Journal Article
© Nov 1999 Volume 1 Issue 1, Editor: Fergal McGrath, pp1 - 68
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Abstract
This paper looks into the consultancy processes and professional practices of management consultants and of technology consultants from a knowledge management perspective. The process of consultancy in both cases was characterised by the following categories drawn from the analysis of interviews: boundaries, actors, process and information. The findings for each type of consultancy were synthesized into two different narratives. Considerable differences in the way they operate were identified in terms of: the definition of the context of the problem and risk assessment; negotiation through the client system and the use of language and vocabulary in the consultancy process, leading to the development of different professional discourses and different approaches to the facilitation of organisational learning
Journal Article
© Mar 2007 Volume 5 Issue 1, ECKM 2006, Editor: Charles Despres, pp1 - 130
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Abstract
Organisational learning and knowledge management experts are searching for more appropriate research tools to tackle the difficult concepts of organisational learning and knowledge. This paper provides an overview of the learning history methodology, first proposed by Kleiner and Roth, in studying knowledge transfer activities. The learning history methodology, typically used within an action research environment, is designed to allow recognition of what has been learned in the past to guide stakeholders in the dialogical generation of a new future. It is a qualitative measurement tool of what has been learned, and remains sensitive to contextual factors, since it is based on the perceptions of the organisation's actors and the theoretical sensitivity of the researcher. This paper surveys the learning history literature to determine the roots, benefits and challenges of this research method. We will then demonstrate the advantages of using this approach to studying organisational knowledge transfer by presenting a case study where it is being used within participatory action research logic. Finally, we will provide lessons learned from our ongoing research and draw on implications for practice and future theorising.
Journal Article
© Jan 2008 Volume 5 Issue 4, Editor: Charles Despres, pp347 - 550
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Abstract
Knowledge management initiatives enable an organisation to learn from its successes and mistakes. The nature of knowledge and learning processes means that in seeking to improve the way the organisation learns, knowledge management also has to pay attention to the learning of individuals. In most organisations, other functional specialists also have responsibility for individual learning. This exploratory qualitative research has examined the ways that planned learning initiatives generated by knowledge management and human resources management functions can be integrated more effectively. A survey of the planned individual and organisational learning activities and processes in ten large organisations was undertaken. Eleven examples of initiatives that integrate individual and organisational learning were also identified from within these organisations. These were evaluated and the issues associated with implementation explored through an expert panel and interview process with knowledge managers and human resource managers. Factors that positively influence integration were found to include widespread recognition of the business value of both individual and organisational learning, high level sponsorship that acts as a bridge across functional boundaries and line managers adopting an integrating approach to learning in managing their people and the tasks they undertake. Factors that negatively impact the adoption of an integrated approach were found to include the lack of mechanisms to coordinate across functions and a culture in which functional managers feel unable to change practices. This research has generated a model that appears to be useful in organising the analysis of the planned learning initiatives that are being undertaken by different functions. Together with the examples of integration and its enablers and barriers, knowledge managers and human resource managers can use this to proactively move forward with a more "joined up" approach to learning.
Keywords: knowledge management, human resources management, individual learning, organisational learning
Journal Article
© Apr 2009 Volume 7 Issue 1, ECKM 2008, Editor: Roy Williams, pp1 - 198
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Abstract
From recent research it emerges that addressing questions such as: How can an organisation harness collective intelligence to improve business performance? knowledge based systems? Organizations are aware that knowledge is essential for their survival in dynamic markets, and that intellectual capital is a valuable asset. But what most organizations´ leaderships are not clear on is how to create and manage this intangible asset. It is known that investment in training is essential, but it is often unclear how this investment may be converted into improved performance? It is well established that effective knowledge management requires a culture of sharing ideas, but how do organizations foster this type of exchange? Davenport & Prusak (1998) pointed out that if as the aphorism says, Knowledge is power, why should anyone want to share it? This paper proposes the Socratic Dialogue (Remenyi, 2007) as one of the tools organizations can use to facilitate organizational knowledge building and exchange. The Socratic Dialogue may also be used to promote communities of practice. It facilitates the construction of knowledge through discourse based on personal experience and this can create a culture of knowledge sharing. It also promotes people being critical of prevailing ideas. The paper explores the Socratic Dialogue and its process; it illustrates its application through the analysis of two cases; and finally articulates some reflections on how to make it work effectively.
Journal Article
© Apr 2010 Volume 8 Issue 1, Editor: Ettore Bolisani, Enrico Scarso, pp1 - 180
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Abstract
Successful managers focus their attention on factors that are critical in establishing and maintaining an organisation's competitive edge. The knowledge and skill of employees is one of those factors and it requires proactive management attention. Conceptually, this is achieved through Knowledge Management, a term that has existed in the mainstream of business lexicon for quite some time. Despite this, there is the conspicuous absence of a common understanding of the term that frustrates many managers. Studies have clearly established that there are three interdependent and complementary pillars that support the concept of Knowledge Management. These are Organisational Learning Management (OLM), Organisational Knowledge Management (OKM) and Intellectual Capital Management (ICM). OLM, which has so far dominated both academic and practitioner debate, concerns itself with the problem of capturing, organising and retrieving explicit knowledge, or information, and has led to the simplistic misconception that Knowledge Management only involves the capture, or downloading, of the content of employees' minds. ICM is dominated by those particularly interested in defining key performance indicators that will measure the impact and the benefits of applying knowledge management practices. If management requires measurement this is an essential task but it can only be undertaken once an organisation has clearly established the strategy‑structure‑process parameters to ensure it accesses, creates and embeds the knowledge that it needs...the OKM pillar of knowledge management. This paper looks more deeply at this pillar and in particular the lack of a general integrative approach to enhancing organisational performance in this key strategic area. It considers to what extent such an approach may help an organisation more effectively manage its most relevant source of competitive advantage. With a greater awareness of the various factors allied to the managing and leveraging of human oriented and system oriented knowledge assets, some proposals are put forward to assist in developing or redefining an organisation's intellectual capital reporting models in search of a planning, control and performance measurement system that accounts for the management of an organisation's intellectual assets.
Keywords: organisational learning management, organisational knowledge management, intellectual capital management, performance indicators, competitive advantage
Journal Article
© Mar 2012 Volume 10 Issue 2, ICICKM 2011, Editor: Vincent Ribière, pp110 - 207
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Abstract
Human capital (HC) represents the cumulative tacit knowledge that is embedded in the minds of people in organisations. HC is important to organisations because it serves as a source of innovation and strategic renewal. Individuals carry HC when they join an organisation and take their talent, skills and tacit knowledge with them when they leave the organisation. Thus HC is volatile in nature. Organisations are therefore keen to do what they can to foster and develop HC as a means of achieving sustainable competitive advantage. This paper argues that neuro‑linguistic programming (NLP) has the potential of developing and enhancing the stock of HC in organisations. NLP emerged in the 1970s from the University of California, USA. NLP suggests that subjective experience is encoded in terms of three main representation systems: visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic (VAK). NLP practitioners claim that people tend to have one preferred representation system over another in a given context. Despite that previous research has shown that NLP can assist in facilitating knowledge and learning capabilities, very limited research is conducted using NLP in nurturing HC in organisations. This paper critically reviews the literature and theoretically argues that NLP can be used as a practical approach to develop HC in organisations. This is because NLP primarily focuses on individual internal learning and that learning likely leads to the accumulation of HC in organisations. In other words, organisational members may find it more effective to enhance their tacit knowledge, both individually and collectively, if they adopt the NLP approach in their day‑to‑day work. Examples on how NLP may be used to develop HC in organisations will be provided. Future research direction and limitations will also be discussed.
Keywords: human capital, individual and organisational learning, neuro-linguistic programming, visual, auditory and kinaesthetic systems
Journal Article
© Mar 2007 Volume 5 Issue 1, ECKM 2006, Editor: Charles Despres, pp1 - 130
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Abstract
This paper presents a study about the idea of structurally managing individuals' affections, i.e. affects, in relation to the organisational learning process. The instrument under investigation has been TABLe MATRIX — 'The Affect Based Learning Matrix'; a structured tool, based on the cognitive therapeutic process, to be used to identify affects and thus aiding in making analyses in relation to an organisational occurrence or change (coming or already existing), a subject, or a problem. In order to evaluate the approach, we have interviewed thirteen management representatives from Human Resources andor Operational Development within following branches: Medicine, Finance, Education, Retail Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, Travel and Transportation, Construction, and the Public Sector and Religious Communities. The evaluation shows a great interest among the respondents in visualising affects in relation to learning.
Journal Issue
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Editorial
"The 7th annual European Conference on Knowledge Management 2006 held in Budapest produced a particularly interesting set of papers. KM as a field of academic endeavor continues to produce signs of maturity in the sense that the quality of contributions is markedly higher than in the past. But the tendency to fracture along multiple disciplinary boundaries remains.
The result is that selecting papers from the conference for inclusion in the Journal is more challenging than ever. Fourteen papers were chosen in the end however, and these from a wide range of authors based in Universities around the world.
Topics addressed by papers included in this edition are especially eclectic which, given KM´s multidisciplinary roots and transversal nature, reflects the multiplicity of the basic phenomenon (human and collective cognition, secondarily applied to organizational contexts). In some respects this characteristic is frustrating but also challenging, and there are researchers who find this motivating. Perhaps because the intellectual perimeters are multiple and loose. Perhaps because paradigms shift by traversing a path of intellectual mosaics.
On the other hand the fact is that after about two decades of serious research by the academic community KM is ‑ at best ‑ showing only weak signs of convergence. If maturing in terms of quality and productivity, it remains young in terms of disciplinary comportment. I once listened to a French cultural anthropologist explain to a French television crew why he had chosen to live and work in the United States (his business being to de‑code European culture for the American marketing machine).
He told them that European culture was an old culture with its codes well sorted and established. He characterized American cultural codes as young, searching and mixed, not unlike adolescents the world over no matter what their national origin. In the end he explained that after weighing the pros and cons he finally decided that he thoroughly preferred being mixed up with the young and the restless. The freedom and frontiers of youth being ""better"" than the standards and strictures of establishment.
This could very well be part of the attraction that KM has for a growing number of academics around the world. I have found the papers in this edition of value and I hope that you will as well."
The result is that selecting papers from the conference for inclusion in the Journal is more challenging than ever. Fourteen papers were chosen in the end however, and these from a wide range of authors based in Universities around the world.
Topics addressed by papers included in this edition are especially eclectic which, given KM´s multidisciplinary roots and transversal nature, reflects the multiplicity of the basic phenomenon (human and collective cognition, secondarily applied to organizational contexts). In some respects this characteristic is frustrating but also challenging, and there are researchers who find this motivating. Perhaps because the intellectual perimeters are multiple and loose. Perhaps because paradigms shift by traversing a path of intellectual mosaics.
On the other hand the fact is that after about two decades of serious research by the academic community KM is ‑ at best ‑ showing only weak signs of convergence. If maturing in terms of quality and productivity, it remains young in terms of disciplinary comportment. I once listened to a French cultural anthropologist explain to a French television crew why he had chosen to live and work in the United States (his business being to de‑code European culture for the American marketing machine).
He told them that European culture was an old culture with its codes well sorted and established. He characterized American cultural codes as young, searching and mixed, not unlike adolescents the world over no matter what their national origin. In the end he explained that after weighing the pros and cons he finally decided that he thoroughly preferred being mixed up with the young and the restless. The freedom and frontiers of youth being ""better"" than the standards and strictures of establishment.
This could very well be part of the attraction that KM has for a growing number of academics around the world. I have found the papers in this edition of value and I hope that you will as well."
Keywords: adaptive testing, affects, collective search, communities of practice, concept design, discourse analysis, information exchange, innovation, intellectual capital, knowledge cooperation, knowledge process, knowledge sharing, knowledge spiral model, knowledge transfer, Nonaka, online communities, ontology, organisational learning, story telling, tacit knowledge, university-industry interactions, user-centred design
