Knowledge Acquisition and Application
Chapter 6
Knowledge Management Cycle
• Knowledge Acquisition: Reuse– Promote efficiency– Lead to Innovation
• More effective ways of doing things
• Knowledge Application– Application of knowledge is filtered through
human brain and applied to job tasks
Knowledge Reuse• Most jobs require certain amount of knowledge
creation but we don’t want everyone creating new knowledge– Want to apply existing knowledge in new or unfamiliar
situations– Want “small ideas” from individuals, not reinvention of jobs
• Example:– Lawyer reuses knowledge created in another case– Programmer employs a subroutine that someone else
created
• Effective knowledge workers reuse their own knowledge all the time
Individual Level
• Personal (Individual) knowledge acquisition and application– Personalization and Profiling– Cognitive Styles and MBTI– Bloom Taxonomy of Learning Objectives
i
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Cognitive Styles and MBTI•Cognitive differences
•We all have preferred habits of thought that influence how we make decisions, how we interact with others and how we prefer to learn•These are neither good nor bad•They emerge early in our lives and tend to remain fairly stable through the years•People tend to choose professions that reward or correspond to their preferred cognitive styles
•Myers-Briggs Type Indicator•an example of a widely used tool to assess cognitive styles
Meyers Briggs Personality Type Indicator
• Four Dimensions of Personality Type
• How we interact with the world and where we direct our energy
• The kind of information we naturally notice
• How we make decisions
• Whether we prefer to live in a more structured way or a more spontaneous way
Will B. Good, University of Iowa, www.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/phd/clinical/.../mbti.ppt
Extraversion IntroversionInterest Orientation
E IOuter world of actions,
objects, and people
Inner world of ideas and concepts
Will B. Good, University of Iowa, www.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/phd/clinical/.../mbti.ppt
Sensing iNtuitionPerception
S NImmediate reality and
direct experience
Inferred meanings
and relationships
Will B. Good, University of Iowa, www.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/phd/clinical/.../mbti.ppt
Thinking FeelingJudgment
T FReliability of logical order – cause and
effect
Priorities based on personal
importance and values
Will B. Good, University of Iowa, www.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/phd/clinical/.../mbti.ppt
Judgment PerceptionEnvironment Orientation
J PJudging attitude – Control of
events and systematic planning
Spontaneity – Curious, awaiting
events and adapting to
them
Will B. Good, University of Iowa, www.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/phd/clinical/.../mbti.ppt
ISTJ“Take Your
Time and Do It Right”
ISFJ“On My Honor,
to Do My Duty…”
INFJ“Catalyst for
Positive Change”
INTJ“Competence + Independence =
Perfection”
ISTP“Doing the Best
I Can With What I’ve Got”
ISFP“It’s the
Thought That Counts”
INFP“Still Waters Run Deep”
INTP“Ingenious
Problem Solvers”
ESTP“Let’s Get
Busy!”
ESFP“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
ENFP“Anything’s
Possible”
ENTP“Life’s
Entrepreneurs”
ESTJ“Taking Care of
Business”
ESFJ“What Can I Do
For You?”
ENFJ“The Public
Relations Specialist”
ENTJ“Everything’s Fine – I’m in
Charge”
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Bloom’s Hierarchy of Learning Objectives
• Conceptual systems theory that describes progressively complex levels of learning achievement – as evidenced by learner behaviours
• Prerequisite structure– Need to master lower level before moving up to the next
level– E.g. your course objectives
• Good model for knowledge acquisition
B. Bloom (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
•Define•Memorize•Repeat•Record•List•Recall•Name•Relate
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation •Restate
•Discuss•Describe•Recognize•Explain•Express•Identify•Locate•Report•Review
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
•Translate•Interpret•Apply•Employ•Use•Demonstrate•Dramatize•Practice •Illustrate•Operate•Schedule•Sketch
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
•Compose•Analyze•Differentiate•Appraise•Calculate•Experiment•Compare•Contrast •Inventory•Question•Solve•Examine
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
•Distinguish•Plan•Propose•Design•Formulate•Arrange•Assemble•Construct •Create•Collect•Set up•Organize•Manage
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Bloom: Cognitive Learning Objectives (continued)
KnowledgeComprehension
ApplicationAnalysisSynthesisEvaluation
•Judge•Evaluate•Rate•Value•Revise•Score•Select•Assess •Prioritize•Justify•Debate
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Example: Course Objectives
1. Use a framework and a clear language for intellectual capital and organizational memory concepts
2. Model the flow, sharing and leveraging of intellectual assets
3. Identify some of the principal cultural characteristics that are necessary to encourage organizational learning and innovation
4. Describe the links between individual and organizational learning
5. Monitor, value, categorize, report intellectual capital
Successful Internalization of Knowledge
• Individual must access and understand available knowledge
• And consciously decide this is better way of doing things– Apply knowledge to real-world situation
Organization Size• Small organizations focus on knowledge acquisition
– with few people and limited dispersal of knowledge, they seem to face relatively few obstacles sharing or reusing knowledge.
• Large organizations, in contrast, have difficulty finding and reusing knowledge. – Even determining whether the knowledge exists within the
organization can be difficult.– For example, a pharmaceutical company found that although
clinical tests of a compound are expensive, searching for possible past test results of a compound would be more expensive than retesting some of them.
Different Types of Knowledge Work• Transactions work
• highly structured, limited discretion, individual oriented - call center workers
• Integration work• process can be articulated, discretion in specific steps - IS
development work
• Expert work• hard to articulate process, high autonomy and discretion -
primary care physicians
• Collaboration work• hard to articulate process, requires judgment and expertise,
integration across functional areas - investment bank work
Different Types of Knowledge Work Integration Model•Systematic, repeatable work•Reliant on formal processes, methodologies, or standards•Dependent on integration across function borders
Collaboration Model•Improvisational work•Highly reliant on deep expertise across functions•Dependent on fluid deployment of flexible teams
Transactional Model•Routine work•Reliant on formal rules, procedures, and training•Dependent on low-discretion workforce of information
Expert Model•Judgment-oriented work•Reliance on individual expertise and experience•Dependent on star performance
Routine
Individual Actors
Collaboration/groups
Interpretation/Judgment
Complexity of Work
Leve
l of
Inte
rdep
ende
nce
Knowledge Reuse
• Knowledge management projects have pursued many approaches to capturing and reusing knowledge. – These include creating document repositories; recording
meetings, conversations, and email exchanges; organizing discussions in document databases; and providing annotation systems.
• Key obstacles to success are:– Digital objects are difficult to find.– When found, objects are difficult to assess.– Systems are not strong at identifying people who can help
find or assess objects.
Knowledge Reuse• Document management systems, directories
of personnel identifying areas of expertise, and other repositories are constructed and used in some circumstances
• KM systems that focus on gathering, recording, and accessing reams of “knowledge” at expense of person-to-person interaction have been expensive and unsatisfactory
Knowledge Reuse: Three Major Roles
• Knowledge Producer– Person who produced knowledge or object
• Knowledge Intermediary– Prepares knowledge for reuse by indexing,
packaging, marketing
• Knowledge Reuser– Retrieves, understands and applies
knowlege
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What is a Learning Organization?
• A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.– New ideas are essential if learning is to occur– Sometimes they are created from scratch (flash)– At other times they come from outside the organization– Triggers for organizational learning but by themselves, ideas
do not bring about organizational learning: needs to be accompanied by changes in the way that work gets done – otherwise, no potential for improvement
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Management: Building Blocks
• Learning organizations are skilled at 5 main activities:
1. Systematic problem solving e.g. use scientific approach2. Experimentation with new approaches3. Learning from their own experience & past history (lessons
learned, project reviews)4. Learning from the lessons learned and best practices of
others (benchmarking, networking)5. Transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout
the organization (training, lunch and learns…)
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Steps Leading to a Learning Organization
• Foster an environment that is conducive to learning– Time for reflection, analysis, to think about strategic plans,
dissect customer needs, assess current work systems and invent new products
• Open up boundaries and stimulate the exchange of ideas – destroy the silos & ivory towers with conferences, meetings, project teams
• Create learning forums: programs or events designed with explicit learning goals e.g. study missions, committees, symposiums, etc.
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Lessons Learned and Knowledge Inventories
• Whenever an exceptional situation occurs – opportunities for best practices (creative innovations) and lessons learned to be drawn from them– Need to be captured, described and
preserved to be accessible again when needed
– Continued learning of employees, communities and of the organization
KM Organizational Architecture
• Data Layer
• Process Layer - logic that links data with use and people who use it
• User Interface - access to information assets of company via logic incorporated in process layer