducing the effects (e.g. using CSCW systems) but nothing that can promote a complete shared workspace like two people in an office.
The second and more complex problem for Organisational Knowledge Management is that much of the knowledge is tacit. Tacit knowledge is excellent for routine tasks, but where organisations need to assess their knowledge, build on it and re-store it, it is essential to make this knowledge explicit. This is a complex process for individuals and one faced in our day-to-day learning. The organisation as a whole must enable all it’s groups and individuals to make their knowledge explicit to gather a combined memory which will in turn become tacit to the organisation. Future Knowledge Management efforts then face the task of making the shared memory explicit before building on it further. Complex!
Anyone surveying the Knowledge management literature would be pushded to find references that did not include some discussion of the use of groupware. As was suggested above, these technologies are the primary lubricant to solving problems of distributed working that is enforced by globalisation. Though there is much work still to be done in this area, suffice to say in this paper that Groupware plays its’ role well. The problem of tacit knowledge is a more complex one and the framework developed here is intended to go some way in tackling this problem.
A Model of Knowledge Management
This paper proposes a framework based on three research fields. Professor Ikujiro Nonaka presents a dynamic theory of Organisational Knowledge Creation providing the foundation of this work. The work on Human Memory that is summarised by John Anderson in Cognitive Psychology and its Implications provides a suitable framework for comparing human and organisational memory. Jeff Conklin and associates (at MCC then CMSI) on gIBIS and QuestMap present a summary of CSCW solutions to Organisational Memory, which are used to argue for the relative merits of KM techniques. An overview of each is provided, followed by a combined model intended to provide a framework for organisations to work with in achieving Knowledge Management.
Nonaka and the Dynamic theory of Organisational Knowledge
Nonaka’s theory is based on the premise that management relies first on creation of knowledge, and that in a true learning organisation, the process of management is really one of continual knowledge (re-)creation. He focuses on the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is that which its holders are able to articulate into discrete elements. Tacit knowledge in oppostition is that knowledge which is so ingrained in the memory that we are unable to articulate it i.e. we can do something, but not explain why or how. Nonaka claims that in creating organisational knowledge (which he terms ‘amplifying’ that which individuals possess) we use a series of transformations between the tacit and explicit knowledge of participants.
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Anderson’s Cognitive Psychology of Memory
Conklin’s Organisational Memory
A combined Framework
Some Organisational Imperatives
A Suggested Approach
Conclusions
Simon’s dictionary
Anderson, J.R. (1990) Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications, New York: W.H.Freeman and Company
Blackler, F. (1994) “Post-modern organizations: understanding how CSCW affects organizations,” Journal of Information Technology, 9. 129-136
Conklin, E. J. ()
Garratt, B (1994) The Learning Organization London:Harper Collins
Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press
Nonaka, I (1994). “Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation,” Organization Science, 5, 1. 14-37
Twiss, B and Goodridge, M (1989) Managing Technology for Competitive Advantage. London: Pitman
Wiig, K.M. () Http
Young, R ()
