Knowledge and Management

Jozef HvoreckýVysoká škola manažmentu, Bratislava, Slovakia

University of LiverpoolLiverpool, UK

Knowledge

Oxford English Dictionary:

• Expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education

• What is known in a particular field or in total

• Theoretical or practical understanding of a subject

• Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation

• Facts and information

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Identifying Knowledge

Knowledge is to be:• True: 1+ 2 = 3• Justifiable: Water boils at 1000 C• Believed: People are more

intelligent than animals

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True

Justified

Believed

Application of Knowledge

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Problem Solution

Application of Knowledge

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Problem Solution

Knowledge

Application of Knowledge

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Problem Solution

Knowledge

Problem Knowledge Solution

Calculating salaries

Person’s income, Tax regulations,

Calculations

Net Income, Tax

Appendicitis Setting up the diagnosis,Surgery, Treatment

Healthy patient

Dirty oven Household duties, Detergent application

Clean oven

Talking to dead

Spiritual practices Evoke ghosts

Acquiring Knowledge: Learning

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Single-loop learning (Robinson Crusoe):• Trials and errors• Exploitation of positive results• Mastering gained knowledge

Double-loop learning (community)• Trials and errors• Exploitation of positive results• Capturing and sharing gained knowledge• Mastering gained knowledge (possibly by others)

Knowledge: Result of Learning

What do we gain during learning?

• Explicit Knowledge:– Articulated– Codified– Stored using certain media

• Tacit Knowledge:• Only in human brains• Even the owner may not be aware of it

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When Do We Learn?

• Traditional view:– At schools (Face Recognition course :-)– At training centers– Working on assignments– Predominantly explicit

• Contemporary view:– Everywhere– At any moment– When we create connections between pieces

of knowledge– Both explicit and tacit

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When Do We Learn and How?

Problems with Knowledge:

We often do not know:• What we know• Why we have learned it• How we have learned it

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Learning for a Learning Society

Learning Organization and/or Society:

The society that is capable to learn in order to prosper, develop, and dominate

A person or society that does not learn will suffer. Learning must be: – Intentional– Purposeful

Company’s Good Strategy : Knowledge management

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Two Faces of Knowledge Management

„Hard“ Knowledge Management:

Transposing knowledge into machines:– Robots– Computer programs– Intelligent cars– Production lines– Etc.

„Soft“ Knowledge Management:– Sharing experience– Collecting knowledge– Following manuals– Etc.

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Ba: Places for Gaining Knowledge

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Individual Collective

Face-to-Face

Originating Ba(Where data is born)

Dialoguing Ba(Data pre-selection)

Virtual Exercising Ba(New knowledge is verified and used)

Systemizing Ba(Data processed to New Knowledge)

Originating Ba

Any place where new knowledge can be found

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Person to person Sensor to environment

Front desk Mars Explorer

Information office Temperature sensor

Small talk Traffic light camera

Classroom lecture Hubble telescope

Dialoguing Ba

Place where the observations are “preprocessed”, “filtered”, analyzed

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Among people People to technology

Manager’s office Management Information Systems

Coffee corner Decision Support Systems

Hearing Datamining (Unification phase)

Consultation Expert System

Systemizing Ba

The place where new knowledge is verified and claimed “correct”

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Among people People with technology

Evaluation meeting Testing and verification

Scientific conference User’s satisfaction

Office of Standards Mass application

Grading students’ homework

Wind channel

Exercising Ba

The place where the gained knowledge is applied

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Among people People with technology

Workplace Concentrating on tacit knowledge

Strategy implementation Experimenting with data

Mental experiments Improving computer performance

Joy of knowledge Inventing new devices

Nonaka-Takeuchi SECI Model

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Tacitknowledge

ExplicitKnowledge

TacitKnowledge

Socialization Externalization

ExplicitKnowledge

Internalization

Combination

Socialization

• Sharing knowledge tacit knowledge between/among individuals:– Face-to face communication– Apprenticeship– Couching– “Samba school”– Etc.

Likely the oldest method of knowledge sharing

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Externalization

Expressing tacit knowledge in a conventional, collusive and explicit form:– Text– Professional notation– Guidelines– Legislation– Etc.

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Combination

• Building new pieces of explicit knowledge by combining known existing knowledge (forming explicit facts):– Evaluation– Sorting– Categorization– Abstraction– Etc.

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Internalization

“Privatizing” the gained knowledge, changing it into an asset:– Practicing the skills– Learning by doing– Memorizing– Forming a new terminology or

notation– Etc.

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Learning Organization

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TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATION

LEARNING ORGANIZATION

APPROACH TO CHANGE

If it works, do not change it

If we do not learn, we will extinct

APPROACH TO IDEAS

If it is not our idea, we do not welcome it

Let us not reinvent the wheel

RESPONSIBILITY FOR INNOVATIONS

Department of research and development

Each and every member of the organization

MAIN CONCERNS

Making wrong decisions Inability to learn and adapt

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Products and services Ability to learn and exploit knowledge and

experienceDUTIES OF MANAGERS

Controlling others Supporting others

How to recognize a Learning Organization?*

• A learning approach to strategy: The use of trials and errors to improve understanding

and generate improvements, and to modify strategic direction as necessary.

• Participative policy making: All the organization’s members are involved in strategy

formation, influencing decisions and values and addressing conflict.

• Informative: Information technology is used to make information

available to everyone and to enable front-line staff to act on their own initiative.

24*Buchanan and Huczynski: Organizational Behavior, p. 125

• Formative accounting and control: Accounting, budgeting and reporting systems are

designed to help people to understand the operations of organizational finance.

• Internal exchange:Sections and departments think of themselves as

customers and suppliers in an internal ‘supply chain’, learning from each other.

• Reward flexibility: A flexible and creative reward policy with financial and

non-financial rewards to meet individual needs and performance.

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How to recognize a Learning Organization?

(cont.)

• Enabling structures: Organizational charts, structures and procedures are seen

as temporary, and can be changed to meet task requirements.

• Boundary workers as environmental scanners:

• Everyone who has contact with customers, suppliers, clients and business partners is treated as a valuable informative source.

• Inter-company learning: The organization learns from other organizations through

join ventures, alliances, and other information exchanges.

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How to recognize a Learning Organization?

(cont.)

• A learning climate:The manager’s primary task is to facilitate

experimentation and learning in others, through questioning, feedback and support.

• Self-learning opportunities for all: People are expected to take responsibility for their own learning, and facilities are made available, especially to ‘front-line’ staff.

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How to recognize a Learning Organization?

(cont.)

To What Degree Can ICT Support Learning in an Organization?

• 11 indicators• 3 values:

– Strong (ICT replacing humans)

– Moderate (ICT supports human activities)

– Weak (Zero, or close to zero)

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Estimated Support

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Indicator ICT support of the activityINFORMATIVE STRONGFORMATIVE ACCOUNTING AND CONTROL

STRONG

INTERNAL EXCHANGE STRONGA LEARNING APPROACH TO STRATEGY

MODERATE

PARTICIPATIVE POLICY MAKING MODERATESELF-LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL

MODERATE

BOUNDARY WORKERS AS ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNERS

MODERATE

ENABLING STRUCTURES WEAKREWARD FLEXIBILITY WEAKINTER-COMPANY LEARNING WEAKA LEARNING CLIMATE WEAK

Conclusions

• Strongly supported: 3• Moderately supported: 3• Weakly supported: 4

– Enabling structures– Reward flexibility– Inter-company learning– A learning climate

• All these must be influenced by humans

• They should create conditions to enhance them

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Please, remember!

• Knowledge is an asset• It is always present but not always visible• Knowledge society should create conditions for

its maximum development and exploitation• Organizational culture plays a key role in the

company’s readiness to learn• Whether the change towards the learning

organization happens depends more on people than on technology.

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Thank you for your attention!

jhvorecky@vsm.sk

http://blogy.etrend.sk/jozef-hvorecky