ASSIGNMENT 2

Implementing knowledge management is difficult in organisations as many employees are afraid of sharing their knowledge. Based on your organisational behaviour knowledge and theories that you are familiar with, suggest ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge. Why do you think your suggestions would be effective?

Knowledge is a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages, which is the value or key aspect that is derived from information. Knowledge is much more useful and powerful compared to information. Knowledge management refers to the acquisition of knowledge, sharing knowledge and utilizing knowledge for a company’s survival and success. Knowledge management helps a company to be more efficient and effective as expertise are stored in a knowledge bank or other databases within the company which can be used in the future when the same situation occurs.


(A short video essential on what knowledge management does)

Implementing knowledge management is difficult in organizations because many employees are afraid to share their knowledge. This is mainly due to the fact the employees are not secure to share their knowledge because they are afraid that they colleagues will over-take them, will be more successful and will obtain a promotion for knowing much more knowledge then them in the organization. This insecure feeling limits or restricts employees from sharing their knowledge to others.

Knowledge sharing is a very important element in knowledge management. Therefore, in order to implement knowledge management, we must first encourage team members to share their knowledge. Why should people give up their hard-won knowledge, when it is one of their key sources of personal advantage? In some organizations, sharing is natural. In others the old dictum "knowledge is power" reigns.


(Presentation in Kuala Lumpur ... knowledge sharing facilitators telecentre.org)


One of the ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge would be to change the culture of the particular organization. Culture change is never easy and takes time. But cultures can be changed. Culture is defined in many ways, such as "commonly held beliefs, attitudes and values" (Institute of Personnel Development), and "the collective programming of the mind that distinguished one group from another" (Geert Hofstede). I like the simple but effective definition "the way we do things around here". There is no one place to start, but most interventions are based on a simple layered model that portrays how people's observable actions and behaviours are influenced by reportable attitudes and values based on more deep-rooted beliefs. Therefore to change people's actions you have to address the more fundamental underlying layers. This can be done as an organization-wide programme or in small groups or even individually.

Some of the activities that might be used to plan and induce change would be that having a culture audit, challenge 'improper' behaviour (if you identify people hoarding knowledge unnecessarily, challenge them, though avoid "knowledge rage"), encourage involvement (some of the best knowledge sharing cultures are where everybody believes that their knowledge is respected, valued and used to inform decisions), use of role models, have team-building or organization development sessions, align rewards and recognition to support appropriate behaviours and change people by moving the knowledge sharers around. A good example of changing culture alongside an evolving knowledge management programme is that of Siemens (reference 6).

The theory involved here would be the expectancy theory of motivation. This is because when we change the culture of the organization, employees will be more motivated to share their knowledge and further will help to increase their efforts, performance and outcomes. Since knowledge sharing will help them to increase their expertise (know more), they will be more motivated to put in more effort, perform better and produce better outcomes. By align rewards and recognition to support appropriate behaviours can also be associated with this theory. This is when outcomes are to be increased, rewards such as money and recognition should be given to employees in order to increase performance to outcomes expectancy. Further, employees will be encouraged to share knowledge in order to improve their performance and outcome in order to obtain rewards.

Other way to encourage team members to share their knowledge would be challenging to co-opetition. Human beings are at the same time social cooperative beings and have a competitive streak. We all like to do better than our peers and excel in something. Yet, in today's complex world, we need help from them to achieve our aims. In an organization, lack of competition - both for individuals and teams - leads to complacency. But competition must be done in a healthy manner. One of the things to consider here is in early stages of product development don't simply approve one line of approach, rather have several "competing" projects under way but make sure there are mechanisms to exchange knowledge and challenge or encourage each "runner" e.g. through people sharing, peer reviews etc. Another thing to consider will be that to continually benchmark internal processes and functions with other organizations and potential suppliers in order to encourage them to strive for improvement through learning from each other by sharing knowledge. We could also introduce 'competitions', such as the "knowledge champion of the year", the "innovators team award", but invite everybody to the award ceremonies.

The theory involved here would be the four-drive theory. Drive to bond shows that we need to form relationships and socialize and while we are doing this, we are sharing knowledge with others. Drive to learn also refers to knowledge sharing such as benchmarking and competing for knowledge champion award as mention above.

I think that my suggestions would be effective because it will promote or encourage employees to share knowledge in a healthy and voluntary manner, which is very important especially when it comes to tacit knowledge sharing. This is because tacit knowledge can’t be codified and it will be difficult to share with others in a forced manner, unless it comes voluntarily. I also think that having a culture audit is effective because it helps in finding out the difference between what is articulated as the desired culture and what is done, and further it helps us to clearly identify which values and behaviours conflict with better knowledge sharing and perhaps (more importantly) which people should be the target for change. Using role models and rewarding them are also effective because other employees will be motivated to work harder to achieve that same level. In order for them to work harder, these employees will share theirs and acquired the role model’s knowledge and sharing knowledge that’s place.

In my perspective, I also think that knowledge sharing is a very important element in knowledge management because we will not be able to management knowledge if it is not first shared. We need to share knowledge in order to practice continuous learning within an organization. Knowledge sharing will also helps an organization to be more effective and efficient, further increases profits. My own experience through observations is that knowledgeable people do like to share their expertise - just listen to them in the bar after work. It's just something about their work environment that discourages this natural inclination. Understanding these barriers and individual motivations is the first step towards implementing changes in the work setting. Different approaches will be appropriate in different situations. Therefore, I have listed above some ways to help encourage employees to share knowledge.


REFERENCES:
1. http://www.wikipedia.com
2. http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64-f1.htm
3. http://www.worldorg.com
4. Knowledge Sharing in Practice, Marleen Huysman and Dirk de Wit, Kluwer (2002).
5. The Knowledge Management Toolkit, Amrit Tiwana, Prentice Hall (2000).
6. Knowledge Management Case Book: Siemens Best Practises (2nd Ed), eds. Davenport and Probst, John Wiley & Sons (2002).
7. Miller, D.; Shamsie, J. (1996). "The resource-based view of the firm in two environments: The Hollywood film studios from 1936 to 1965". Academy of Management Journal

8. McShane & von Glinow2007, from Organizational Behaviour, McGRAW. HILL INTERNATIONAL EDITION

9. http://www.youtube.com