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.