UNIT 2

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Stages of Knowledge Management Process

The process of knowledge management is universal for any enterprise.

Step 1: Collecting
This is the most important step of the knowledge management process. If you collect the incorrect or irrelevant data, the resulting knowledge may not be the most accurate. Therefore, the decisions made based on such knowledge could be inaccurate as well. The data collection procedure defines certain data collection points.

Step 2: Organizing The data collected need to be organized. This organization usually happens based on certain rules. These rules are defined by the organization. As an example, all sales related data can be filed together and all staff related data could be stored in the same database table. This type of organization helps to maintain data accurately within a database. If there is much data in the database, techniques such as 'normalization' can be used for organizing and reducing the duplication. This way, data is logically arranged and related to one another for easy retrieval. When data passes step 2, it becomes information.

Step 3: Summarizing In this step, the information is summarized in order to take the essence of it. The lengthy information is presented in tabular or graphical format and stored appropriately. For summarizing, there are many tools that can be used such as software packages, charts (Pareto, cause-andeffect), and different techniques. Step 4: Analyzing At this stage, the information is analyzed in order to find the relationships, redundancies, and patterns. An expert or an expert team should be assigned for this purpose as the experience of the person / team plays a vital role. Usually, there are reports created after analysis of information.

Step 5: Synthesizing
At this point, information becomes knowledge. The results of analysis (usually the reports) are combined together to derive various concepts and artifacts. A pattern or behavior of one entity can be applied to explain another and collectively, the organization will have a set of knowledge elements that can be used across the organization. This knowledge is then stored in the organizational knowledge base for further use. Usually, the knowledge base is a software implementation that can be accessed from anywhere through the Internet.

Step 6: Decision Making

At this stage, the knowledge is used for decisions making. As an example, when estimating a specific type of a project or a task, the knowledge related to previous estimates can be used. This accelerates the estimation process and adds high accuracy. This is how the organizational knowledge management adds value and save money in the long run.

Barriers to Knowledge Management

Lack of top management commitment: Top management is responsible for each and every activity at all the levels of the organizations. It is instrumental in development of organizational structure, technological infrastructure and various decisions making processes which are essential for effective creation, sharing and use of knowledge. Effective knowledge creation and sharing require long term commitment and support from top management in recruitment and retention of right people. Lack of top management is the most critical barrier for a successful KM implementation, particularly in knowledge creation and sharing. It is also responsible for identifying organizational strength and weaknesses as well as analyzing the opportunities and threads in the external environment. The top management has to conceptualize a vision about what type of knowledge should be developed and used into a management system for implementation.

 Lack of technological infrastructure: As most of the issues of KM are culture based, the role of technology cant be overlooked. Lack of technological infrastructure (TI) is one of the barriers in implementation of KM. TI provides a stronger platform to KM and enhances its impact in an organization, by helping and leveraging its knowledge systematically and actively. The wide varieties of technology such as business intelligence, knowledge base, collaboration, portals, customer management systems, data mining, workflow, etc., support KM activities and the selection of appropriate technology improves the performance of businesses. TI enables collecting, defining, storing, indexing and linking data, and digital objects in order to support management decisions. It is able to overcome the barriers of time and space. It also serves as a repository in which knowledge can be reliably stored and efficiently retrieved.

 Lack of methodology: KM is a group of clearly defined processes or methods used to search important knowledge among different KM operations. Despite top management commitment, organizational structure and technological support, KM may fail due to lack of methodology. Successful KM implementation requires a set of methodology. Methodology defines each and every activity which is going to be held during the KM implementation. It is necessary for enhancing KM implementation. Many authors have suggested the step-by-step methodology for KM implementation. But even though, when it comes to real implementation, they fail. Organizations have to understand those guidelines and transfer them according to their context.

 Lack of organizational structure: Business organizations should adopt an organizational structure (OS) which matches and supports its strategy. OS includes division of labor, departmentalization and distribution of power which is necessary to support the information and decision process of the organizations. It is defined as the specification of jobs to be done within an organization and the ways in which those jobs relate to one another. OS needs to support the knowledge transfer and must contribute towards creation and reuse of knowledge for the successful implementation of KM in the organizations. It must be capable enough to administer the knowledge related activities. Creating an organizational structure to manage knowledge is by no means enough for the success of KM, but it is an important ingredient of success. Lack of organizational structure can discourage the KM activities which certainly hinder the prospect of KM in the organizations.

 Lack of organizational culture: Organizational culture defines

the core beliefs, value norms and social customs that govern the way individuals act and behave in an organization. It is the sum of shared philosophies, assumptions, values, expectations, attitudes, and norms that bind the organizations together. Lack of organizational culture is a key barrier for successful implementation of knowledge management in an organization. Culture considers the multiple aspects mainly collaboration and trust. Trust is one of the aspects of the knowledge friendly cultures that foster the relationship between individuals and groups, thereby, facilitating a more proactive and open knowledge sharing. Absence or minimal level of collaboration hinders the transfer of knowledge between individuals as well as of the groups.

 Lack of motivation and rewards: Organizational goals cant be

achieved unless organizations integrate the concept of motivation and rewards to its employees. Motivation can be provided through recognition, visibility, and inclusion of knowledge performance in appraisal systems and incentives. The motivation could be either intrinsic or extrinsic. Rewarding and recognizing an employee with tangible form for their knowledge sharing efforts is extrinsic motivation while intrinsic motivation is intangible nature. Employees share their knowledge easily when motivated. It is critical for sharing of both types of knowledge tacit as well as explicit knowledge. Lack of motivation and reward system is also a barrier because it discourages people to create, share, and use knowledge. Without the establishment of organizational reward and recognition systems, it is very difficult to align the KM and business needs of the organizations.

 Staff Retirement: Staff retirement is the major barrier in the KM implementation. Many organizations are facing lot of problems due to expertise retirement. If any employee retires from his/her job, it is very difficult to get a substitute of that level. His/her experience and expertise will be lost by the organizations. Organizations are less vigilant about protecting their human intellectual capital. Organizations need to focus on knowledge retention and its transfer into their business process management. According to Accenture, one out of four organizations makes no effort whatsoever to capture the workplace knowledge of retirees, and a further 16% of organizations expect retirees to have an informal chat with colleagues before leaving. Thats more than 40% of the organizations have no formal processes for retaining expertise.

 Lack of ownership of problem: Lack of ownership of problem is another issue which proves to be a barrier for KM implementation. Due to the lack of ownership of problem, no employee is ready to take up the jobs unless it has been properly assigned. This situation is basically due to absence of culture in the organizations. Employees are not ready to take the responsibility of unassigned jobs. This situation makes difficult to nurture the KM implementation in the organizations.

KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
A knowledge worker is anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge. For example, a knowledge worker might be someone who works at any of the tasks of planning, acquiring, searching, analyzing, organizing, storing, programming, distributing, marketing, or otherwise contributing to the transformation and commerce of information and those (often the same people) who work at using the knowledge so produced. Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Typical examples may include software engineers, architects, engineers, scientists and lawyers, because they "think for a living".

Knowledge Worker Roles

Knowledge workers bring benefits to organizations in a variety of important ways. These include analyzing data to establish relationships assessing input in order to evaluate complex or conflicting priorities identifying and understanding trends making connections understanding cause and effect ability to brainstorm, thinking broadly ability to drill down, creating more focus producing a new capability creating or modifying a strategy

Retaining Knowledge Workers

The shortage of knowledge workers makes employers concerned with attracting and retaining these employees. In order to hire and retain knowledge workers, employers may offer higher salaries, attractive work environments, and continuing educational opportunities. Employers take actions designed to attract and retain knowledge workers by creating a free-agent community, respecting knowledge workers as new bosses, and providing growth opportunities. In a free-agent community, employees have the freedom to choose their work methods and work in the environments in which they function best.

 Treating knowledge workers as the new bosses means that management operates as a facilitator rather than as a controller of work. This gives knowledge workers the autonomy they need to complete their work as they see fit. Employers make work attractive and rewarding by providing growth opportunities, such as those that are associated with ongoing training and development, special assignments, and rotation of jobs and job responsibilities. In such ways, employers attempt to address the knowledge worker shortage.

How Can Motivate Knowledge Workers?

Knowledge workers must have the intellectual capabilities to acquire the skills discussed above. Such intellectual capacities include those concerned with the understanding, recall, processing and application of specialized information. Persons who perform knowledge work must possess the abilities needed to acquire appropriate communication skills and to learn how to figure out where and how information can be located. Knowledge workers are able to learn how to read and write at postsecondary levels and to perform abstract reasoning. They also have the intellectual capacity to understand the value of acquiring and maintaining the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish their work.

 Shapiro (1985) provides a handy list of ways to motivate a knowledge worker: Recognize accomplishment Provide flexibility and autonomy Be available for support Give responsibility and accountability Show how tasks fit the big picture Encourage self-established goals Allow for intrinsic rewards Individualize supervision Provide feedback immediately Set tasks that allow for experience of accomplishment.

KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL VS PHYSICAL CAPITAL

KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL Knowledge Capital/Intellectual Capital is intangible, perceptive and an extremely subjective phenomenon whose measurement and compensation is an extremely difficult task. PHYSICAL CAPITAL Physical Capital such as, manufacturing assets, money etc.., are tangible, quantifiable and measurable and could be priced based on some standard or the other.

FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL

Human Capital: The primary source of knowledge capital is the intellect. The potential of the individual and that of the team he may be working with are the means by which organizations could thrive in a competitive environment. Organizational Capital: The capabilities of the organization, made up of codified knowledge from all sources (knowledge bases, business processes, and the technology infrastructure) the shared culture, values and norms.

 Intellectual Capital: The relationship among human customer and organizational capital that maximizes the organization's potential to create value which is ultimately realized in some form of wealth. Customer Capital: The strength of the customer relationship, superior customer perceived value, increasing customization of solutions