1. No category

Facilitator: Lokesh Singh
Questions
Revision
Closed book exam
What is knowledge?
3
What is
your company’s
global strategy?
4
From a multi-domestic company to a
successful global firm
Multidomestic
Sub4
Sub7
Sub1
Sub14
Global
Sub9
Sub3
Sub2
Sub14
Sub10
HQ
Sub5
Sub11
Sub13
5
Sub6
Sub8
Aligning operations increases
success
Competence
Management
Global
strategy
Motivation
Management
6
What are the benefits of knowledge
management?
 Profitable growth through higher efficiency and innovation
 Preventing the waste of valuable resources - avoid reinventing the
wheel
 Ensuring the use of leading-edge technology and thinking across the
firm
 Increasing customer satisfaction through shorter lead-times and
consistent behavior
 Creating a competitive cost structure
 Facilitating breakthrough and incremental innovations through
combination of technologies and ideas from across and outside the
firm
 An attractive workplace that encourages cross-functional co-
operation across the globe
 Attracting and retaining key individuals
7
What is knowledge?
8
From tacit to articulate knowledge
“We know more than we can tell.”
Michael Polanyi, 1966
MANUAL
How to
play
soccer
High
Low
Codifiability
Articulated
9
Tacit
The knowledge management challenge
The majority of a
company’s
valuable
knowledge is tacit
and resists being
articulated
10
What is knowledge management?
An organization’s structures, systems, and
practices that facilitate..
KM
Embedding
knowledge
C
Disseminating
knowledge
Creating
knowledge
Organizing
knowledge
…with the goal of enhancing the organization’s
competitiveness
11
KM must be aligned with
strategy
 Who does your company target as
customers?
 What products or services does your
company offer these targeted customers?
 How does your company do this efficiently?
KM
Global
strategy
What knowledge supports this strategy?
•Do we have this knowledge? (Create)
•How should we organize this knowledge? (Organize)
•Who needs this knowledge, when, and how?
(Disseminate)
•How do we ensure we get value from this knowledge?
(Embed)
12
Information technology for KM
1) Stocks of knowledge: Database and database
management systems to collect and hold
information
2) Flows of knowledge: Communication channels
to connect individuals independent of location
IT is an enabler!
13
Challenges to knowledge databases
 Time consuming and difficult
 Takes times for writer to document experiences
 Takes time for reader to search through databases,
information overload
 Often weak incentives to contribute golden nuggets
 Difficult to understand
 Difficult for writer to explain context, tacit ->explicit
 Difficult for reader to interpret experience and use in
own situation
 Data becomes out-of-date very quickly
 Difficult to maintain, especially in fast moving
industries
14
Avoid creating information junkyards
Building
knowledge
repositories
15
Organizational structure for KM
 Physical layout
 Appropriate KM functions and units
 Cross-functional and cross-location teams
 Centers of excellence
 Institutionalized, recognized areas of expertise
 Socialization measures
 Job rotation, cross-office training programs, etc.
16
Creating centers of excellence
HQ
COE
17
Where do individuals go for help in solving problems?
Non-electronic
documents
Non-electronic
Contacts in
Intranetdocuments
other offices
Internet
Internal
electronic
networks
External
electronic
networks
Other
contacts
18
Co-located
colleagues
What are communities of practice?
 Groups of people who come together to share and to learn
from one another face-to-face and/or virtually.
 They are held together by a common interest in a body of
knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share
problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best
practices.
 Members deepen their knowledge by interacting on an
ongoing basis.
 This interaction leads to continuous learning and
innovation
19
CPs are not teams or personal
networks
Personal
Network
Community
of Practice
Team
Purpose
-Share information
-Friendship
-Solve problems
-Share info. & ideas
-Expand knowledge
-Accomplish goal
Members
-Friends &
acquaintances
-No boundary
-Mostly volunteers
-Permeable boundary
-Assigned
-Defined boundary
Activity
-One-on-one
-Meetings
-Informal
communications
-Organize tasks
Value
Creation
-Serendipitously
discovered
-Actively discovered
-Planned
Glue
- Friendship
-Value
-Commitment
-Obligation
-Job requirement
20
McDermott 2001
Communities are the grease in
the KM wheel
KM
Embedding
knowledge
C
Disseminating
knowledge
21
Creating
knowledge
Organizing
knowledge
Role of communities of practice
 Create: Own & develop knowledge
 Develop & manage good practice
 Build organizational competence
 Organize: Develop & manage materials
 Develop tools, guidelines, templates
 Manage databases
 Disseminate: Connect people across boundaries
 Who knows what
 Home in changing organization & an uprooted society
 Embed: Share ideas & insights
 Share tacit, complex ideas & insights
 Help each other solve problems & find innovations
22
Communities can have a different
primary purpose
Helping
Best-practice
Knowledge stewarding
23
Community membership and roles
Coordinator
Core Group
Active
Peripheral
24
Two extreme communities of practice
Face-to-face
Virtual
25
Communities cross all boundaries
Competitors
Customers
Suppliers
Company
26
Don’t forget to support
informal external networks at the
individual level! Customers
External
and suppliers
Partners
Electronic
communities
Previous work and
school colleagues
Organization
27
Large portion of new ideas and formal
collaboration relationships come from
personal external contacts
Encourage an open innovation
attitude
Closed attitude
Open attitude
The smart people in
our field work for us.
Not all the smart people
work for us. We need to
work with smart people
inside and outside the
company.
If you create the most
and the best ideas in
the industry, you will
win.
If you make the best
use of internal and
external ideas, you will
win.
28
Chesborough 2003
What is your organization’s KM
vision?
British Petroleum’s KM Vision
BP knows what it knows, learns what it
needs to learn, and uses knowledge to
create overwhelming sustainable
advantage.
29
In global organizations
KM is increasingly complicated …
Three types of boundaries
 Internal
 Geographical (physical & cultural)
 Organizational (horizontal &
vertical)
 External
 Organizational (formal & informal
relationships)
Challenges to successful KM
processes
 Individual level
 Subsidiary level
31
Biggest difficulties to successfully managing knowledge in
organizations
54
Culture
Top management’s failure to
signal importance
32
Lack of shared
understanding of strategy
30
Organizational structure
28
Lack of problem ownership
28
22
IT / Communication restraints
19
Incentive system
0
32
10
20
30
40
50
Ruggles 1998
60
Biggest difficulties to knowledge
transfer
Changing people’s
behavior
Measuring value/performance
of knowledge assets
56
43
Determining what knowledge
should be managed
40
Justifying use of scarce
resources for KM initiatives
34
Mapping organization’s
existing knowledge
28
15
Making knowledge available
Attracting and retaining
talented people
9
0
33
10
20
30
40
50
Ruggles 1998
60
So, why should I share?
You gotta remember that we’re hired to be stars here and not
team players.
- Researcher at one high technology firm
with poor knowledge flow
Sometimes I get calls from other offices. It feels weird if I don’t
know the person. I like to help them only if I know them.
- Programmer at software multinational
34
What are some barriers to
successful knowledge management?
•Knowledge is power
•Lack of understanding
•Lack of incentive
•Time constraint
35
•Lack of awareness
•Not-invented-here
•Lack of incentive
•Time constraint
Individuals often have conflicting loyalties
Organization
Profession
36
Is knowledge trading good or bad
for a firm?
We pass over the
nondisclosure agreements
of different companies and
trade company secrets all
the time.
37
Who owns the knowledge?
Organizational
information
vs.
Personal expertise
38
What about individual performance?
A high degree of
participation in
local communities of
practice
+
On-time
performance
39
–
Creative
performance
But here we see the reverse
A high degree of
participation in
dispersed
electronic communities
On-time
performance
40
+
Creative
performance
In summary, individuals have choices
about how they use their knowledge…
 Knowledge resides in the minds of individuals
 Individuals make own choices about knowledge
 Share openly for the benefit of the organization
 Protect and use only in work practice
 Perception that an individual’s value is diminished
if share knowledge
 Knowledge is power
 Protect and use only in external relationships for
own benefit
 Knowledge leakage
 Leave the firm and take knowledge with them
41
Challenges to successful KM
processes
 Individual level
 Subsidiary level
42
A constant local vs global tension
We do not want to be managed in our choice of
competence elements. We would want to select
those elements that we need.

Line Manager, Ericsson Norway
Spontaneity and creativity could be the losers in
some areas by implementing global solutions.
However, the “Best Practice” policy in Ericsson
concerns capturing good ideas, which of course
may come from other areas in the organization.

HR Manager, Ericsson Norway
43
Hustad & Munkvold 2005
Aligning operations increases
success
Competence
Management
Global
strategy
Motivation
Management
44
Supporting global KM processes
Providing the
organization with the
right mix of talent to
Competencemeet existing and
Managementfuture needs
Motivation
Management
Creating an open,
knowledge sharing culture
with a high degree of
company loyalty 45
A variety of tools
 Competence system
 Recruiting
 Incentives
 Networks
 A visionary organization
46
Competence
Management
Motivation
Management
Creating a competence management
system
 Standardization
 Create common structure and terminology
 Define professional, business, and human competencies related to
global strategy and KM goals
 Don’t underestimate this task!
 Analysis
 Personal development discussions
 Mapping of present and future target competence levels for
individuals and then for business units
 Defining competence gap at both levels
 Planning and implementation
 Prepare competence development plan
 Implement and evaluate
47
Magnusson & Davidsson 2004
CM supports KM
I think that competence management can play an
important role in knowledge management. You
can search for persons with certain competencies
very easily through that tool. People having the
same competencies and interests can be accessed
and get together.

Competence Manager, Ericsson Croatia
48
Hustad & Munkvold 2005
A variety of tools
 Competence system
 Recruiting
 Incentives
 Networks
 A visionary organization
49
Competence
Management
Motivation
Management
Recruiting – What should one look for?
 An experienced
professional who has
worked extensively in
another company with
different values and
philosophy
 A young person who lacks
OR
professional experience
but has the right attitude
It is cheaper and easier to develop technical skills than trying to
change mentality.
HR Manager, Ericsson Russia
50
When you hire someone…
…..you “hire” his or her network.
51
A variety of tools
 Competence system
 Recruiting
 Incentives
 Networks
 A visionary organization
52
Competence
Management
Motivation
Management
Aligning incentives with KM
 Recognize and reward for collaborative behavior
 At individual, unit, and organizational levels
 Show management commitment
Satisfaction
$$$
Status and
recognition
Monetary
Challenge
53
Examples of incentives
 Monetary
 Nucor Steel: Bonuses based on
performance of relevant group, e.g.,
individuals and their workgroup,
department managers and their plant
 Status and recognition
 McKinsey: Practice Development Flyers
 Xerox: Tip of the Month
 Challenge
 McKinsey: PD Olympics
54
Encourage experimentation and
accept failure
Every Nucor plant has its little storehouse of equipment that was
bought, tried, and discarded.
Just don’t keep making bad decisions.
Chairman, Nucor Steel
55
-
But be aware of local differences
Global
efficiency
National
responsiveness
Worldwide
innovation
& learning
56
Cultural differences affect KM
behaviors
“Work-to-live”
culture
+
Knowledge
acquisition
—
Risk
avoidance
+
57
Knowledge
sharing
A variety of tools
 Competence system
 Recruiting
 Incentives
 Networks
 A visionary organization
58
Competence
Management
Motivation
Management
Why encourage socialization?
Trust, commitment,
and an open
environment are
essential for
knowledge exchange
in networks
59
Socialization examples
 Cross-office and cross-function training programs
 McKinsey’s introduction and development training programs
 Cross-office projects
 Projects often involve more than one office at Ericsson R&D
 Job rotation
 “There are 12 different ways to rotate at HP.”
 Online career development tool at Novartis
 Slack shops
 HP R&D allows time and provides resources to experiment on
new ideas with others who have same interests
 Informal events
 Plant managers at Nucor Steel organize business meetings
throughout year so every employee attends one meeting per
year
60
Myths and reality checks about networks
 I already know what’s going on in my network.
Those who think they know their network the best are
usually the ones who know the least.
 To build networks, we have to communicate more.
 To build better networks, focus on a structured analysis
of them.
 We can’t do much to help informal networks.
 Informal networks can be supported through changing
the organizational context.
 How people fit into networks is a matter of personality
(which can’t be changed).
 How people fit into networks is a matter of intentional
behaviors (which can be influenced).

61
Adapted from Cross, Nohria, & Parker 2002
Leverage and understand
internal and external networks
 Identify which networks are important to understand
 E.g., product development, merger integration, etc.
 Collect network data
 E.g., observe, interview people, conduct questionnaire,
track email, etc.
 Ask appropriate questions, e.g., advice, trust, innovation,
etc.
 Pretest survey on employee sample for reactions
 Determine causes of fragmented networks
 E.g., physical layout, workflow, job description, leadership
style, knowledge attitudes, etc.
62
Adapted from Cross, Nohria, & Parker 2002
Improve connectedness and unplug
bottlenecks internally




Reevaluate design of teams, roles, etc.
Rethink work processes and provide support
Reassign tasks, rotate individuals, etc.
Shift responsibilities
Department 1
63
Department 2
A variety of tools
 Competence system
 Recruiting
 Incentives
 Networks
 A visionary organization
64
Competence
Management
Motivation
Management
Nurturing a visionary organization - A
framework
A well-conceived vision consists of two major
components:
(1)What we stand for
& why we exist
(constant)
(2) What we aspire to
become, achieve, & create
(changing)
65
Collins & Porras 1996