MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Due to the level of competition that has grown considerably and also the demands of the market that are increasing day by day . Organizations now have to go an extra mile to be ahead or to be competitive enough to cope up with the rivals . In order to be ahead of the rivals or gain competitive advantage over the other organizations in the market . Organizations are on the hunt for new organizational structures that could improve their knowledge management because it is believed today in the corporate world or it is rather a fact that knowledge is an important asset in today’s world to gain advantage or be ahead in this tight organizational race . There is general agreement that knowledge management will represent the biggest competitive advantage for organizations in the new millennium . Drucker (1993),Quinn(1992). So managing knowledge in an organization is of utmost importance .

Ferrin-Urdaneta (1999) stated the KM system designed by an organization usually deals with three KM processes :Knowledge creation ,Knowledge legitimization and Knowledge sharing

Also when speaking about managing knowledge in an organization ,Firstly we have to speak about the users or people concerned with the management and also concepts like teams and communities .

Research has shown that organizations are increasingly carrying out knowledge processes through groups instead of individual’s . Groups are becoming the basic unit of work as described by Yager (1997).

Teams : There are many definitions of the word “team” Katzenback and Smith (1993) defines “a team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose,performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable”.

Synergy is an important reason for creating a team stated by. Hackman (1990).

Communities : Recent researches have shown that nowadays the parent organizations are using communities within an organization for knowledge sharing to gain competitive advantages .Markus (1990) states “community as a group of individuals who communicate more within than across the boundaries of the group and share a common interest. “ .Communities have common objectives which satisfy some of the individuals need in the community .In addition they have low coordination and also have weaker ties among members and where no one is responsible or critical for the survival or accomplishment of objectives .

Knowledge management is managing the intangible assets of an organization (Sveiby, 1997).
Nonaka (1995) argued knowledge as tacit and explicit and believes knowledge is created in continuous conversion between tacit and explicit .He also introduced a model called SECI for knowledge creation which at the same time accomplished storage , legitimization , and also sharing of knowledge
The model consist of four processes (socialization, internalization, externalization, and combination).

And when speaking about KM processes that play an important role in managing knowledge in an organization ,We will discuss about the 3 processes

Creating, Legitimization AND Sharing.

Knowledge creation : Is basically a process where new insights are gain by individuals
Organizations are now using group collaboration rather than individual actions for planned knowledge creation . A team is more effective in knowledge creation as compared to communities in an organization
E.g. We can say creation of knowledge in an organization as product innovation or a new organizational strategy design

Knowledge legitimization : There was a maxim “Seeing Is Believing “.but it was a thing of the past ,as we no longer believe everything we see (Ferrin-Urdaneta, 1999). It is the same when we read something new we tend to doubt it whether it is true or not and it is also the same way when people say certain facts we are not always convinced of their truthfulness .This testing of new knowledge is termed as ‘knowledge legitimization’
In this process the new knowledge is always tested before sharing. Here communities tend to have better effectiveness in legitimizing the knowledge created than a team.

Knowledge sharing : This starts at our home and from the day we are born,. Most commonplace(s) of knowledge sharing is our schools ,and it does not stop even after we graduate ,we keep on learning from our doings and every day experience .Organizations generally control knowledge creation and sharing by trying to create as much knowledge as they can. They can then share it among the stakeholders but at the same time stop sharing when it comes to competitors . In sharing of knowledge communities tend to be more beneficial and effective than teams .

While managing knowledge in an organization, the below are the three steps which must be followed

Knowledge first must be created or gained through experience

Knowledge must be legitimized

Finally it should be shared

So as it may be clear by now the processes involved in managing knowledge and the way the organization use their resources in managing knowledge .

Its the same way knowledge is managed in ebizel.com Pvt. Ltd an organization dealing in HR and IT .First we use to create knowledge by various learning’s and researches or carrying out field study ,then that knowledge is explained to the top associates of the organization where the new gained knowledge is questioned and then when it is accepted it is then shared with all the associates in the organization.

References :

1: Drucker, P. 1993. Post-Capital society. Harper & Collins, New York, NY,

2: Quinn, 1992. J. B. Intelligent Enterprise. The Free Press, New York, NY,

3: Yager, S. E. (1997) Everything’s coming up virtual. Crossroads Fall (1), 20-24.

4:Katzenbach, J. R., and D. K. Smith. 1993. The wisdom of teams.Creating the high-perfomuance orgunizution. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA,

5: Hackman, J. R. (1990) Groups that work and those that don’t.San Francisco,C A: Jossey-Bass

6: Sveiby, K. E. (1997) The new organizational wealth. Managing & measuring knowledge-bused assets. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, CA,

7: Nonaka, I., and H. Takeuchi (1995).The knowledge-creating company. How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovurion. Oxford University Press, New York, NY,

8:Ferran-Urdenta (1999) Organizational Structure for Knowledge Management SIGCPR New Orleans LA USA