Search Results

An organization possesses three kinds of knowledge: tacit or personal knowledge; explicit or codified knowledge, and cultural knowledge in its beliefs and norms. An organization can create new knowledge by (1) converting between tacit and explicit knowledge; (2) extending core capabilities; and (3) transferring knowledge across different parts of the organization. Knowledge sharing depends on social networks that are built on norms of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation. This chapter looks at a number of cases that exemplify these concepts, including the community of practice in the Xerox Eureka project, and knowledge transfer at GM-Toyota NUMMI.

This chapter discusses how a shared superordinate identity increases knowledge creation and transfer in firms. It presents evidence, from both the field and laboratory, that sharing a superordinate identity promotes knowledge creation and transfer. It develops theory about the conditions under which a shared superordinate identity is most valuable. It discusses how to build a strong superordinate identity as well as analyses when a superordinate identity is a complement or substitute to other knowledge governance mechanisms. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future research directions on identity and knowledge governance that are particularly promising.

This chapter introduces an information-based view of organizations — a model of how people and groups in organizations work with information to accomplish three outcomes: (1) create an identity and a shared context for action and reflection (sense-making), (2) develop new knowledge and new capabilities (knowledge creation), and (3) make decisions that commit resources and capabilities to purposeful action (decision making). The chapter illustrates the dynamic of the organizational knowledge cycle with a discussion of scenario planning at Royal Dutch Shell.

The WHO Smallpox Eradication Program (1967-77) showed how cycles of sensemaking, knowledge creation, and decision making supported by a matrix of information management practices enabled the organization to innovate and adapt effectively. This chapter discusses how the knowing organization model relates to other models of organizational learning. The chapter also summarizes the practical implications of the model, drawing examples from new cases and cases presented earlier in the book.

This chapter highlights a particularly challenging arena for knowledge governance, by focussing on the issues associated with large-scale R&D programmes of ‘open innovation’. The chapter develops a theoretical framework for analysing these governance challenges by focussing on the interplay between the knowledge processes and inter-organizational relationships involved. This framework is subsequently applied to a case-study of a major open innovation programme, namely, a major inter-firm research programme sponsored by the European Union (EU) in the aerospace sector. Analysis of this case suggests that the stability and fit of governance mechanisms may be less important than their ability to adapt to the dynamics of the innovation process, and particularly to shifts between the open and closed networks which offer very different routes to appropriating value from that process.

Through a comparative, longitudinal analysis of the wine industry in two Argentine provinces, this chapter examines how different political approaches to reform shapes the ability of societies to build new institutions for economic upgrading. Upgrading in wine and grapes often demands the creation of skills and the coordination of experiments in processes, products, and functions across a wide variety of organizational forms and sub-regions. Inherited structural factors per se can not easily explain the different solutions to this challenge. In particular, although voluntary associationalism improves the needed social learning and collaboration, it is also self-limiting. A better explanation focuses on how governments confront the dual challenge of redefining the boundary between the public and private domains, and of recombining the socio-economic ties among relevant firms and their respective business associations. A ‘depoliticization’ approach emphasizes the imposition of arm's-length incentives by a powerful, insulated government, but appears to contribute little to institutional change and upgrading. A ‘participatory restructuring’ approach promotes the creation of public-private institutions via adherence to two key principles: inclusion of a wide variety of relevant stakeholder groups, and rules of deliberative governance that promote collective problem-solving. The latter approach appears to have the advantage of facilitating collaboration and knowledge creation among previously antagonistic groups, including government.

At certain times, members of an organization may feel discouraged from pursuing their ideas since they may have heard that an idea similar to theirs has failed in an earlier endeavor, and may think that working on its improvement will only result in a waste of time and effort. Whether this role be played by a manager or by fellow members of the company, situations like these call for a knowledge activist to encourage and rejuvenate the team's commitment and energy in order to continue the process of knowledge creation. Mobilizing knowledge activists should be important for a company as they play no small part in the following steps of knowledge creation: 1) the formation of knowledge microcommunities; 2) concept generation and justification; 3) prototype building; and 4) cross-levelling of knowledge.

The thesis that the apparent success of Japanese firms rests on their ability for creation of organizational knowledge is explored. The Japanese experience is taken as a launching pad for a proposed more general theory of how knowledge is, and can be, created in organizations. Two simultaneous knowledge spirals are identified as evolving over time: first, knowledge is created and expanded through the social interaction between tacit and explicit forms of knowledge in a process that is called knowledge conversion—the different modes and requisite enabling conditions that maintain this knowledge spiral are traced; second, another spiral describes how knowledge created at the individual level is transformed into knowledge at the organizational level through a phased process. As the spirals interact over time, innovation is seen to emerge. Clearly, there is a certain normative bent to this view of knowledge creation, and it implies some important lessons for non‐Japanese firms.

Because of the way managers acknowledge the significance of knowledge and the entire knowledge-management movement to their organizations, these should play no small part in the formulation of the companies' business strategies. Strategic discussions have hitherto focused more on measurable objectives and results and narrowly defined ideas before even considering matters of knowledge creation. Although these strategies may aid in attaining short term growth, these will not allow companies to advance into new product areas or markets. Also, such strategies may not help the company in keeping up with the continuously expanding multinational transactions and product developments. Although knowledge may be attributed with a certain degree of uncertainty, creating new knowledge and finding new ways to effectively make use of this knowledge has undeniably made its mark as an essential element of business strategy.

The competence perspective has emphasized the importance of organizational resources and capabilities, particularly organizational knowledge. In investigating the management of organizational knowledge creation processes, the literature on new organizational forms has explicitly focused on management processes and resources at different managerial levels. By integrating and applying managerial knowledge, managers develop managerial capability and render the service of their resource. Moreover, managers' own process for learning and capability development play a critical role in organizational knowledge creation processes and in the adoption of new organizational forms that improve dynamic organizational capabilities. Given these key services of managers as a resource, it can be argued that we should now put managerial knowledge at the forefront of competitive advantage. This chapter defines what managerial knowledge and managerial capabilities are, what services are rendered by them, how they interrelate with organizational knowledge creation processes, and how front-line, middle, and top managers can contribute to a firm's organizational competences. A conceptual framework for analyzing managerial knowledge integration is developed and applied to front-line managers, middle managers, and top managers.

Since the early 1990s, business researchers, consultants, and other experts have asserted that companies all over the world should be considering knowledge creation for the following reasons: 1) to improve their competitive advantage over other companies; 2) to give more focus on the needs of knowledge workers such as medical doctors, engineers, scientists, and other such professions that require creative thinking; and 3) to establish a learning environment that would suit today's information economy. Pioneering companies like Siemens, Chevron, and Nokia, among others, can attest to former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich's statement about how important learning and knowledge is nowadays to both individual workers and the top management. The concept of knowledge management can indeed be perceived as limited as most of its aspects are difficult to measure. We must therefore look into how and why managers should support knowledge creation as such a process may not be controllable.

Although some companies would indeed assert that knowledge creation is an essential in their processes, especially companies focused on innovation and high-technology firms, experiencing conflicts and tensions within the company is unavoidable, as supporting and sustaining such knowledge creation is, without a doubt, an arduous task. Because traditional management techniques may no longer be appropriate in dealing with the process of knowledge creation, organizations and their members are bound to encounter several different barriers to sharing knowledge. Regardless of the managerial style imposed within a company, barriers to knowledge will still occur as the processes involved will concern various degrees of intellectual capabilities and human relationships. This chapter sheds light on such barriers, which can be classified into two interrelated categories — individual and organizational.

In order to facilitate the sharing of personal knowledge among individuals within the company, certain issues regarding organizational relationships have to be addressed. Constructive relations would allow individuals to be more open about their ideas and freely discuss various matters. The origin of knowledge creation within an organization, or what some would refer to as microcommunities, is also made possible by such relations to promote formation and self-organization. Another important thing to note is that these types of relationships advocate the careful dissemination of implicit or tacit knowledge. Although the significance of good relationships within a company need not be pointed out, as it already is an apparent concern, managers still have to give emphasis to this issue because barriers are often brought about by “people problems.” This chapter looks into the problem of hypercompetitive environments and how members of the organization should deal with such issues.

Knowledge creation and organizational learning have become central concerns in strategic management. This chapter analyzes customer relationships as a source of new organizational knowledge. Knowledge absorption from customer relationships involves two key processes of organizational learning: creating new knowledge within the firm from client relationships and leveraging this new knowledge within the firm and in client relationships. The management of such learning and knowledge leveraging processes is critical to a firm's ability to build new organizational competences. These processes are examined in the context of knowledge intensive business service firms including both specialist and general management consulting firms, to gain insights into processes of strategic organizational learning. After presenting two brief case studies of knowledge absorption from clients, some implications for knowledge management in various kinds of client relationships are considered. This chapter contributes to the competence-based view of competition by developing a typology of client relationships and an integrative framework that helps to clarify several important types of knowledge absorption opportunities.

Because conversation happens to be the most common and natural of human activities, companies usually undervalue the fact that good conversation channels within the company may aid in an organization's operations, especially in terms of managerial discussions that concern the dissemination of knowledge. Within an organization, good conversation is believed to be the cradle of social knowledge that would include such essential matters as individual knowledge and the trade of ideas, among others. Good conversation within a microcommunity enable the sharing of tacit knowledge because of its ability to facilitate the exchange of beliefs, thoughts, and perspectives among the members of the organization. Managing conversations would not only entail the sharing of tacit knowledge, but it would also affect several other aspects of the process of knowledge creation.

This chapter returns to the topic of communities. It discusses several alternative theoretical traditions that have described the social basis of meaning, knowing, and knowledge creation. It starts by introducing the concept of thought community that was originally introduced by Ludwik Fleck (1979) in the 1930s. Fleck's historical study described many of those social processes that underlie the emergence of new scientific knowledge and new technologies. The chapter further discusses Bakhtin's speech genres, cultural-historical activity theory, social learning in communities of practice, and the concept of ba. Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues have argued that innovation and knowledge creation occur in knowledge creation spaces, or ba. The chapter discusses the nature of ba, and links this concept back to its origins in the epistemological theory of Kitaro Nishida and the Kyoto School. The chapter, therefore, introduces a set of alternative theoretical views that can be used to understand the cognitive and social basis of innovation.

Coming up with a business strategy that effectively incorporates all five enablers in the process of knowledge creation is a difficult task. Although taking this arduous path to the creation of new knowledge may entail a multitude of various drawbacks and challenges, it is asserted that all the efforts exerted for this task are definitely believed to pay off. As this chapter summarizes the fundamental points of the book, it identifies the three broad types of initiatives that companies are starting to develop: risk minimizers, efficiency seekers, and innovators. In applying such concepts and beginning the path to knowledge creation, a company has to take a few fundamental first steps, such as identifying the company's expected challenges, which knowledge operation is most important for the company, and other such concerns. This concluding chapter explains what it means to take these first few steps, and emphasizes how important it is for managers to pursue knowledge creation endeavors.

This chapter considers how our understandings of the knowledge concept can influence the way we can handle or manage it, or at least the ways in which we think we can handle or manage it, through the examination of three different theories of Knowledge Management (KM). The first considers knowledge creation to be an individual process that can be transmuted into a collective practice. The second considers knowledge creation to be organizational learning capacity based upon individuals, and the third considers it to be organizational learning structured on organizations themselves.

Product development projects typically comprise collaboration among participants who are strongly specialized or experienced in certain areas. Reaping the benefits of such a differentiated competence structure involves a process of collaborative knowledge integration and new knowledge creation. Yet, while the role of individual ingenuity and creativity has been extensively researched, interactive knowledge processes have received scant attention. This chapter focuses on the progression of such processes and suggests how they may be modelled within a framework grounded in evolutionary epistemology. The model pictures interactive knowledge creation processes in terms of preselection, variation, and selective retention, and we discuss how each of them may be associated with a core epistemological assumption. Furthermore, excerpts from product development projects in the telecom and pharmaceutical industries are used to illustrate the framework empirically.