Class 11 & 12 - Talks and Web 2.0 Reflections

I've set up this class wiki to broaden the 'Web 2.0 experience' and help with admin for next week's classes. It has pages to add your talk details (and requested time/s) and also for your reflections on the use of Web 2.0.

To use the wiki:
Click on "log in" (on the top menu bar) and log in with your VUW user name (e.g. cranefjo)
Your initial login password is "mmimvuw" (please change it after logging in)

Posting to the wiki is optional. If you wish, you may 'cross-post' material added on the wiki to your individual blog, where it will count towards your individual assignment mark.

Web 2.0 and the empowerment of the knowledge worker

Ashwini, Dick Eleanor, Holger, Kai (MIM-SUMMER GROUP)


Web 2.0 and the empowerment of the knowledge worker
Dirk Schneckenberg is an Assistant Professor at ESC Rennes School of Business, Rennes, France
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270. JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, VOL. 13 NO. 6 2009, pp. 509-520


Review
The article is easy to read and understand. It highlights to the reader the importance of Web 2.0 and it’s relevance in today’s business environment. The author also cautioned that to achieve optimal benefits of incorporating Web 2.0 into an organisation. It will be most important to change organisational structure to allow employees to have more freedom to make their own decisions.
He did not explore in more detail on the various relationships between pervasive technologies and structural changes of companies in modern business. But he emphasized that the unpredictable and technology-intensive markets forced a rethink of key principles of management theory for corporate governance, knowledge management and employee motivation.

There was no discussion on the acceptance of Web 2.0 by older employees – “digital migrants”. This group is not so comfortable with Web 2.0 as “digital native” and the introduction of Web 2.0 and its portfolio of tools will further alienate these groups and will not go down well for the corporate culture and exchange of knowledge as the Author proposed.


Paper type: Conceptual paper, suitable for academics, Managers


Summary
The author highlighted the potential use of Web 2.0 technologies for knowledge management and to look at how corporate governance models influence the adoption of Web 2.0 for organisational learning and knowledge exchange.

A survey done by McKinsey indicated that 75% of the companies surveyed have invested in Web 2.0 tools. Most respondents agreed that Web 2.0 tools, in particular Wikis, Blogs, and Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds enhanced social networking behaviour , improved communication with their customers and suppliers on core business processes like product design and development; and they encouraged collaboration and knowledge exchange between employees

The author also discusses how corporate structures and decision-making roles influence the usage of Web 2.0 to enhance group interaction, organisational learning and the empowerment of employees. The pyramid structure represents a hierarchical culture, in which leadership makes centralised decisions at the top of the organisation and the pancake a non-hierarchical, flat culture, in which employees have a high degree of autonomy to make decisions based on their own knowledge without having to necessarily get prior approval from the organisational leadership.
It will be interesting to see if a company like Google, which was born in the Web 2.0 era and which clearly favours the empowerment of its employees, will in the long run transform to a corporate pyramid.

Today’s young and technology-savvy knowledge workers, which have grown up as members of the ‘digital native’ generation, increasingly ask corporate leaders to integrate Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise platform for future organisational learning; they want to interact and collaborate in their workplace environments in the same way they interact and collaborate in their peer communities in the web. To be able to do this, knowledge workers need firstly, a decentralised corporate culture which grants them the competence and autonomy to define as peers in workgroups, their own work processes and make their own decisions in business.

Web 2.0 is rapidly gaining attention in the discussion about the impact of internet technologies on current society and business. It is easy to use and intuitive, has a high adoption rate. It provides the basis for a more mature Internet usage, in which users collaborate, share information and create network and scale effects in large communities.

The author cautioned and provided a few pointers when introducing Web 2.0 to the company - Chief information officers (CIO’s) and human resources (HR) managers, who plan to introduce Web 2.0 tools into their corporate environment, need to be realistic about the definition of objectives for the use of Web 2.0 technologies in corporate contexts. Their corporate leadership has first of all to understand the impact which fundamental configurations of the corporate culture have on implementation of Web 2.0 technologies.

A corporate environment, which encourages autonomous and self-responsible employee decisions, will drive an adoption of Web 2.0 tools for knowledge exchange and organisational learning. To convince them of the benefits of the Web 2.0-enhanced way of business, corporate leaders have to see examples of modern companies, which have profited from lateral structures and decentralized decision-making in modern markets. Once the Web 2.0-based enterprise platform has been implemented, essential corporate information has to be distributed through it to make tools like Wikis, Blogs and RSS feeds relevant to employees and to trigger the development of a new communication culture within the organisation.

The high adoption rate of Web 2.0 technologies in companies indicates that this innovation process is a managerial challenge most corporate leaders have to face in the near future. They need to think about the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to trigger a fresh approach to organisational learning, to re-engineer internal knowledge management, and to enhance external customer services. If corporate leaders fail to do so now, their companies run the risk of falling behind the fast-moving frontline of technology adoption, which will in the long run weaken their competitive advantage in volatile and knowledge-intense markets.

Facilitating Talk About New Ideas: The Role of Personal Relationships in Organizational Innovation.

Albrecht, T.L. & Hall, B.J.. (1991). Communication Monographs, 58, pp.273-288

Bullet Express MIM Study Group (Pennie, Helen, Vijay, Torrance, Ian).

Audience: Academics, Managers.

Theme:

Innovation is frequently cited in academic literature as being critical if organizations are to avoid stagnation, develop/retain competitive advantage, and grow. An often neglected influencer on innovation in organizations (particularly in the knowledge management literature), is the important role that interpersonal communication processes play. It is the influence of these processes on organizational innovation that forms the theme of this paper.


Summary.

The authors open by describing the role of interpersonal relationships in the context of employees discussing potential innovative ways of doing things. This is highlighted further they say, when one considers the fact that innovative processes within an organizational setting tend to rely on give-and-take collaboration, simply because of the reality of organizational politics and economics, and the resultant need to establish a base of support for the novel idea. While this paper precedes many of the course references related to innovation and intrapreneurs (organizational entrepreneurs), it ties in nicely with some of the concepts discussed in the later papers.

The authors go on to highlight that there is a risk with talking about innovation, in that it exposes the originator to evaluation by other members of the organization, at a time when the innovator’s ideas are possibly questioning some of the beliefs they have regarding familiar routines, relationships, power balance, etc. The authors also describe how it is difficult from a pragmatic sense to separate evaluating an innovative concept from evaluating the individual who proposed the concept. This evaluation can threaten the personal standing and reputation of the originator within the organization (i.e. their face). Fear of such evaluation can stymie the conversations about innovation, and so potentially, innovation itself.

The authors tie this fear of evaluation into the Theory of Politeness and describe that as the threat to an individual’s personal face increases, the likelihood of engaging in talk about innovative ideas diminishes. The authors also describe the concepts of relationship multiplexity (i.e. having a relationship with someone who is both a work colleague and a friend) and content multiplexity (conversations that relate to both work and personal life), and how increased levels of multiplexity are associated with greater degrees of trust and certainty (in the relationship). The authors then propose that the type of relationship that exists between various work colleagues can influence whether or not innovative ideas are discussed.

Two experimental studies were described, based upon the assumption that the degree of multiplexity in conversation and relationship type (and hence related trust levels between individuals) would influence the level of innovation related employee discussions. The findings of the studies indicated that multiplex workplace relationships (especially ones involving friendship) fostered discussion of new ideas, and ultimately had a positive influence on organizational innovation. The key attributes of such relationships were that they were identified as being important, credible, supportive, trustworthy, and work-compatible. It was also important that discussion content was also multiplex, containing both work related and personal communication.

The authors discussed the implications of their findings, and pointed out that the willingness of employees to discuss new ideas will be hindered by factors such as power differences, degree of social distance, and an organisational climate that magnifies the personal risk involved in failed innovation attempts. They also point out that while conversation regarding innovation is important, it was found to be a relatively low frequency event. They quickly pointed out however, that talk about innovation was relationally complex, and isn’t a process that can be successfully imposed on people.

Review:

I enjoyed this article. It was well written, flowed nicely, and I wasn’t expected to make any conceptual leaps to follow their arguments. Even though the article is quite old, it still resonates true (to me at least), and had an air of timelessness about it. I also liked how it tied back to established social science theory.

The key thing I took away from it was that interpersonal behaviour is an important contributor to organisational innovation, which makes sense, but is not something I automatically think about when viewing things through a KM lens. It would also be interesting to see that if face to face conversation was replaced / augmented with technology that was not available in 1991 (i.e. introduce communication channel multiplexity), if similar results would be obtained.

Web 2.0 and the Empowerment of the Knowledge Worker

Dirk Schneckenberg

This is an article written to highlight the importance of Web 2.0 technologies that refers to the next generation of web sites and applications that harness the power of the web for interactivity, collaboration, and data sharing. The author uses the survey of McKinsey to show how companies benefit from using the Web 2.0 technologies. According to McKinsey survey of executives, an astounding of 75 percent of respondents indicate that their companies have invested and will either maintain or even increase their investments in Web 2.0 tools which foster social networking behaviour like user collaboration and peer exchange in business. Web 2.0 technologies have pervaded the corporate sphere where they are currently assessed as a measure to increase employee performance and to improve web-based customer services.

The trends in the McKinsey survey show a considerable increase for the use of Web 2.0 technologies in corporate business. But is this adoption of Web 2.0 as a collaboration platform a general phenomenon, which affects all companies without any distinction, or does its dispersion and sustainable use in the corporate sector depend on specific forms of organisational culture? How do corporate structures and decision-making roles influence the potential of Web 2.0 to enhance group interaction, organisational learning and the empowerment of employees?

Review:

This is a well-written article on Web 2.0 and knowledge sharing. It is true that social networking behaviour like user collaboration and peer exchange in business will increase employee performance and improve web-based customer services. This article asks two very important questions,

1. Is this adoption of Web 2.0 as a collaboration platform a general phenomenon, which affects all companies without any distinction, or does its dispersion and sustainable use in the corporate sector depend on specific forms of organisational culture?

2. How do corporate structures and decision-making roles influence the potential of Web 2.0 to enhance group interaction, organisational learning and the empowerment of employees?

Of course an organisational culture change, in companies and government departments, is required for successfully use and benefit from Web 2.0 technologies (an example is e-Government). The top-down corporate structure and decision-making roles will certainly affect the potential of Web 2.0 to enhance group interaction, organisational learning and the empowerment of employees, unless there is a change in corporate environment, which encourages autonomous and self-responsible employee decisions.

Posted by the "Enlightenment" or some such Innovative name.

•Clement

•Des

•Madalin

•Raju

•Satish

•Teri

Knowledge Broker Network based On Communication between Humans.

Loew, R., Bleimann, U., & Murphy, B. (2004): Paper for INC 2004 – Knowledge Broker network

Bullet Express MIM Study Group (Pennie, Helen, Vijay, Torrance, Ian).

Audience:

Academics, Knowledge Management professionals

Theme:

Organizational information systems (including the internet) generate huge volumes of information and knowledge, most of which has a very short half-life. The act of searching for this information can be difficult and time consuming. If a user is able to locate an answer to a specific issue they face, it is possible that the knowledge is no longer current.

Summary:

The authors propose a new paradigm to link employees to information required to answer questions specific to their job role, and assist in organizational knowledge transfer generally. They term this paradigm the ‘man-man communication paradigm”, and instantiate it in a prototype system built for The University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt.

The authors suggest that their approach is novel in that they assume the solution to complex problems cannot normally be found in documents, but rather, the solution is more likely to be achieved via collaboration and communication between knowledgeable individuals. By way of support, the authors point out that knowledge is information in the context of a given user, and that in order for information contained within a document to be useful to that user, it must be edited and put into the appropriate context. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is hard to do this dynamically using a computer, as the context will always be that of the author – hence the requirement for human to human interaction. Additionally, they ask the key question: “Is it possible and realistic to enter all information relevant to business into a knowledge management system?”.

They propose that an employee with an issue approach a knowledge broker with a description of their problem, and the broker will attempt to identify a person (either within or outside of the organisation) who would be best suited to help provide a solution to their problem (or assist them in identifying a solution themselves). Once identified, the broker will attempt to bring the two individuals together. They suggest that the ideal knowledge broker will have quite a detailed understanding of a particular business related subject area, and have had enough tenure at the organization to be able to readily identify subject matter experts. Additionally, they suggest that having an organisation wide network of knowledge brokers is the ideal solution.

Some of the key features of the prototype they developed included the use of semantic networks in which the linkages encapsulate differing “versions” of context, meta search engines that can span multiple existing knowledge management systems, and having a computer assisted knowledge broker, as opposed to using either artificial intelligence to create a virtual information broker (too difficult) or a dedicated and manual person driven process (high ongoing cost). They termed this hybrid approach “a machine supported human mind”.

Review:

I found the article interesting and reasonably well balanced, and the authors did have some good ideas (I’m just not sure that they were all theirs….).
While not wanting to be too critical, I did have a few criticisms relating to it. Firstly, its structure didn’t seem to work particularly well, and some sections didn’t seem to mesh or relate to the overall theme. Secondly, the tone of the authors suggested that the idea of knowledge brokering was theirs – I was unable to confirm this one way or the other. The language used also made it sound a bit more grandiose than was perhaps warranted (although this may simply reflect the fact that six years have passed since the article was written). The final criticism is that they provided statistics relating to the effectiveness of an existing system at The University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, without providing any details regarding how they were obtained. This omission was compounded when they introduced a prototype replacement for this system, and provided no statistics for its effectiveness whatsoever, other than to say it “delivered the desired result”.

Knowledge Broker Network based On Communication between Humans.

Loew, R., Bleimann, U., & Murphy, B. (2004): Paper for INC 2004 – Knowledge Broker network

Bullet Express MIM Study Group (Pennie, Helen, Vijay, Torrance, Ian).

Audience:

Academics, Knowledge Management professionals

Theme:

Organizational information systems (including the internet) generate huge volumes of information and knowledge, most of which has a very short half-life. The act of searching for this information can be difficult and time consuming. If a user is able to locate an answer to a specific issue they face, it is possible that the knowledge is no longer current.

Summary:

The authors propose a new paradigm to link employees to information required to answer questions specific to their job role, and assist in organizational knowledge transfer generally. They term this paradigm the ‘man-man communication paradigm”, and instantiate it in a prototype system built for The University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt.

The authors suggest that their approach is novel in that they assume the solution to complex problems cannot normally be found in documents, but rather, the solution is more likely to be achieved via collaboration and communication between knowledgeable individuals. By way of support, the authors point out that knowledge is information in the context of a given user, and that in order for information contained within a document to be useful to that user, it must be edited and put into the appropriate context. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is hard to do this dynamically using a computer, as the context will always be that of the author – hence the requirement for human to human interaction. Additionally, they ask the key question: “Is it possible and realistic to enter all information relevant to business into a knowledge management system?”.

They propose that an employee with an issue approach a knowledge broker with a description of their problem, and the broker will attempt to identify a person (either within or outside of the organisation) who would be best suited to help provide a solution to their problem (or assist them in identifying a solution themselves). Once identified, the broker will attempt to bring the two individuals together. They suggest that the ideal knowledge broker will have quite a detailed understanding of a particular business related subject area, and have had enough tenure at the organization to be able to readily identify subject matter experts. Additionally, they suggest that having an organisation wide network of knowledge brokers is the ideal solution.

Some of the key features of the prototype they developed included the use of semantic networks in which the linkages encapsulate differing “versions” of context, meta search engines that can span multiple existing knowledge management systems, and having a computer assisted knowledge broker, as opposed to using either artificial intelligence to create a virtual information broker (too difficult) or a dedicated and manual person driven process (high ongoing cost). They termed this hybrid approach “a machine supported human mind”.

Review:

I found the article interesting and reasonably well balanced, and the authors did have some good ideas (I’m just not sure that they were all theirs….).
While not wanting to be too critical, I did have a few criticisms relating to it. Firstly, its structure didn’t seem to work particularly well, and some sections didn’t seem to mesh or relate to the overall theme. Secondly, the tone of the authors suggested that the idea of knowledge brokering was theirs – I was unable to confirm this one way or the other. The language used also made it sound a bit more grandiose than was perhaps warranted (although this may simply reflect the fact that six years have passed since the article was written). The final criticism is that they provided statistics relating to the effectiveness of an existing system at The University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, without providing any details regarding how they were obtained. This omission was compounded when they introduced a prototype replacement for this system, and provided no statistics for its effectiveness whatsoever, other than to say it “delivered the desired result”.

Broker Networks: says who?

This is a posting on my thoughts on broker networks. It doesn't quite follow the usual academic format.