Date post: | 19-Jan-2015 |
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - THE NEXT FAD TO FORGET PEOPLE?
- JACKY SWAN, HARRY SCARBROUGH, JOHN PRESTON
Introduction Defining Knowledge Management Review Of The KM Literature Conditions Of Successful Diffusion Of
Knowledge Management Conditions For The Effective
Implementation Of Knowledge Management
Conclusions: KM – The Next Fad To Forget People?
Agenda
Focus Of This Review
Conditions For Successful Diffusion
Of KM Conditions For Effective Implementation Of KM
Defining Knowledge Management
KM – Any process or practice of creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing and using knowledge, where ever it resides, to enhance learning and performance in organizations.
- (Quintas et al., Prusak)
To Mobilize Knowledge Base
To Ensure Continuous Innovation in Projects
Context for KM
Ris
e O
f K
now
led
ge
Man
ag
em
en
t
Review of KM Literature
KM Literature
Biased Towards
Moving Away
Organizational Issues
KM is in danger of becoming the next “fad to forget people” It is a re-labelling of information management
rather than a genuinely innovative attempt to leverage knowledge in the organization
Literature Review Methodology
Review was conducted for
Quantitative
Analysis
• was conducted in PQD and BIDS ISI for core search items (KM)
Additional Sources
• Web sites, book listings
Categorization
• Based on themes, topics
Review covered “Learning Organization” as well as KM literatures
Review adopted three
approaches
Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis
Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis
Learning Organization
KM
Has KM taken over the learning organization baton?
Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis
Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis
70%
Conditions for the Successful Diffusion of Knowledge
Management• Conventional diffusion studies emphasize the
portability and testability of new ideas and their fit with existing practices.
• Diffusion inevitably implies the shaping and repackaging of ideas, re-defining or selecting out some critical elements and amplifying others.
KM as Knowledge Technology and the Neglect of People
KM articles focus on developing and implementing KM databases and tools.
KM is treated as implementation of new IT systems for knowledge sharing.
To become accessible and portable, ideas on KM have to be extracted from their local context.
Incentives for intermediaries and firms to engage in diffusion and adoption of these ideas.
Black-boxing KM as technology addresses this need.
This depends on establishing a new, globalized relationship between tool and context.
Socially and culturally embedded knowledge is typically re-presented within the technology as an epistemic hierarchy.
Heterogeneous human commitments and interactions which contribute to organizational knowledge in practice are sublimated into discrete, universal categories.
Much of the richness if human relations is lost in repackaging of KM as technology.
The implications of this bias in KM is clear in the literature’s treatment of tacit knowledge.
Emphasis on codification in KM reflects the harder edge of the IT/IS lens on KM.
Incorporation of KM in Managerial Fashion Cycle
Majority of KM articles are practice rather than theory driven.
Widely argued that KM is more than just a new fad.
Role of Professional Networks
IS/IT and Computer Science community provides an important professional sponsor for the diffusion of KM.
KM literature focuses mostly at the level of specific KM projects rather than at the level of broader organizational change initiatives.
The advantage is that the practical implications and outcomes of KM projects are relatively easy to see.
Codified systems in KM means the responsibility for KM has fallen to those experts who are well equipped to develop IT strategy.
Colonization of KM is another explanation for the marginalization of employees and people management concerns.
This literature highlights attitudes to knowledge formation and sharing within organizations.
Acknowledging these issues is the key for the likely success/failure of attempts to implement KM.
Conditions for the Effective Implementation of Knowledge
Management• Based on research largely stemming from organizational
theory some key concerns have been identified.• This has several implications on KM like:• Multifaceted, multilayered, distributed, situated and
subjective nature of knowledge.• Different kinds of organizations have different
manifestations of knowledge.• Core assumption of literature on KM is that technology
enables effective KM.
Overstate the codifiability of knowledge
Overemphasize the utility of new ITs for delivering organizational performance improvements
Make unjustified assumptions about the willingness of employees to use
such IT systems
Codification of tacit knowledge into formal systems may generate its own
pathology
Problems with pre-occupation
of tools & techniques
Solutions to KM practice are offered in the form of ever-more sophisticated technologies.
Critics argue that there is far too much reliance on the idea that KM has to do with IT systems.
Dominant values among people management professionals appear to fit much more comfortably with the earlier LO literature than KM.