knowledge and management
DESCRIPTION
An introduction to Knowledge Management - basic concepts and their utilizationTRANSCRIPT
Knowledge and Management
Jozef HvoreckýVysoká škola manažmentu, Bratislava, Slovakia
University of LiverpoolLiverpool, UK
Knowledge
Oxford English Dictionary:
• Expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education
• What is known in a particular field or in total
• Theoretical or practical understanding of a subject
• Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation
• Facts and information
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Identifying Knowledge
Knowledge is to be:• True: 1+ 2 = 3• Justifiable: Water boils at 1000 C• Believed: People are more
intelligent than animals
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True
Justified
Believed
Application of Knowledge
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Problem Solution
Application of Knowledge
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Problem Solution
Knowledge
Application of Knowledge
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Problem Solution
Knowledge
Problem Knowledge Solution
Calculating salaries
Person’s income, Tax regulations,
Calculations
Net Income, Tax
Appendicitis Setting up the diagnosis,Surgery, Treatment
Healthy patient
Dirty oven Household duties, Detergent application
Clean oven
Talking to dead
Spiritual practices Evoke ghosts
Acquiring Knowledge: Learning
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Single-loop learning (Robinson Crusoe):• Trials and errors• Exploitation of positive results• Mastering gained knowledge
Double-loop learning (community)• Trials and errors• Exploitation of positive results• Capturing and sharing gained knowledge• Mastering gained knowledge (possibly by others)
Knowledge: Result of Learning
What do we gain during learning?
• Explicit Knowledge:– Articulated– Codified– Stored using certain media
• Tacit Knowledge:• Only in human brains• Even the owner may not be aware of it
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When Do We Learn?
• Traditional view:– At schools (Face Recognition course :-)– At training centers– Working on assignments– Predominantly explicit
• Contemporary view:– Everywhere– At any moment– When we create connections between pieces
of knowledge– Both explicit and tacit
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When Do We Learn and How?
Problems with Knowledge:
We often do not know:• What we know• Why we have learned it• How we have learned it
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Learning for a Learning Society
Learning Organization and/or Society:
The society that is capable to learn in order to prosper, develop, and dominate
A person or society that does not learn will suffer. Learning must be: – Intentional– Purposeful
Company’s Good Strategy : Knowledge management
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Two Faces of Knowledge Management
„Hard“ Knowledge Management:
Transposing knowledge into machines:– Robots– Computer programs– Intelligent cars– Production lines– Etc.
„Soft“ Knowledge Management:– Sharing experience– Collecting knowledge– Following manuals– Etc.
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Ba: Places for Gaining Knowledge
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Individual Collective
Face-to-Face
Originating Ba(Where data is born)
Dialoguing Ba(Data pre-selection)
Virtual Exercising Ba(New knowledge is verified and used)
Systemizing Ba(Data processed to New Knowledge)
Originating Ba
Any place where new knowledge can be found
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Person to person Sensor to environment
Front desk Mars Explorer
Information office Temperature sensor
Small talk Traffic light camera
Classroom lecture Hubble telescope
Dialoguing Ba
Place where the observations are “preprocessed”, “filtered”, analyzed
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Among people People to technology
Manager’s office Management Information Systems
Coffee corner Decision Support Systems
Hearing Datamining (Unification phase)
Consultation Expert System
Systemizing Ba
The place where new knowledge is verified and claimed “correct”
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Among people People with technology
Evaluation meeting Testing and verification
Scientific conference User’s satisfaction
Office of Standards Mass application
Grading students’ homework
Wind channel
Exercising Ba
The place where the gained knowledge is applied
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Among people People with technology
Workplace Concentrating on tacit knowledge
Strategy implementation Experimenting with data
Mental experiments Improving computer performance
Joy of knowledge Inventing new devices
Nonaka-Takeuchi SECI Model
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Tacitknowledge
ExplicitKnowledge
TacitKnowledge
Socialization Externalization
ExplicitKnowledge
Internalization
Combination
Socialization
• Sharing knowledge tacit knowledge between/among individuals:– Face-to face communication– Apprenticeship– Couching– “Samba school”– Etc.
Likely the oldest method of knowledge sharing
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Externalization
Expressing tacit knowledge in a conventional, collusive and explicit form:– Text– Professional notation– Guidelines– Legislation– Etc.
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Combination
• Building new pieces of explicit knowledge by combining known existing knowledge (forming explicit facts):– Evaluation– Sorting– Categorization– Abstraction– Etc.
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Internalization
“Privatizing” the gained knowledge, changing it into an asset:– Practicing the skills– Learning by doing– Memorizing– Forming a new terminology or
notation– Etc.
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Learning Organization
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TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATION
LEARNING ORGANIZATION
APPROACH TO CHANGE
If it works, do not change it
If we do not learn, we will extinct
APPROACH TO IDEAS
If it is not our idea, we do not welcome it
Let us not reinvent the wheel
RESPONSIBILITY FOR INNOVATIONS
Department of research and development
Each and every member of the organization
MAIN CONCERNS
Making wrong decisions Inability to learn and adapt
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Products and services Ability to learn and exploit knowledge and
experienceDUTIES OF MANAGERS
Controlling others Supporting others
How to recognize a Learning Organization?*
• A learning approach to strategy: The use of trials and errors to improve understanding
and generate improvements, and to modify strategic direction as necessary.
• Participative policy making: All the organization’s members are involved in strategy
formation, influencing decisions and values and addressing conflict.
• Informative: Information technology is used to make information
available to everyone and to enable front-line staff to act on their own initiative.
24*Buchanan and Huczynski: Organizational Behavior, p. 125
• Formative accounting and control: Accounting, budgeting and reporting systems are
designed to help people to understand the operations of organizational finance.
• Internal exchange:Sections and departments think of themselves as
customers and suppliers in an internal ‘supply chain’, learning from each other.
• Reward flexibility: A flexible and creative reward policy with financial and
non-financial rewards to meet individual needs and performance.
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How to recognize a Learning Organization?
(cont.)
• Enabling structures: Organizational charts, structures and procedures are seen
as temporary, and can be changed to meet task requirements.
• Boundary workers as environmental scanners:
• Everyone who has contact with customers, suppliers, clients and business partners is treated as a valuable informative source.
• Inter-company learning: The organization learns from other organizations through
join ventures, alliances, and other information exchanges.
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How to recognize a Learning Organization?
(cont.)
• A learning climate:The manager’s primary task is to facilitate
experimentation and learning in others, through questioning, feedback and support.
• Self-learning opportunities for all: People are expected to take responsibility for their own learning, and facilities are made available, especially to ‘front-line’ staff.
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How to recognize a Learning Organization?
(cont.)
To What Degree Can ICT Support Learning in an Organization?
• 11 indicators• 3 values:
– Strong (ICT replacing humans)
– Moderate (ICT supports human activities)
– Weak (Zero, or close to zero)
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Estimated Support
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Indicator ICT support of the activityINFORMATIVE STRONGFORMATIVE ACCOUNTING AND CONTROL
STRONG
INTERNAL EXCHANGE STRONGA LEARNING APPROACH TO STRATEGY
MODERATE
PARTICIPATIVE POLICY MAKING MODERATESELF-LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
MODERATE
BOUNDARY WORKERS AS ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNERS
MODERATE
ENABLING STRUCTURES WEAKREWARD FLEXIBILITY WEAKINTER-COMPANY LEARNING WEAKA LEARNING CLIMATE WEAK
Conclusions
• Strongly supported: 3• Moderately supported: 3• Weakly supported: 4
– Enabling structures– Reward flexibility– Inter-company learning– A learning climate
• All these must be influenced by humans
• They should create conditions to enhance them
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Please, remember!
• Knowledge is an asset• It is always present but not always visible• Knowledge society should create conditions for
its maximum development and exploitation• Organizational culture plays a key role in the
company’s readiness to learn• Whether the change towards the learning
organization happens depends more on people than on technology.
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Thank you for your attention!
http://blogy.etrend.sk/jozef-hvorecky