Power of Actors in Culture Environment influence Knowledge Sharing

Hall (2009) examines the impact of power on organization culture that impacts knowledge management initiatives.

As an example, Hall (2009) notes that knowledge management staff could be encouraged to devise means of promoting their work as more than an administrative burden.

However, due to power play and insufficient power by the knowledge management staff, these knowledge management initiatives may be ignored.

For example, in an organisation that trades on the qualifications of a specific set of professional staff, employees with professional qualifications that are not directly related to the revenue-generating activity are unlikely to enjoy a similar level of status. This means that they are not well placed to encourage their colleagues to comply with their wishes, for example, knowledge management staff find it difficult to persuade accountants to adopt corporate-wide tools for knowledge sharing.

Hall (2009) concluded that is therefore important to recognise the degree to which the organisational power of the knowledge management function can be enhanced, and how to devise strategies to compensate for circumstances that are difficult, or impossible, to change.

What do you think? How does power plays up?

Reference

Dr Hazel Hall, KM, culture and compromise: Devising practical interventions to promote knowledge sharing in corporate environments, [Online],[Available], [Accessed on 24 Feb 2009],
http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/esis/hall_ebic_05.pdf

Resistance to sharing knowledge

A classmate of mine recently remarked.

"I onced have a new manager, and he insists on my writing all I know to share with my colleagues. I was so sure that I am going to be fired or retrenched after I had shared everything I know."

While tacit knowledge is common in organizations, the difficulty is convincing people to share knowledge. For some reasons, most people resist sharing knowledge. How do you hope to have a culture of sharing?

This prompt a look at the organization culture.

• Is there a culture of sharing in place?
• Is there communication on what the procedures will be used for, and assuring my classmate that he will not be retrenched?
• Is rewards neccessary for encouraging people to share?
• Does hiring the candidate with the right mindset impact the culture of sharing or can a candidate be trained to adopt a culture of sharing?
• How do you make more people share what they know willingly?

A Framework for substaining KM culture

Milton (2007) proposed a set of framework for substaining the KM Culture. In his post, he proposed that a success substaining of KM culture will need the following:

• A set of clear corporate expectations for how knowledge will be managed in the organisation, including accountabilities for the ownership of key knowledge areas, and the definition of corporate standards for KM;
• A knowledge-management system, providing the means by which knowledge can be managed. This is not just an IT system, but a holistic management system, which will include:
  • Roles for knowledge management;
  • Processes for capturing, organising, accessing and communicating knowledge;
  • Technologies for capturing, organising, accessing and communicating knowledge.
• A person or team monitoring and measuring the application of KM to make sure that people are delivering what is expected of them and applying the system in the way that they are expected to; to identify the need for new interventions to improve the KM system; and, to ensure a continuous improvement in the ability of the organisation to manage strategic knowledge.

Is this framework enough to substain the knowledge culture? What happens in the scenerio?

1. Knowledge management is introduced with a fanfare and management support;
   The implementation team is established, with budgets and targets;
2. It delivers some successful, high-profile pilots in particular areas of the business, and introduces some new technologies and processes;
3. The implementation team realises that implementing KM enterprise-wide will be slower and more difficult than anticipated;
4. Management loses patience and declares victory anyway, prematurely closing down the implementation team;
5. KM continues for a while, sustained by enthusiasts and champions, but never becomes an established management discipline and gradually fades away.

What are missing from the framework for KM Culture ?

References

Nick Milton, Substaining the KM Culture Change, Inside Knowledge - 8 Mar 2007 in Volume 10 Issue 6, http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/txtSearch.CRM/exactphrase.1/sid.0/articleid.07E5C798-7557-4C93-9CE6-107EFD1AFCF1/qx/display.htm

Overcoming resistance to a KM culture

Robinson (2003) identified some means of overcoming resistance to a KM Culture. In her article, she quoted 7 suggestions for overcoming the resistance to KM culture,

1. Vision and Communication - Robinson (2003) believes that having a vision and communicating the vision helps to reduce resistance to KM culture.

2. Developing the Infrastructure - Robinson (2003) believes that having the right infrastructure helps to push KM initiatives.

3. Risk and content management - Robinson (2003) identified risks in content being outdated and obsoleted. Therefore to ensure that knowledge is being shared, the content should be ideally updated .. which bring us to the next point..

4. Roles and Responsibilities - Robinson (2003) believes that having clearly defined roles and responsibilities help to faciliate the knowledge sharing culture by ensuring that who is responsible for updating and informing everyone of changes.

5. Leadership - Robinson (2003) believes that the top management will influence the adoption of the KM. If the leaders does not support the KM initiative, the KM is likely to fail.

6. Networks and Communities - Robinson (2003) noticed that networks and communities trend to influence staff, and by setting up communities of knowledge sharing, there are less resistance to change.

7. Valuing information - Robinson (2003) believes that there should be metrics in place to determine the value of KM.


what do you think? Do you think the above are enough to overcome resistance to KM culture?

References:

Heather Robinson , Overcoming Resistance to a KM culture, Managing Partners, Volume 5 Issue 9, 19 Feb 2003, [Online], [Accessed on 16 Feb 2009], [Available], http://www.mpmagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.0/articleid.407AF6CE-E459-4264-9C76-79DACB721292/eTitle.Overcoming_resistance_to_a_KM_culture/qx/display.htm

Dr. Dan's Daily Dose

In his post on knowledge management manates at , Dr Dan is of the opinon that mandating Knowledge Management implementation will probably produce the same results as with any other organizational mandate. Failure to address the organizational cultural issues will result in being unaware of the many factors that will inhibit (or encourage) successful Knowledge Management implementation. The end result will probably be ineffective KM implementation. He illustrated the failure of mandates in ensuring knowledge management.

Learning Points

1. Compulsory KM is not going to work because when individuals are "forced" to contribute the GIGO effect raises its ugly head.

2. KM has a strong organizational change component but I also belive that the technology has a place. When individuals are required to adopt new and often difficult to use knowledge management systems there is an inherent barier to adoption. It essentially means that when knowledge is more difficult to share electronically than it is through traditional means the technology will be underutilized and KM objectives cannot be met or measured. So no matter how much time and effort is focused on the change piece a cumbersome technical component will kill the deal.

3. Leadership will have a much easier time promoting KM when they can appreciably demonstrate the value to the end users. End users do not necessarily care about the strategic advantage that can be created with KM if it all adds up to "more work". Part technical change, part organizational change is my call. There is always going to be some resistance when "rules" are applied to the knowledge transfer process but putting the ability to share at the fingertips of the user community can help overcome the cultural resistance.

Feel free to discuss.

References:

Dr Dan, Knowledge Management Mandates, 2006, [Online], [Accessed on 14 Feb 2009], [Available]http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/dr-dan/knowledge-management-mandates-12620

My Topic

Hello,

Welcome to my blog on Knowledge Management Concepts. This blog is divided into 2 distinct categories:

1. Knowledge Management and Culture - how to build an organization culture that supports KM initiatives.
2. Application of Knowledge Management in E-commerce - some examples of application of Knowledge Management.


Regards,

Yu-Jin