Socialising Knowledge Management: The Influence Of The Opinion Leader
Cheng MingYu, Multimedia University,
Malaysia
ABSTRACT:
This paper looks at
knowledge management and the importance of knowledge management in today’s
organisations. Even though
knowledge management has gained its popularity recently due to the drastic
changes in business ecology, there is still confusion on how to implement the
knowledge management strategy successfully. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate and suggest
possible ways to communicate the concept of knowledge management more
effectively so that the knowledge management concept could be implemented more
successfully. The communication of
knowledge management concept is done through knowledge management socialisation
process and it is suggested that the socialisation process be carried out by
the so called “opinion leader” who is presumably to be a more knowledgeable person
and be able to influence others in changing their perception and behaviour.
Introduction
Today organisations are
fundamentally different as compared to organisations existed in one or two
decades ago in terms of their functions, structures and style of management. The new organisations put more premium
on understanding, adapting and managing changes and competing on the basis of
capturing and utilising knowledge to better serve their customers, improve the
operations or to speed their products to markets. The emergence of these new organisations calls for a new way
of management, which is generally known as “knowledge management”. What is knowledge management? Why is it so important to adopt this
new methodology of management? How to successfully implementing knowledge
management in the old and new organisations? One of the conceivable ways to
initiate knowledge management in organisations is to socialising knowledge
management. In the process of
knowledge management socialisation, what would be the role of opinion leader so
that knowledge management could be understood and accepted easily by the
organisations? Who are the opinion leader and how to identify the opinion
leader? Why is there a need of the opinion leaders in knowledge management
socialisation? These are some of
the important issues to be discussed in this paper.
Knowledge Management
It is almost impossible to
trace exactly the origin of knowledge management - when it started and how it
started. In fact, mankind has
always been managing knowledge, ever since in the hunter-gatherer society. During
the hunting-gathering era, efforts were made to accumulate and disseminate
knowledge regarding hunting and gathering activities. Through their experiences in the hunting and
gathering activities, hunter-gatherers managed to develop and accumulate
extensive understanding of their environment such as the sources of food, the
dangers, and the opportunities, which exist within their territory. The society was continuously looking
for new knowledge and technology for survival and to protect themselves from
animals and natural disorders. The way of life was gradually improving and the
knowledge was enhanced through experience. Even though there was no proper and systematic way of
managing, storing and sharing knowledge at that time, relevant knowledge was
passed on from generation to generation.
During the later ages in the agricultural and industrial eras, knowledge
was managed, distributed and applied accordingly to cater the needs of
societies at the different particular time period. Therefore, strictly speaking, knowledge management is not an
entirely new concept in the history of human development.
However, the term
“knowledge management” became popular only within the last few years. Although
knowledge management has now been seen as used widely in companies,
governments, institutions and other organisations, there is no one unique
definition of knowledge management.
In fact, despite all the various definitions, what is “knowledge
management” actually referring to?
A review of literature
suggested that knowledge management is generally defined as “'the collection of
processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and leveraging of knowledge
to fulfil organisational objectives.”
It has also been interpreted as “a business philosophy that includes a
set of principles, processes, organisational structures, and technology
applications that help people share and leverage their knowledge to meet their
business objectives." (Gurteen, 1999). More specifically, Bukowitz et al (1999) define knowledge management as
“the process by which the organisation generates wealth from its intellectual
or knowledge-based assets”. Koulopoulos & Frappaolo (1999) note that
“knowledge management emphases on the re-use of previous experiences and
practices, but its focus is on mapping these to the changing landscape of the
market”.
Knowledge management has
gained its popularity as a result of the emerging needs to incorporate dynamic
changes into the business and information architecture and to develop and grow
systems that can be readily adapted for the dynamically changing business
environment. Organisations operating in the new business environment therefore
need to be adept at creation and application of new knowledge as well as
ongoing renewal of existing knowledge archived in company databases. Even though knowledge management relies
heavily on technology for database management and has been narrowly defined as technology-based
management in most cases, it means more than technology per se. Davenport (1997) suggested that the
elements of knowledge management should include:
¨
culture - the firm’s values and beliefs about
information and knowledge
¨
behaviour and work processes - how people actually
use information and knowledge and what they do with it
¨
politics - pitfalls that can interfere with information
and knowledge sharing
¨
technology - what information systems are already in
place
Thus, knowledge management
embodies organisational processes that seek balance combination of data and
information processing capacity of information technologies, the environment of
using and sharing information and knowledge and the creative and innovative
capacity of human beings.
Why knowledge management?
The most common goals motivating a corporation to undertake an effort to manage
knowledge better include retaining key talent, improving customer service, boosting innovation and promoting the
development of unique market offerings and increasing revenues and
profits.
Further investigations
showed that most of the organisations now focus on four uses of knowledge
management: (i) to capture and share best practices (77.7 percent), (ii) to
provide training or corporate learning (62.4 percent), (iii) to manage customer
relationships (58.0 percent) and (iv) to deliver competitive intelligence (55.7
percent) (Dyer & McDonough, 2001).
Figure 1 shows the business uses of knowledge management initiative. In
fact, effective knowledge management pays off in fewer mistakes, less
redundancy, quicker problem solving, better decision making, reduced research
development costs, increased worker independence, enhanced customer relations,
and improved service (Becerra-Fernandez, 1999). No matter what would be the
reasons given to adopt knowledge management, there is only one end purpose of knowledge management – to adjusting quickly to the changing environment in order to
boost efficient and hence profitability.
Figure 1: Business Uses of
Knowledge Management Initiative (Reference #1)
In conclusion, knowledge
management refers to a series of processes that manages the creation,
dissemination, and utilisation of knowledge. The ultimate aim of knowledge management is to
organise, share and put together knowledge to create a substance value in
knowledge. The field of
knowledge management has advanced from the principle that the organisation’s
ability to utilise and share knowledge (such as staff expertise and experience,
skills, data files, development processes, and etc) are important resources
that would increase and improve the organisation’s productivity, creativity,
and profits.
Socialising Knowledge Management
Nowadays, the application of knowledge
management is indispensable in a great range of organisations or enterprises,
ranging from education institutions, health-care industry, government
departments, manufacturing industry and essentially all industries have close
link with knowledge management.
However, in spite of its popularity, many organisations have in fact
expressed their disappointment that knowledge management has not really been
helping much. Most organisations are still trying to find answers to
simple questions such as: How to capture, store and transfer knowledge? How to
exercise the knowledge management concept? How to ensure that knowledge workers
share knowledge?
In order to successfully implementing knowledge management, it is
essential for organisations to realise the importance of cultivating knowledge sharing
culture in the organisations through the process called “knowledge management
socialisation”. Socialising
knowledge management is critical as to get rid of misconception about the
knowledge management and to help the organisation's employees understand what knowledge sharing is
about and why it can be of benefit to them. Essentially, knowledge management is about making the knowledge
accessible to those who need it so that employees are “doing the right thing”
instead of “doing things right”. However, the optimal use of available
knowledge is only possible if it is known where to find this knowledge and if
this knowledge is accessible. All too often one part of an enterprise repeats
work of another part simply because it is impossible to keep track of, and make
use of, knowledge in other parts.
Based on the KMM/IDC survey
findings, an organisation's main implementation obstacles in knowledge
management stem from the absence of a "sharing" culture in the
organisation and employees' lack of understanding of what knowledge management
is and what benefits it offers.
Survey from KPMG Consulting highlights the main reasons for the failure
of knowledge management (Reference #2):
¨
A lack
of user uptake owing to insufficient communication (20%)
¨
Failure
to integrate KM into everyday working practices (19%)
¨
Lack
of time to learn how to use the system or a sense that the system was too
complicated (18%)
¨
A lack
of training (15%)
¨
A
sense that there was too little personal benefit in it for the user (13%)
The common issue that have
been mentioned so far is on the human side of knowledge management
implementation. Many companies
have failed in their knowledge management attempts because of the way they
operate this new management concept, including how they first introduced the
concepts of knowledge management to their employees. If this is true, how should then the knowledge management
concept be communicated and transferred to the members of the organisations?
It has been suggested that in order for knowledge management to be successful, it must
start at the top management level, that is, if the senior management buy it, in
most cases, the concept will be successful, otherwise, it will fail. However, it has also been argued that
since knowledge is an abstract concept, the culture of sharing knowledge
depends on the attitude of people who formed the culture. If people are reluctant to share their
knowledge, there is absolutely no way that they can share knowledge effectively,
you can not make people share by overtly rewarding them and not even by force
or authority.
One of the main challenges
to introduce new concepts is always stemming from changing the existing culture
to accept the new concepts. The successful establishment of new environment for
knowledge sharing is dependent on a number of human factors including issues
such as staff development and training and change management. In the process of
this cultural change and socialisation of knowledge management, what would be
the role played by opinion leader in influencing people to change their
attitude and adopt knowledge sharing culture successfully?
The Opinion Leader
Who are the opinion
leaders? Opinion leaders are generally defined as those individuals whose
beliefs, practices and behaviours are noticed and imitated by others. If these opinion leaders are observed
by others to adopt an innovation or concept that seems valued, it can begin to
spread through the population.
Ultimately the population norm changes as more and more people accept
change (Reference #3).
According to Solomon
(1994), opinion leaders are individuals who are knowledgeable about various
topics and whose advice is taken seriously by others (Solomon, 1994). Opinion
leaders can be found in all types of groups: occupational, social, community,
and others (Littlejohn, 1996). They often tend to be very socially active and
highly interconnected within the community (Solomon, 1994). However, they do
not need to be those who hold the position as leaders by official means, even
though they usually are. It is
also not necessary for opinion leaders to acquire special powers (economical,
political or social power), or attaining high educational or professional
training, even though they usually are.
Broadly speaking, anyone can be the opinion leader, depending on the
time and issue at hand. Opinion
leaders can be found in small community, as small-scale as family, or in big
community with great influence, sometimes they are as influential as to change
the social movements.
Opinion leadership theory
has many implications for advertising and marketing. However, in this paper,
the attempt to apply the opinion leadership theory in the knowledge management
socialisation is considered, as it is believed that the same diffusion power
would have significant impact on socialising knowledge management. In this paper, the opinion leaders are
regarded as those information scrutinisers, strategists and visionaries who
understand the implications of using knowledge management and the importance to
transform the organisation.
Therefore, the opinion leaders in this paper are confined narrowly to
those who have special influence on changing the attitude of employees in
organisations so as to create the knowledge sharing organisations.
Organisational culture is a critically important aspect for facilitating
sharing, learning, and knowledge creation. Therefore, knowledge management
socialisation that aims to release the cultural roadblocks in the
implementation of knowledge management will needs someone to communicate the
benefits of corroborating the knowledge management concept in the management
and to stimulate personal interest to adopt knowledge management. Employees should be convinced that not
only “knowledge is power”, but most importantly -“sharing knowledge is
power".
To fully capitalise on the
organisation's knowledge, knowledge management must be integrated with business
process and technology tools and must enable people to act more efficiently to
create value, hence requires a conducive environment for sharing knowledge in
the organisation. To create a
knowledge sharing culture, the organisations need to encourage people to work
together more effectively, to collaborate and to share and ultimately to make
organisational knowledge more productive.
Why is there a need to have
opinion leaders in knowledge management socialisation? As gregarious beings
living in collectivist society, humans are interdependent and need support from
other people. There is a need of second opinions from others in order to confirm
their beliefs, or to avoid confusion. The role of opinion leaders in this
perspective is to cultivating personal interest in sharing knowledge. A real knowledge sharing culture could
not be formed if people can not see for themselves the benefits of knowledge
sharing. Hence, the opinion
leaders play important roles to communicate and convince the followers of the
benefits of knowledge management such as how knowledge sharing helps them to
deliver their jobs better; helps them in their personal development as well as
career progression; and brings more personal recognition, etc, to enabling
organisations’ employees to appreciate the basics of knowledge sharing.
Most organisations have in
fact realised the importance of the opinion leaders in facilitating the
organisational change. The
creation of the new position – the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) is one of the
evidences. CKOs are viewed as the potential opinion leaders in socialising
knowledge management as CKOs, who are entrusted to maximise the creation,
discovery and dissemination of knowledge in the organisation are also entrusted
to possess distinctive personalities such as lively, enthusiastic and able to
transmit their enthusiasm to others. They had great belief in knowledge
management and were ambitious for the success of their company. They were
flexible, looking to work with anyone on anything that could advance the cause
of knowledge management. According to Earl & Scott (2001), the best CKOs
must fulfil four roles: entrepreneur (willing to champion risky new
initiatives); consultant (able to match new ideas with business needs);
technologist (fully IT-literate); and environmentalist (able to design settings
and processes to maximise knowledge).
However, one additional role for CKO is to be the opinion leader in
shaping the knowledge sharing organisations.
Though it is generally
agreed that CKOs are the potential opinion leaders in the knowledge management
socialisation process, it is not necessary to be so. The challenge to the organisations thus is to identify who
are the opinion leaders in the organisations and how should they apply the
opinion leadership theory in socialising knowledge management concept so that
knowledge management would achieve its objectives to bring benefits to organisations.
Conclusion
Knowledge management is
viewed as a new and critical issue in today’s management discussions. Knowledge
management emanated as a result of the increasingly discontinuous environmental
changes experienced recently. The
change in management practices is unavoidable. In order to cater the needs of organisational adaptation,
survival and competence and to keep abreast with latest development as well as
to maintain organisations’ competitiveness, there is an exigent need to
successfully implementing knowledge management strategy. There are many models proposed to
implement the knowledge management concept, such as the commonly adopted “top
to down” organisational enforcement.
However, as suggested by the American Productivity and Quality Centre
(APQC), one of the effective ways to initiate knowledge management concept is
to socialise the concept to alleviate misconception on knowledge management and
hence to promote the knowledge management concept more successfully. But the question is, how to socialise
the knowledge management concept effectively? This paper suggests that instead of driving the cultural
change by force or by authority, if the organisations could consider the
influence of opinion leaders and thus highlight the roles to be played by these
opinion leaders, it can enhance the possibility of achieving the objective of
implementing the knowledge management concept successfully.
References
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(3) http://www.aidsprevention.org/ADAPT/who.htm
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Connecticut
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About The Author
Dr. Cheng MingYu graduated from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and received her Ph.D. in Economics at the same university upon completing her bachelor degree in Resource Economics. Dr. Cheng has written a number of journal articles and books. Her research interest has spanned a wide variety of topics - including development economics, economics of higher education, econometrics modeling, and information economics.
Dr. CHENG MIN, GYU, Head of Economics Unit, Faculty of Management, Multimedia University, 63100 Cyberjaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Phone: 6-03-83125677; Fax:-03-83125590; e-mail: myucheng@hotmail.com, mycheng@mmu.edu.my