KM Strategies (Part 2): Change And
Development
Viju
Mathew, Salalah, Sultanate of Oman
ABSTRACT:
Describes KM demonstrated resources enhancement and firm’s competitiveness, driven by the need to improve knowledge transfer in order to innovate by specifying the production functions, the roles and responsibilities, prerequisite of structure, administration, and organizational interactions within the firm. The paper elaborates change process incorporating 4 P’s and 4 C’s for knowledge activities as a primary need for doing process with the basic path for the constructing structural framework for change and developing sustainable competitive advantage. The combination of different components of KM framework creates and demonstrated how resources can enhance a firm’s competitiveness, driven by the need to improve knowledge transfer in order to innovative system & process. The framework will put forward the basic objective and integrate KM enablers and supporters providing efficiency and effectiveness to the organization KM initiative. The paper also elaborate the KM strategy support for organization to maintain and strengthen the competitive position, addressing specific organizational needs and focus on adding value and innovation with the capability of knowledge support which enhances the stand for creating enhanced products and services for added advantage.
Keywords: KM strategies, Cross functional integration,
P’s and C’s of KM, Business, Collaboration
1. Introduction
Knowledge Management has been increasingly used as crucial factor in development of the competitive advantage for the organization. Knowledge management support and provides path for the organizational change and transfer of knowledge avoiding cost and duplication. It has been extremely important that the organization should be encouraged through various means and method for knowledge sharing which will enable the organization to depend on its own sources. Investment in learning, knowledge sharing among employees and management of knowledge enhances learning capacities of the organization giving long term opportunities. KM reduces the need for continuous knowledge investments and helps the organization to combat the change and improve in the production system.
The major objective of the paper is to bring together the factors largely affecting the organization creating advantage based on knowledge which the organization generate during the years. The structure existing is the integration of the KM, seems to be challenging and requires further investigated change. The major outline includes categorized factor which affect the organization directly to overcome the challenges for achieving organizational goals. KM in an organisation is formed from various inputs and executed despite massive investments it sometime fails to find the desired results. The subject in large organization is much complex and need great attention because of multidisciplinary, diverse dimension, various characteristics and possibility of measuring in a definite scale. The main reasons will be taken due consideration for effective implementation of KM strategies in the organization. KM and its application plays significant role in knowledge creation and sharing capacities to build knowledge organization to support the ongoing strategic formulation.
KM strategies are designed in the form by which the organization achieve the required knowledge sharing and output. Open ended and closed ended strategies are considered as the driving solution for effective implementation. The various sub-components affecting the organizational change are learning and knowledge sharing highlight the influential factor in the organization. The paper elaborates 4 P’s and C’s of KM constructing structural framework for change and sustainable competitive advantage. The interdependency of various functional and organizational relational supports knowledge sharing and transfer. Various components like individual, organizational, group and environment factor affecting the organizational culture elaborated in the model highlighting the factor for development. The various sub-components affecting the organizational cultural change are learning and knowledge sharing which are influential factor in the organization. The combination of different components of KM framework creates and demonstrated how resources can enhance a firm’s competitiveness, driven by the need to improve knowledge transfer in order to innovate. It also specifies the production functions, the role and responsibilities, prerequisite of the structure, administration, and organizational interactions within the firm.
KM strategy helps the organization to maintain and strengthen the competitive position, addresses specific organizational needs and focus on adding value and innovation with the capability of knowledge support which enhances the stand for creating products and services for added value. The organization KM initiatives will be based on the pillars for the flow of knowledge, capture, sharing and reuse to leverage advantage. The performance of the organization in the dynamic changing environment can be improved by framing these basic components in organizational culture.
2. Knowledge Management And Process
The society today has becoming information rich gaining advantage over competition in society and market. The demand for information and knowledge has been expressed in different forums, committees and conferences which can guarantee the socio- economic development and able to generate new sustainable system which has been eroded from time to time. The term “knowledge” has been used many times in the research, consultancy, management, industry and academics but many times the process of generating and using knowledge for value addition has not been thought off. Many researchers and scholar put emphasis on knowledge resources and its application in daily life which makes huge difference. Since “knowledge is considered as assets to which it belongs” need to be look upon for the benefits of the society, business and individuals. Large amount of money and resources has been put for managing knowledge for better, regular and repetitive use in industry and business. Knowledge management projects are often becoming expensive (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Zack, 1999) and time consuming. Many market players in business like IBM have put resources for codifying knowledge having specialist and other technical resources. The major role of knowledge management in identification, capturing, sharing, transfer, intellectual beliefs and values to gain advantage and generate new knowledge which can enhance the overall growth and development of the society. Technological development and information system is playing a major role in capturing, sharing, dissemination and storing intellectual capital and knowledge for societal and industrial benefits. Generic process and influential factors combining innovation, group effort, sharing and learning add to the growth of knowledge and its process of management. Collaboration and relationship among different component is essential for sharing, transfer and innovation including different countries, communities and societies around the globe will help to solve various problems within the business and global society.
3. KM As
Key Strategy For Business
Studies have indicated the KM is considered as a strategic tool which has the potential to attain organizational objectives. These objectives includes profit, competitive advantage, employees development, cost reduction, data management, market improvement, enhance customer focus, data analysis, short term and long benefits etc. In the economic growth the companies have strong threat from fast expansion process and incoming of foreign investor at the economic level. In most of the developing businesses, KM caused tremendous change with its use companies identifies how to develop competitive advantage from both internal and external competitors. To develop and grow profit of organization KM strategies adds to the major strength and develop sustainable competitive advantage. KM acts as crystal to develop and implement organizational strategy providing benefits to the companies.
Rapid development in Information and communication technology (ICT) supports the organization within existing KM process. The change and use of KM tool and techniques has greatly affected the organization for transformation of process from changing tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, knowledge sharing, knowledge capturing and dissemination, knowledge reuse, process cost reduction, employees participation in knowledge development, implementing KM as strategic tool, and organizational overall development.
4. Knowledge Management And Sharing
Organizational members may share personal knowledge with a certain apprehension. The perceived threats are of less value if their knowledge is part of the organizational public domain which may reduce their sustainability in the organization. Research from Hanssen-Bauer and Snow (1996) suggest that in organizational learning and knowledge management facilitates conditions include trust, interest, and shared language fostering access to knowledgeable members (Brown and Duguid, 1991), and a culture marked by autonomy, redundancy, requisite variety, intention, and fluctuation (Nonaka, 1994). The skills, knowledge transfer and sharing is necessary for successful involvement with associates and obtained through long-term relationships. It is difficult to specify the separate elements, and their close contact and interaction between each components often necessary to achieve the intended outcome of knowledge transfer. Li & Zhu (2009) has added factors that influence informal knowledge transfer and represent that the knowledge transfer opportunities, motives and capacity are the decisive influential factors to informal knowledge transfer among individuals. Knowledge transfer will depend on the people associated with the organization and varies in degrees of richness of channels and task on which each are being used for. Knowledge transfer motives contain transfer willingness and reputation interests of each individual at various levels.
5. 4 P’s Of KM
5.1. People And
Process
Organization realizes that ‘knowledge’ is a strategic resource that creates sustainable competitive advantage (Drucker, 1993). KM is also used by organizations to encourage the creation and sharing of knowledge that, it is claimed, results in improvements in productivity, innovation, competitiveness, and better relationships among people in those organizations. King (2007) added that the KM is the planning, organizing, motivating and controlling of people, processes and system in the organization to ensure that its knowledge-related assets are continuously improved and effectively employed.
Secondly, the process which links the people and function in the organization plays a crucial role for KM. Successful implementation of KM must concentrate on the human side for example employees, knowledge workers along with the knowledge group which is concentrated on KM process generated. KM can be successfully implemented by encouraging sharing environment at work place and that it is collaborative towards it (Song, 2008). The knowledge is further reused for improving efficiency and reducing the duplication of the process and to create competitive advantage. The combination of people and process will improve the P’s of KM and function together to produce the organization change. The knowledge community existing in the organization includes individuals, and group having social needs to achieve common purpose. “Knowledge management system connect people enabling them to think together and to take time to articulate and share information and insights they know and useful to their company” (Bollinger and Smith, 2001). Employees skills or experience represents the other side of the coin in exploiting and benefiting from the knowledge developed within the organization; otherwise effect negatively and act as a barrier in sharing if underestimate by employees and management (King and Lekse, 2006). The essence of change in an organization is to leverage the shared knowledge to create social dynamics for the community to grow, develop and create competitive advantage. Once this social dynamics has been established integrating the process and flow of knowledge, it will accelerate and provide faster learning by sharing approach to develop learning culture in the organization. The major creation among the community is to be open, transparent and limited to specific boundaries for learning. The communities of knowledge workers includes researcher, experts, and practitioners for knowledge need of the organization.
5.2. Knowledge Program And Performance
KM program often begins with leveraging the massive amount of knowledge existing among various components to improve performance and productivity. Knowledge which exists in abundance can be used efficiently, constructive to new form, captured, use for development and leverage the needs. The knowledge programs should be capable enough to create and foster innovation and indict process which are incorporated and leverage the knowledge by multi-dimensional aspect to maximize the impact on performance and productivity gaining competitive advantage. The main goal of KM is to improve organizational achievement (Chong and Choi, 2005) which is linked with performance and program by which it is implemented. The main objective of the KM program is to build favorable condition which can enhance the organization performance and achieve the desired result creating advantage.
Knowledge Program (KP) in an organization is challenging for implementation. The major challenge for various individual, group and organization at different level and functions should be handled with due care. The major challenge for the success of KP is to position and accepted by various levels and functions and supported by the technology, information system and top management in the organization. The objective of the KP is to accelerate the rate of growth and improve the flow of knowledge in a social setting in an organization. The knowledge program must implement organizational knowledge strategies to leverage the advantage by learning, sharing and knowledge transfer. When it comes to the implementation of KM, those ‘activities and practices’ which are helpful in the implementation of KM are known as Critical success factors (Wong, 2005). The KP has been successfully implemented in various organizations around the world by implementing them in specified framework enabling significant outcomes on business performance and overall productivity. Moffett et al (2003), identify another two factors for successful KM: Benchmarking and Performance measurements. KP must be widely spread over all department and components for significant convergence required for success. The successful KP includes efficient knowledge community which has the responsibility and plays a major role for implementation and creates knowledge culture. Various other components are the networking, available knowledge and the framework using collaboration and its application in business organization.
5.3. Organizational Change And The Role Of KM (4 P’s & 4 C’s)
The organization has various dimensions for change and adapting the change. The change at functional, institutional and organizational level must be taken into consideration for improvement. Change is only possible and successful if other functional levels supports and facilitate the knowledge program. The successful change process in structure, team and sufficient infrastructure are the basic requirement. It will be crucial to put KP and knowledge team without sufficient infrastructure and support of the individual and top management. The concepts of change are focus on learning and improvement with the implementation of the change process. Change management process can be adopted based on freeze-unfreeze-freeze concept (Lewin, 1951). The key change activity (Chaffey 2004) can be identified by market models (environmental factor), changing business processes, and structural change, technology and infrastructure requirements and so on.
The change process incorporates 4 P’s and 4 C’s for knowledge activities as a primary need for doing process. The knowledge activity conducted under knowledge program result to manage resources on knowledge based process gaining insight to avoid problems and to improve organizational performance.
5.4. Knowledge Management
Framework
Knowledge Management framework consist of the application of 4 P’s and 4 C’s. The KM process identifies and develops the application of these in terms of components as KM enabler. These enablers will be used while implementing the KM process. The KM initiative taken by the organization will depend on the framework which will enable the KM process to achieve its desired result. These results contain the creation of sustainable advantage in long term. The KM enablers are supported by other component like Management, measurement, technology and the organizational strategies also called as KM supporters. These KM supporters act as the shield which will determine the smooth flow of KM process. The KM enabler and supporter should be combined in such a way which creates smother flow of knowledge among the individual, groups and functional units. The KM framework (refer fig. 2) will be helpful for achieving the organizational performance and development in the long term as it measures the activities as per the specific requirement. The KM enablers and supporters combine together to form loop of knowledge transfer and develop the organization culture in such a way that will contribute to the overall development using collaborative web technology and its application.
The framework (refer Figure: 2) will put forward the basic objective to achieve the efficiency and effectiveness. The 4 P’s and 4 C’s in combination create the KM framework and demonstrate how resources can enhance a firm’s competitiveness, driven by the need to improve knowledge transfer in order to innovate. It also specifies the production functions, the role and responsibilities, prerequisite of the structure, administration, and organizational interactions within the firm. Complementary supports consist of R&D, administration, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. Other factor considered by different authors are management leadership and support (Wong, 2005), knowledge leadership (Skryme & Amidon, 1997), senior management support (Davenport & De Long, 1998), leadership (Hasanali, 2002).The management of knowledge for an enterprise concentrates on these core KM enablers and supporters to achieve the KM objectives. The integration of the KM enablers and supporters will provide efficiency and effectiveness to the organization KM initiative
6. Case Study: ABC Corporation
ABC Corporation in the area of software, application and solution services saw its market share wearing down in 2003 as one of the large organization creating and offering web browser. ABC Corporation by 2004 made the source code to the browser publicly available. They gave away knowledge that had cost them millions to generate and tried to look closely at competitor and act with the support to use KM system. The new development enables developer to generate product to work with the application of KM. The use of KM enablers extended the corporation to generate revenue and adopt strategy the basis of knowledge and the strength of the organization. ABC Corporation has emerged as one of the leading service organization in 2006 and positions them in dominant position by various collaboration and network.
7. Future Research
Directions
Modern business and institution are adopting technology as an integral part of their system to find out solution for day to day activities. The technological improvement and collaborative network will support the organization for look KM application at an improved and higher level. It also provides support for retrieve, access and transforms the knowledge for the learning. KM application can be extended in service industry which is very volatile and need more efforts to generate the service activities. Different project can also be initiated to develop and enable to protect indigenous (aboriginal) knowledge. This aboriginal knowledge which are mostly related to health care, environment disaster and cure for diseases, agriculture remedies etc are used and practiced in rural area having insufficient supply and services. Collaborative source of learning and capturing this knowledge can be beneficial globally. Within the modern system web based network and learning will provides solution and much better solution than ever before.
8. Conclusion
The business organization operating a dynamic environment needs to be flexible enough to adopt change. The 4 P’s and 4 C’s of KM are the major components needed to take care for effective adoption of change in an organization. The organization KM initiatives will be based on these pillars for the flow of knowledge through capture, sharing and reuse to leverage advantage. The performance of the organization in the dynamic changing environment can be improved by framing these basic components in organizational culture. The factor will directly affect the organizational learning culture and being incorporate resulting in performance and productivity. The use of collaboration for knowledge transfer and sharing in the business organization will support the overall performance improvement and implementation of strategies.
10. References
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Contact the Author:
Dr. Viju Mathew, CAS, P.O. Box 1905, Postal Code 211, Salalah, Sultanate of Oman; Email: viju_002323@fastmail.fm, mathew_viju@fastmail.fm