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.

Article Summary and Review by KMx6 for Class 10 – KM & Social Capital

Title: Boundaryless careers, social capital, and knowledge management: Implications for organizational performance
Author: Mila Lazarova and Sully Taylor

SUMMARY
Boundaryless careers can have a positive and negative impact on organizational effectiveness through the mechanism of social capital. To better understand the potential impact boundaryless careers are divided into four different types; internal psychological, internal enacted, external psychological, external enacted.

The difference between the two internal and two external careers types is larger than the differences between the two internal and external career types.

Internal boundaryless careers increase social capital, with internal enacted boundaryless careers increasing organizational social capital more than internal psychological boundaryless careers do. External boundaryless careers decrease social capital, with external enacted boundaryless careers decreasing organizational social capital more than external psychological boundaryless careers do.

Organizations can promote a particular or combination of boundaryless career types depending on the knowledge type an organization is seeking to promote at the current time. Exploitative knowledge needs higher level of organizational social capital making internal boundaryless careers more desirable. Exploratory knowledge may find external enacted boundaryless careers desirable if used to a limited degree but external psychological boundaryless careers detrimental.

REVIEW
The article provides detailed explanations ensuring that the reader understands the key concepts. Propositions are clearly defined and well supported and referenced. This is not just another theoretical framework with no practical implications but offers some valuable insight into how boundaryless careers impacts on an organization.

(Posted for Bee)

Article Summary and Review by KMx6 for Class 10 – KM & Social Capital

Title: Tacit Knowledge and Social Capital: Supporting Sociability in Online Communities of Practice
Author: Jennifer Preece

SUMMARY
A community of practice (COP) focuses on a domain of knowledge and is a group of people who come together to learn from each other by sharing knowledge and experiences and solving problems. These actions themselves build the trust and empathy that form the social capital that makes COPs successful. COPs not only supports explicit knowledge transfers but also supports tacit knowledge transfers. Storytelling, anecdotes, impromptu comments and opinions occur naturally in many COPs and combined with the less formal setting promotes tacit knowledge transfers.

Explicit knowledge generates new explicit knowledge by a process of combination and tacit knowledge by a process of internalization. Tacit knowledge generates new tacit knowledge by a process of socialization and explicit knowledge by a process of externalization.

COPS are built on knowledge, empathy and trust where people come together to form a community where interactions is initially guided by policies but overtime replaced by behaviour norms. COPs members’ individual goals become a shared goal.

REVIEW
The article struggles to convey the key message and does not clearly explain some of the concepts. Despite these factors the article touches in an interesting and current topic that greatly influences social capital in today’s organization.

Posted for Bee

Elements of Innovative Cultures

Elements of Innovative Cultures

Knowledge and Process Management
Volume 14 Number 3 pp 190–202 (2007)
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/kpm.279

Summary

The theme of the article is that organizational culture contributes significantly to the success, or failure, of sustained innovation in organizations. Sustained innovation in turn is a major contributor to sustained, successful financial performance and market success of an organisation.

However, if organizational culture needs to change for innovation to be successful this may present a major problem because organizational culture is not easy to change.

The authors then attempt to analyse an innovative culture by dividing it into eight components (’elements’)

1. Innovative mission and vision statements
2. Democratic communication
3. Safe spaces
4. Flexibility
5. Collaboration
6. Boundary spanning
7. Incentives
8. Leadership

They then proposed that organizations could be more innovative by adopting suitable combinations of these eight innovative determinants into their culture.

They introduce the concept that innovation requires a systematic, disciplined approach in an organisation to be successful. Innovation may also meet resistance even in the most innovative organizations.

Innovation champions take career-changing risks and need support from their leaders.
Innovative people and teams need to feel safe to experiment and even disagree with leaders without fear of retribution.

Some innovative cultures allow new ideas time, space and permission to grow internally. Some organizations connect globally with ideas, and people, outside the boundaries of the company.

The authors researched the literature on organizational culture and innovation. They then conducted exploratory case studies of over 30 American and European companies.



Review
This article describes a qualitative research approach to discover the essential elements that contribute to the success, or failure, of innovation in organizations.
There are numerous historical references to support their arguments and for additional study. There is a matrix that describes how each of the innovation elements relates to
1. Typical emphasis
2. Example organisation tactics
3. Pitfalls
4. Most encouraged type of innovations

One aspect that would make the article even more interesting would be a stronger conceptual model developed from this matrix. What are the forces generated by the eight elements that contribute to organizational success? Can such forces be quantified at all? Some references to other quantitative research about the effectiveness of the innovative components at various organizations would be useful.

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

• Clement
• Des
• Madalin
• Raju
• Satish
• Teri

Cross Cultural Perspectives on Knowledge Management.

Article Name: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Knowledge Management.
Author: Robert Mason
Publication: D Pauleen (ed.). Libraries Limited.
Keywords: Cross Cultural knowledge management perspective, knowledge management systems, organizational behaviour.

Review: (725 Words)

Author outline the recursive relationship between learning and knowledge, reviews recent research on the cultural foundations of learning and knowledge, and proposes a model of boundary spanning which can help global organizations meet the challenge of unlocking the knowledge represented by the different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of their members. Author also addresses the issue of culture and ethnic background as dimensions of knowledge management and the learning organization.

Consequently, organizations have considerable motivation to manage their knowledge asset effectively and to use this asset as the basis for further learning. Toward this goal, many organizations have established systems of knowledge management. The interest in knowledge management, as indicated by the number of research articles on the subject, does not seem to follow the kind of increase, peak, and decrease pattern that has been observed in other management fads (Ponzi and Koenig 2002).

Knowledge management systems as currently envisioned and designed have a significant cultural gap that can lead to underutilizing some of the organization’s knowledge assets—those assets represented and embedded in the persons who are not from mainstream Western cultures. The systems as currently designed may unwittingly place barriers to knowledge access by those from non-Western cultures, and the knowledge of organizational members who are not from Western cultures may not be captured or communicated by the KMS. Bridging this cultural gap in KMS design requires an understanding of the recursive relationship between learning and knowledge.

Learning can either enlarge the range of options (the entity sees new possibilities) or narrow the range of options (the entity can eliminate some actions from further consideration). Some researchers have argued that when an individual in an organization learns, the organization itself has learned. The communication of individual learning to others in the organization is also necessary for the organization to mobilize around its goals and strategy for pursuing these goals. The traditional view of knowledge is that it fits into a hierarchical model: knowledge is at the top of a pyramid whose middle layer is information and whose lowest level is comprised of data.

Knowledge can be viewed as a store of accumulated and interpreted information, but it also can be viewed as a social process by which individuals and organizations continually apprehend and make sense of information based on prior knowledge.

Today, the concepts of tacit and explicit have been explored in much of the writing about knowledge management and knowledge creation. Discussing and communicating about the explicit dimension is straightforward and there is little controversy about it. The explicit dimension of knowledge is expressed in words and can be communicated to others using language, diagrams, or other tangible artifacts. The tacit dimension may represent physical skills, such as riding a bicycle, but it also reflects concepts of values and facts that are commonly known (sometimes referred to as ‘common sense’) to a society or group. These commonly known values and facts are socially constructed and transmitted, as through apprenticeships (learning from a few masters) and through the broader cultural environment.

Author defined culture as “the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This chapter opened with the quote from Hall (1990, 47) on the relationship between learning and culture: “once people have learned to learn in a given way it is extremely difficult to learn in any other way . . . culture reflects the way one learns.”. Vygotsky and others (1987) proposed that learning can best be understood by taking an explicit culture-centered approach. The relationship between and among culture, learning, and personal knowledge suggests that knowledge management techniques that are appropriate in one culture may not be effective for organizations that comprise members from multiple cultures or organizations that seek to serve multiple cultures.

Access to all the knowledge available within an organization is constrained when a KMS does not explicitly plan for the inclusion of multiple cultures in the creation, storage, and transfer of knowledge. A KMS designed by and for a particular organizational culture by its nature restricts the range of schema by which knowledge is classified and stored, and thus the creation of new knowledge is limited to discussions within the meta framework provided by the collective combination of these schema.

Review: (115 Words)

This article is one of exclusive writings from other articles. It portrays a sense of formal knowledge management framework highlighting the cross-cultural perspectives on Knowledge Management. One of the beauties about this article is that it explored positive, neutral and negative views of the cultural based knowledge management trends and provided with clear evidences and investigations of several authors.
One of the few weaknesses of the articles is that it’s not targeting one particular audience and keeping the views quite general and open. Conclusion is well built but leaves me with few questions to explore and search, which is on the other hand, is productive for audience. Overall it’s a nice article and worth reading.

A Research Agenda for the Relationships between Culture and Knowledge Management

Hi,

We just posted the summary and review for the article "A Research Agenda for the Relationships between Culture and Knowledge Management" by King, W.R

Please find it here

cheers

Wk6Class8: Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge

ARTICLE SUMMARY & REVIEW
(Wk6Class8 Post by mim-summer)

Title: Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge

Theme: This research paper focuses on the cultural dimensions of learning & knowledge and on how global organizations can manage the knowledge represented by the cultural backgrounds of their members, using a boundary spanning model.

SUMMARY

“Once people have learned to learn in a given way, it is extremely difficult to learn in any other way …. Culture reflects the way one learns” (Hall 1990, 47).

The opening quote of this paper emphasizes the cultural dimension of learning & knowledge creation. The author puts forward following basic postulates as foundations for building a framework to help global organizations in organizing the tacit dimension of knowledge hidden in the ethnic & cultural backgrounds of their members:

P1: An effective KMS not only helps in storing knowledge, it also enables flow & subjective interpretation of data & information among individuals, thereby enabling creation of new knowledge.

P2: An effective KMS should recognize both ‘Explicit’ & ‘Tacit’ dimensions of knowledge in multi-cultural environment and enable access / transfer of entire knowledge held by the organization members.

P3: In a multi-cultural scenario, for a KMS to encompass knowledge from all individuals, it should have provision for multiple schemas so as to organize and structure the knowledge embedded in individuals, in their native formats.

P4: For a KMS to effectively enable learning by individuals from different cultural backgrounds, it should either a) have culture-sensitive access mechanisms, or b) have skill-building mechanism to enable acquisition of knowledge from non-native format structures.

P5: An effective KMS in a multi-cultural organization should provide boundary spanning mechanisms and processes at the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels.

A boundary spanning model based on above postulates and operating at syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels, as proposed by Carlile, is suggested in the paper for development of social mechanisms to include different cultures in the organizational KMS. The syntactic & semantic levels which are more explicit in nature are more conducive to deployment of information technologies, whereas the pragmatic level which accounts for the culture-oriented tacit dimension completes and integrates the model for incorporating different cultures.

The paper concludes by suggesting that the basic vision of an organizational KMS accessing full range of embedded tacit knowledge can not be realized unless social mechanisms are developed to encompass the multiple cultural backgrounds of its members or the clients.

REVIEW

Even though this article focuses more on the culture-sensitive KM in global, multi-cultural organizations, still the concepts discussed are very useful and relevant even for local level organizations in NZ, which is characterized by a typically multi-cultural society.

The analysis of cultural perceptions & cognitive processes as per ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ thoughts, the neurological discussion for mind development and the infant study references were really interesting and informative.

The article is well structured, well referenced and easy to read because of double spacing and simple language. However, certain terminologies used were difficult to understand. In nutshell, it is a very useful reading for the KM students and professionals.

Reference:
Mason, R. (n.d.). Cross-Cultural perspectives on Knowledge Management: Chapter 2: Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge. Forthcoming publication of D. Pauleen (Ed.) Libraries Unlimited.

Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge

Article Summary for Week 6 Class 8

(Group: KMx6- Fatemeh, Skalk, Bee, Lanoi, Max, Roger)

Pauleen, D. (Ed.). (2006). Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge. In Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Knowledge Management (pp. 21-34). Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Summary:

Audience: Academics and Knowledge managers, Knowledge Management Consultants

Theme / Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to propose three ideas that would be needed to be considered when building a Knowledge Management System (KMS) for a multinational organisation.

The authors propose that learning is closely linked to Knowledge, Information and Data. Thus for effective Knowledge Management (KM) a clear understanding of how learning happens in individuals from different cultural backgrounds are important.

The authors quote research that suggests that infants learn by making distinctions; by seeing differences and by using these differences to interpret and remember experiences.

Firms that wish to operate in a multicultural environment, then the knowledge management techniques they employ should take the cultural differences into account.

Boundary spanning is suggested as an appropriate component of a KMS. Boundary spanning objects have been identified that operates at three different levels. These are syntactic; semantic and the pragmatic.

At the syntactic level are shared knowledge repositories that enable communications of fact, tasks and actions. Data interchange and data architectures are of important since these facilitate knowledge transfer. Agreed standards also come into play.

At the semantic level standardised forms and methods make clear what the differences are in meaning. The objects at the semantic level help with the translation and localisation of knowledge so that group members can understand them. Here methods of translation could be employed.

At the pragmatic level the objects with embedded knowledge are transformed so that the entire team could understand as well as members not in the team. This is very difficult to do. Since communities may have different values and power relationships, and these can not be assumed.

The authors conclude that the syntactic and semantic levels are easily changed using current information technologies. The third level boundary spanning are a challenge and would require KMS to take cognisance of the difference in power and values.

National culture and the standardization versus adaptation of knowledge management

Article Summary for Week 6 Class 8

(Group: KMx6- Fatemeh, Skalk, Bee, Lanoi, Max, Roger)

Ang, Z., & Massingham, P. (2007). National culture and the standardization versus adaptation of knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(2), 5-21. doi: 10.1108/13673270710738889

Audience: Academics and Knowledge managers, Knowledge Management Consultants

Theme / Purpose: An examination of the effect of national culture on standardisation versus adoption of knowledge management (KM). Designing a conceptual framework for understanding the process of standardisation versus adoption of knowledge management.

In this article the authors make a compelling argument that Multinational firms face a huge challenge when it comes to knowledge management. The decision to standardise or adopt in an international business is important because it will allow the firm to be able to reduce costs and respond to local demands.

The authors use the knowledge based view of the firms which holds that knowledge resources have value when they are combined with other resources to create new competencies and capabilities leading to competitive advantage. In trying to sustain competitive advantage, the firm needs to understand the relationship between what they are trying to achieve and key business process necessary to give affect of this business strategy and what they need to know to perform well in this area.

The standardisation what the authors are talking about has to do with the way the firm does business and how it competes. The pressure of cost reduction is referred to as standardisation . The pressure to be responsive to the market is the adaption bit. If firms need to do both this is often referred to as a transnational strategy.

Studies have shown that national culture does affect a range of areas in the firm. Marketing, strategy and HR are affected by the national culture. Here the authors look at how national culture influences KM.

A list of factors affecting knowledge creation is given as well as factors affecting knowledge transfer are given.

See below for the model.

Summary on : "A Research Agenda for the relationships between culture and knowledge management"

Hi,

Our group just posted a summary on Wiliam R. King's Research Agenda on Culture and KM. Hope you guys find this summary useful.

Cheers,
Zainul

Should the Knowledge- Based Economy be a Savant or a Sage?

Wisdom and Socially Intelligent Innovation. D. Rooney and B. McKenna. Prometheus. Vol. 23, No. 3, Sept 2005.
Type of paper – article
Audience – academics, Public policy professionals.
This article explores the idea that knowledge without wisdom leads to social dysfunction and cataclysm, making public policy the context of their enquiry. They explore the Aristotelian idea of practical wisdom and briefly acknowledge an Eastern perspective (the Chinese “I Ching” and Persian philosopher Avicenna). The authors use the taxonomy devised by an eighteenth century Aristotelian (Giambattista Vico) that provides a framework of four intellectual types ranging from the Savant (imprudent) to the Sage (wise people) to explore how the administrative complexities of contemporary life can be approached from a knowledge point of view. They postulate that a knowledge economy managed without wisdom is deficient and can lead to cataclysmic outcomes (they cite the dot-com crash, I am thinking of the GFC) and that policy level discourse must contain social and ethical considerations, or the “knowledge” is wanting. Otherwise we are at the mercy of rationalist, functionalist, utilitarian and technocratic driven short term gains.

The article is very technical in its philosophical approach and is a hard read. However the argument is compelling. The savant approaches ethics slowly and most often fails. The sage has both practical and theoretical wisdom and makes plans for the long term. This they argue is a humanistic approach and is better for social policy in complex technological societies in the long term. Perhaps this assertion has been proved correct by the economic events of the past year?

Effective societal management

Here are article commentaries on Karl Wiig's model, with which I disagree as being too western-centric and simplistic, and David Rooney's model, which I find appealing, but the model is the size of the system.

Crossings

Summary on Crossings

Article summary for Week 4, Class 6.

Group: Bullet Express – Helen Ng Lam, Ian Blood Worth, Torrance Mayberry and Vijay Rao.

Audience: Academics, Knowledge Management Professionals
Abstract:

This article summarises Crossings, (Cranefield and Yoong -2009). It is a research paper for facilitating the embedding of Personal professional knowledge in an complex online community.


Description:

The researchers aim was to look at how communities of practice (COP) facilitate the embedding of Personal Professional Knowledge in the complex online world we live in today. The researchers undertook the research by interviewing 41 participants from 5 different online communities, online records for additional data and using Wiki so that the participants could feedback to the researchers. The researchers were able to determine that knowledge sharing was often facilitated by the participants by “Crossing” between the different spaces online, offline, visible and invisible, formal and informal and reflective and active mediums. As the participants moved through the different mediums they changed the information into knowledge by varying it and making it there own adapting it to fit the different functions of each medium. In addition to encouraging the development of Personal Professional Knowledge, the different mediums the study also provided a space where themes with mnemonic attributes were distributed and magnified.

Review:

The article was well written although I had you review my dictionary more than once while reading this article. I did however learn a few things while reviewing this article which is what knowledge management is all about.


References:
Cranefield, J and Yoong, P (2009) “Crossings”, online information review.

The Knowing Nation: A Framework for Public Policy in a Post-industrial Knowledge Economy

Rooney, D, & Mandeville, T., (1998), Prometheus, 16(4) pp. 453-467.

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

Audience: Academics, policy Analysts, Knowledge Management professionals

Theme: As countries enter the knowledge-based global economy, it is important to have a policy framework not based on neoclassical economic theory (only having tangible assets as factors of production), but one where intangible assets (primarily knowledge) are also considered factors of production. However, additional polices are not recommended – it is preferable to filter existing policies through a “knowledge-policy matrix”, so appropriate, “knowledge friendly” amendments can be made.

Summary:

With the increasing reliance of a countries competitive advantage on effective knowledge management, it is essential that policy is put in place for the development and utilization of intangible knowledge assets. However, given the fact that knowledge is context dependent (and a multitude of contexts can be applied to any given 'item' of knowledge), it is difficult to devise specific policy that can be applied to all contexts. For this reason, knowledge policy frameworks are useful, whereby existing policies are influenced by the identified national knowledge imperative.

The following points capture some of the key ideas in this paper:

• Knowledge is a key intangible asset.
• Key Question: how do nations develop knowledge policy initiatives that span their economies coherently and efficiently?
• Policy imperatives should require openness and a capacity to learn from the external environment.
• This requires nations to be receptive to knowledge, networked to foster knowledge flow, and be able to process codified knowledge (this requires a pre-existing critical mass of tacit knowledge be present in the economy).
• Separate knowledge policies are counterproductive; they risk de-contextualizing the knowledge - reducing its value.
• Authors present knowledge as a socio-epistemological system - i.e. one in which knowledge can be interpreted differently by different people, or by the same person in different contexts.
• They present a non-reductionist perspective on the context of knowledge, which they use to drive a policy framework which promotes a dynamic, self-organizing form of knowledge management.
• Non-reductionist - i.e. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• The difference between a firm's book value and its market value is a proxy for its intellectual capital. This concept scales up to the level of economies.
• Intellectual assets exist in 3 usage domains:

1. External - competitors / collaborators / communities / networks. The ability to learn from external sources is profound. It is vital that this is capitalized on.
2. Internal - regulatory framework, government/bureaucracy, infrastructure, etc. The key is that a coherent knowledge policy framework is put in place.
3. Competence of personnel. People, people, people….the people aspect of economies can no longer be ignored. People must be utilized to their full potential, to achieve true competitive advantage.

Review:

I found the article interesting and balanced. It was a little hard going at times (socio-epistemological??) but well worth the effort. The authors acknowledged the scope for debate with what they propose, and that room for refinement exists. I internally applauded when they suggested that their ideas put less emphasis on "best practice". Rooney's ideas seem more pragmatic than some, which from a practitioner perspective is refreshing.