Role of organizational vision and adaptability in knowledge management (km)

Title

Role of organizational vision and adaptability in knowledge management (km)

Type of resource

Journal Article

Authors

Shahzad, K., Sia, S., Aslam, M., Syed, A., & Bajwa, S.,

Summary

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Notes

knowledge based view of the firm declares knowledge as a most strategic resource and the significant source of sustainable competitive advantage for the firms (Kogut & Zander, 1992).

effective exploration and exploitation of knowledge has been recognised as a key to competitive organizational performance (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

KM processes are:

• knowledge creation - an organizations ability to produce useful novel ideas in order to develop business solutions. Organizations with high levels of knowledge creation perform better in terms of developing new markets and products, high customer satisfaction and bringing in advanced technologies (Nonaka, 1991)
• knowledge sharing - intra- knowledge sharing encompasses the transfer o knowledge between and within members and departments (Bhatt, 2001). Help enhance productivity by transferring best practices and ideas from one individual/department to another. it is a vital source of creativity and innovation (Leiponen, 2006)
• knowledge acquisition - gained from customers, competitors, and other external agencies. Has a direct positive impact on creativity, innovation and performance (Fabrizio, 2009) 
• knowledge codification / documentation - the process in which created, shared and acquired knowledge is converted into organisation knowledge. Availability of effecient systems is necessary for this stage

In spite of having sophisticated technologies and systems in place many organisations have not still been able to successfully exploit their knowledge resources (Kim & Yukl, 1995)

knowledge emerges when information is processed and contextualised by a person (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

people-orientated approach focuses on the role of people and views them as primary drivers of knowledge management in organizations. People willingness and ability is required to create and share knowledge with others (Karmara, Anumba and Carrillo, 2005)

Gold, Malhota and Segars (2001) assert that successful knowledge management initiatives enhace an organizations ability to be more creative and innovative by increasing its members' capacity to be more adaptive to environmental  changes and opportunities, and to produce new products and business solutions through better coordination and cooperation.

the world is full of complexities, and is non-linear in nature. what is important is how such humans and systems adapt

organizational learning ... Dodgson (1993) defines it as, the way firms build, supplement and organize knowledge and routines around their activities and within their cultures, and adapt and develop organizational effeciency by improving the use of the broad skills of their workforce

an employees ability to explore and acquire new knowledge that will enable an organization to quickly meet its ever changing environment needs has been viewed as the most important and critical factor. This requires employees to constantly stay in contact with external environment, screen out relevant information, share and convert the information into new knowledge, and use this new knowledge to create new ideas and eventually new value.

knowledge creation is a dynamic process

employees have to learn new skills and must be willing to bring changes in their attitudes and behaviours as new knowledge can bring changes in any part of the organisation, ie., products, processes, procedures, technology etc., if employees don't learn or acquire new skills and capabilities chances are lesser that organization will succeed.

innovation is viewed as a natural outcome of knowledge creation and sometimes these two terms are used interchangeably.

Proposition 1: a strong vision characterised by brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability. challenge, abstractness and ability to inspire will increase employees' willingness and motivation to effectively participate in knowledge creation, intra-knowledge sharing, eternal knowledge acquisition and knowledge documentation

Proposition 2: employees's adaptive behaviours will increase their ability to effectively create, share, acquire, and codify organziational knowledge that will increase the effectiveness of prevalance of knowledge management practices in an organization.

Thoughts and Reflections

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Quote

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