ترجمه ساختار مدیریت دانش سازمانی

عنوان موضوع فارسی::ساختار مدیریت دانش سازمانی(استیون والزاک)

عنوان موضوع انگلیسی:

Organizational knowledge management structure

University of Colorado at Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA
 

حجم فایل ::۴۸ کیلو بایت

دسته بندی:: رشته مدیریت

فرمت صفحات فارسی :: Word

فرمت صفحات انگلیسی :: Word

 تعداد صفحات فارسی ::۹

 تعداد صفحات انگلیسی ::۱۱

 دانلود رایگان فایل اصلی

بخشی از مقاله به همراه ترجمه فارسی:

چکیده:

هدف- پیشنهاد و ارزیابی یک ساختار مدیریتی جدید که فهم دانش را در سطح سازمان آسان می کند.

ادبیات موجود روی برخورد فرهنگ سازمانی و ارتباطش با ساختار مدیریت ازمایش شده است و برای توسعه یک ساختار مدیریت دانش جدید به کار برده شده است موانع اجرایی این ساختار مدیریتی جدید و روشهای غلبه بر این موانع و مشکلات بحث شده اند. اثر ساختار مدیریت طراحی شده از لحاظ تجربی با آزمایش تاثیر آن برسازمانها ارزیابی شده است. .بخش های اجرایی در سازمانهای گوناگون به این سازمانها این امکان را میدهد که نقش راهبردی را در سازمان مربوط به عهده بگیرند.

ساختار مدیریت دانش سازمانی پیشنهادی تحت شرایط کنترل شده به طور کامل اجرا نگردیده است .ارزیابی عملی روی بخشی از مدل های طراحی شده بدین معنی که اثر ساختار مدیریت دانش طراحی شده ممکن است فراتر رفته و مزایای ان را توصیف کرده باشد.موانع اجرایی ساختار متغیر ممکن است تحقق منافع طراحی شده را محدود کند.

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

Organizational knowledge management structure

University of Colorado at Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA
Abstract
Purpose – To propose and evaluate a novel management structure that encourages knowledgesharing across an organization.

The extant literature on the impact of organizational culture and
its link to management structure is examined and used to develop a new knowledge sharingmanagement structure. Roadblocks to implementing a new management structure and methods forovercoming these impediments are discussed. The efficacy of the proposed management structure isevaluated empirically by examining its effect on organizations that have implemented portions of theproposed structure.

ترجم

متن کامل فایل اصلی

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

Organizational knowledge management structure

1. ۳۳۰-۳۳۹

Steven Walczak

University of Colorado at Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

Abstract

Purpose – To propose and evaluate a novel management structure that encourages knowledgesharing across an organization.

The extant literature on the impact of organizational culture and

its link to management structure is examined and used to develop a new knowledge sharingmanagement structure. Roadblocks to implementing a new management structure and methods forovercoming these impediments are discussed. The efficacy of the proposed management structure isevaluated empirically by examining its effect on organizations that have implemented portions of theproposed structure.

The foundational ideas behind the proposed knowledge management organizationalstructure and the structure itself have been implemented in parts at various organizations located bothin the USA and internationally. While the full management structure model has not been evaluated,the portions implemented in various organizations have enabled these organizations to assumeleading roles in their respective industries.

Research limitations/implications

 The proposed knowledge sharing management structure

has not been fully implemented under controlled circumstances. The empirical evaluation is performedon portions of the proposed model, thus the full impact of the proposed management structure may

well exceed the described benefits and additional structural-shift roadblocks may limit the realizationof the proposed benefits.

Originality/value – The proposed knowledge sharing management structure is organized aroundknowledge-based teams of knowledge workers, but further extends this concept to include largerknowledge groups to transform an organization into a knowledge-based organization. If anorganization’s functional structure can be successfully transformed, then this enables themaximizatio of competitive advantage realized through knowledge management initiatives, morespecifically through knowledge sharing. Upper level management, who are responsible fororganizational change are the primary audience, though the principals described may be implementedthrough a more grass roots approach by lower level management.

Introduction

The worldwide economy has shifted from an industrial manufacturing/productoriented economy to one based on knowledge and services, where theprinciplecommodity is information or knowledge. Effective management of intellectual capitalis a critical issue facing organizations in today’s global and information-driveneconomy. Knowledge management is not really about managing knowledge, but rathermanaging and creating a corporate culture that facilitates and

encourages the sharing,organizational structure is an important factor in leveraging technology and morespecifically that organizational structures must be flexible to encourage sharing ofknowledge and collaboration across traditional organizational boundaries to promoteknowledge creation.

Achieving a “knowledge culture” requires managerial focus in three areas:

preparing the organization, managing knowledge assets, and leveraging knowledgefor competitive advantage (Abell and Oxbrow, 1997). Preparing the organization is thefirst step in developing a “knowledge culture” and often involves changing the cultureof the organization, changing the way employees work and interact.

 Organizationalculture shifts are difficult to accomplish (Roth, 2004). Smaller organizations, 200 orfewer employees, and newer entrepreneurial organizations will have an advantage in

making the prescribed culture shift over larger and older organizations that have along history of corporate culture and a more rigid managerial structure(Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). This article proposes a knowledge-basedmanagement structure that facilitates the development and maintenance of anorganizational knowledge culture.

Knowledge culture and structure

Various taxonomies of knowledge and knowledge management exist

For purposes of this article, knowledge is defined as any data, skill,

context, or information that enables high quality decision making and problemsolving to occur. Knowledge management then is any process (either formal policy orinformal personal methods) that facilitates the capture, distribution, creation andapplication of knowledge for decision making. This decision making may be at thetactical level of day-to-day operations performed by an employee or at a morestrategic level of developing organizational strategy by upper level management and

every level of decision-making in between. Effective knowledge management ensuresOrganizationalknowledgemanagement

that every employee has access to appropriate and the highest quality of informationavailable at the time when a decision needs to be made. The presence of a “knowledgeculture” is critical to the success of knowledge management within an organizationas it signals a managerial commitmentto knowledge management initiatives and promotes sharing of tacit knowledge forhigher quality decision-making.

Organizational culture is formed and reinforced through the interrelated elements ofstrategy, structure, people and process (Sanchez, 2004). People work within theorganizational structure that supports organizational processes to accomplish theoverall business strategy. While organizational structure and corporate culture are

interrelated, both have been identified as necessary elements for knowledgemanagement initiative success.

Knowledge and knowledge sharing

Nonaka (1994) defines types of knowledge as tacit or explicit.

 Tacit knowledge isknowledge that is internal to a person, including cognitive learning, mental models,and technical skills.

 Explicit knowledge is knowledge that has been encoded into some

media external to a person including paper documents, electronic databases and files,and the operating procedures of an enterprise.

Four tacit and explicit knowledge transfer mechanisms are found in organizations:

Socialization, externalization, internalization, and combination

Socialization is the process of transferring tacit knowledge to

another individual who encodes the new knowledge in tacit form. Socialization may beperformed informally, such as casual conversations around the coffee machine or lunchtable, or more formally as in a mentoring program. Because of the personal nature oftacit to tacit knowledge transfer, traditional hierarchical management schemas do not

promote this type of knowledge sharing.

Externalization is the process of encoding tacit knowledge into some explicit format,such as e-mail messages or company correspondences. Internalization is the process ofaccessing explicit knowledge and then this knowledge is “learned” by the individualand becomes part of their tacit knowledge resources.

 Internalization necessarily addscontext to knowledge as explicit sources such as a large organizational database areaccessed and interpreted by an individual.

 Finally, combination is the translation ofexplicit knowledge into a new explicit format and may include the addition of newcontexts or simply changing the encoding format of the explicit knowledge. All three of

externalization, internalization, and combination are facilitated by informationtechnology research, such as wireless computing for distribution of information tofacilitate internalization and voice recognition systems that would facilitateexternalization of knowledge.

Increasing competition and ever shortening rates of technological change necessitatebetter transfer of knowledge across organizational

with organizational structure identified as one of five factors attributing

to knowledge transfer performance.

The development of knowledge teams composed of knowledge workers fromcross-functional areas of the organization is a first step towards developing a fullydistributed knowledge transfer system (both vertical and horizontal) within theorganization. Cross-functional team members provide knowledge sharing from theirknowledge team back to their original functional areas.

However, the scope of teams is limited to the organizational problem assigned to theteam and results in limited knowledge sharing throughout the organization. The ideaof teams and knowledge sharing must be extended to include all aspects of theorganization.

Adoption of a new organizational structure (the “knowledge organization”) ormanagerial methodology (“knowledge culture”) faces resistance within theorganization .

Resistance to change may beminimized by reducing the perception of change for the stakeholders. Initially, theknowledge team management structure may be aligned to an existing hierarchicalmanagement structure by aligning the knowledge groups with the existing functionalareas of the organization including: accounting, marketing, production, and researchsimilar to the idea of communities of practice. Knowledge teams or intermediate groupsof knowledge communities are then aligned with the subdivisions within eachfunctional area.

The recognition of individual personnel as knowledge workers will promote thedevelopment of new knowledge teams to address an organization’s opportunities andconsequently will facilitate the development of knowledge team communities that are

diverse and more focused on knowledge-oriented problem solving. Knowledge workersare expected to share and utilize knowledge with other team members to produce thehighest quality decisions.

 New knowledge teams and groups must be promoted todevelop around product lines or other core competencies of the enterprise as opposed to

functional area team composition. Knowledge teams should be created dynamically totake advantage of an organization’s business opportunities or new business strategies.

Over time, the idea of an accounting (or other functional) branch of the organizationwill be replaced by communities of knowledge workers that have knowledge/expertisein accounting and may thus utilize other tacit knowledge to specialize in functionalcapabilities within a knowledge group.

Communities of practice will still be animportant element within the knowledge organization structure to enable knowledgeteam members to interact with members of other knowledge teams with similar

interests and competencies and further promote inter-team knowledge sharing.Furthermore, communities of practice have been identified as a strategy to improveorganizational performance through enhanced knowledge sharing (Lesser and Storck,2001).

Knowledge teams that identify the need for specific knowledge (e.g.accountingormarketing) would then recruit knowledge workers that had the desired tacit knowledgeto join the team (from a dissolving team that has already accomplished it’s primarypurpose or from a team that did not have a current need for the requested knowledgeworker’s tacit knowledge).

Motivating employees to adopt the “new” knowledge culture

Because the role of a knowledge worker may be a new role within the organization’sculture, the development of a knowledge culture for sharing, dissemination, andutilization of knowledge will take some time. Motivating the desired knowledge cultureand corresponding knowledge sharing behavior is facilitated through evaluating entire

knowledge teams within the proposed knowledge management structure as a unitwithout reverting to individual praise or blame. Those teams that achieve a knowledgecommunity approach to problem solving must be rewarded and acknowledgedthroughout the new “knowledge organization” (O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000).

Another motivational strategy for the new knowledge culture may be based onrewarding the development of knowledge that is subsequently utilized by otherknowledge workers or knowledge teams. Any knowledge that is externalized intoexplicit form or combined from one explicit encoding into a more useful formatbecomes eligible for a knowledge-use award (either monetary or other benefits), but theawards are based on subsequent use of the created explicit knowledge by otherknowledge workers. A similar approach can be used to encourage the internalizationtransfer of new knowledge by rewarding knowledge teams for incorporating explicitand tacit knowledge from other knowledge teams and groups (or even other knowledgeworkers) into their knowledge team solutions.

Knowledge creation and assessment within the “knowledge culture”

The knowledge organization management structure promotes the development ofintellectual capital or knowledge creation in several ways. The “knowledge culture”community of knowledge workers will provide a diverse background of tacitknowledge and the combination of these various knowledge sources into a knowledgeteam enables the development of new views, behaviors, ideas, etc. As stated above,knowledge teams are dynamic and should be formed to address specific businessopportunities or challenges. Whenever a knowledge worker leaves one knowledgeteam and joins another, the knowledge worker takes all of the acquired tacit knowledgefrom the previous team, such as best practices or lessons learned. Consequently, therotation of knowledge workers into new knowledge teams also serves to propagate theapplication of appropriate (best practices) knowledge into new business areas.

A key element of any knowledge management process model is assessment toevaluate the appropriateness or utility of knowledge owned and created (or acquired)by the knowledge organization. The knowledge structure method assumes that allknowledge workers are involved in the assessment process, since each worker utilizesdifferent explicit and tacit knowledge assets. Knowledge workers within a knowledgeteam or group will provide consensus support for knowledge actions taken by the teamand thus provide peer evaluation of all knowledge-based behaviors.

Evaluating the proposed “knowledge structure”

Evaluation of the proposed knowledge organization management structure andresulting knowledge business culture may be made through empirical evidence fromorganizations that have implemented a knowledge organization structure .

In this section two brief case studies for organizations that have adopted anorganizational structure or partial structure similar to the proposed knowledgestructure are presented.

Applied Energy Services (AES) Corporation founded in 1981 with eight people,became the largest independent power producer in the USA in 1988, currently owns orhas investments in 173 facilities in 27 countries worldwide and employs over 10,000people. The culture at AES Corporation enables and requires individuals to makedecisions and the organizational culture adopts and supports those decisions.

Individuals closest to the action make decisions for the corporation

A large percentage of AES people are active in new business development (AESCorporation, 1997).

 Decision making by AES’s knowledge workers is supported

through a dynamic team-based approach where team members come together for newprojects and advise and help educate project decision makers with current knowledge. Through the initial development of a knowledge structureand resulting knowledge culture and empowering knowledge workers within theknowledge team framework, AES has achieved continued growth in the power servicesindustry, which in general has suffered ups and downs.

GIVO established in 1993, is a high-end garment manufacturer located in Gurgaon,India. Over 90 percent of the employees at GIVO are at the staff level creating arelatively flat organization focused on garment design and manufacture. Each new hireis first sent through extensive training on the technology utilized at GIVO to facilitatethe transfer and absorption of technology. Although not representative of the full

knowledge structure proposed above, GIVO is representative of early team adoptionalong functional business lines.

NadiraChaturvedi, Executive Director for GIVO, is interested in increasing the rolesof her knowledge workers and has put in place two team-based organization structuremodifications. The first is the establishment of teams that are responsible for theend-to-end production of specific types of garments (e.g. trousers or jackets), whereinthe entire team is evaluated for the team’s net production. Next, individual workersbecome knowledge workers by learning the manufacturing processes and technologiesthat precede and follow their normal position, so that they may rotate job positionswithin the production teams to increase output productivity. Staff level employees and

supervisors are jointly accountable for production quality. Selected individuals aretrained on the entire production process to be able to supplement missing skillswhen needed.

In addition to compensating the knowledge teams for their production performanceindividual recognition is also given out in the form of the non-monetary Jolly awards.

Following implementation of the team-oriented structure and increased tacitknowledge learning for knowledge workers overall productivity and garmentquality has increased from previous years when such structures were not in place.

Similar knowledge-based team alignments and individual recognition strategies havebeen used at other non-manufacturing businesses as well.

The GIVO Automation cases above show that organizations can achieve

competitive advantage through implementation of part of the “knowledgeorganization” structure. However, the gains from a partial implementation are stilldependent on developing a knowledge culture that is organization wide so thatknowledge workers are motivated to utilize appropriate knowledge fordecision-making and to share knowledge to improve the decision-making of others.

Larger organizations may select to implement knowledge teams within a singlefunctional division or in multiple divisions, but temporarily not aggregate theknowledge teams into knowledge groups. These partial strategies will still result inperformance gains if accompanied by the necessary cultural shift that encouragesknowledge workers to share and utilize knowledge to improve the quality of theirdecision making process.The two cases presented represent both organization wide utilization (AES) andpartial implementations, including actual (GIVO)

of the proposed knowledge structure. In each case, the utilization ofOrganizationalknowledgemanagementknowledge teams or the entire knowledge structure led to increased productivity alongat least one of the organization’s core competencies.

Conclusions

A critical issue in adoption of knowledge management initiatives is the preliminarypreparation of the organization to accept, adopt, and utilize new knowledgemanagement processes. Preparing an organization for knowledge managementinitiatives means changing or adapting the organizational culture to facilitate, support,and encourage the sharing, utilization, and creation of knowledge. The resulting“knowledge culture” will maximize the competitive advantage realized from any

knowledge management process.

Organizational culture is composed of business strategy, people, processes, andstructure .

The knowledge organization management structurepresented in this article facilitates the development of a “knowledge culture” within

an organization by first supporting the decision making of knowledge workers throughcollaboration in knowledge teams (real or virtual). Second, by facilitating the exchangenof tacit knowledge through interaction in knowledge teams with other knowledgeworkers.

 Horizontal knowledgetransfer is also facilitated as knowledge workers migrate to new knowledge team working on new business opportunities or needs and through the maintenance ofcommunities of practice organized along functional lines of business.

two cases:

 AES Corporation that has a complete knowledge structure and

corresponding culture and GIVO Automation that have implemented

knowledge workers and knowledge teams, imply competitive advantages enabledthrough a supporting knowledge structure.

 Future research is needed to furtherinvestigate the relationship between degrees of knowledge management structureimplementation within an organization and corresponding increases in organizationalperformance.

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