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

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