subject: Research Paper: Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance [print this page] Author: James Smith Author: James Smith
This is a research paper on Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance A feature of the modern era therefore is the extent to which change is seen as being ubiquitous. This notion of change pervades both the realm of the popular as well as more analytical texts. Clearly the reasons for societal changes are complex but according to Lash and Urry (1987) they can broadly be explained by the liberalization of global capital and the information technology revolution. Lash and Urry (1987) characterize these changes as heralding the emergence of a new form of capitalism, that of disorganized capitalism, while other writers consider the contemporary period to amount to a rupture with modernity itself. Any change in society should also impact upon the way in which knowledge is distributed and organized within that given society. For a successful company however it is of course not sufficient to respond to changes in the environment; rather it is desirable to anticipate those changes and to adapt before anyone else. This is a source of competitive advantage for an organization. Thus change needs to be a continual process which takes place iteratively rather than as discrete events. The capacity to change in this way involves the whole organization and requires an understanding of how organizations can learn to adapt continually. More particularly it requires the organization to make best use of the knowledge and expertise which is possessed within it and this has become known as knowledge management. In this article we are going to explore what is meant by knowledge management. While concerns have been expressed as to whether KM is merely the latest in a long line of organizational `fashions', such fears have been allayed through pointing to the likely enduring nature of how 21st century organizations are to go about managing their knowledge base (Scarbrough & Carter, 2000). As such there is a validity regarding a concern with knowledge in organizations that extends beyond the mere vicissitudes of fashion. In terms of situating KM, it is useful to reflect upon its antecedents. It has been argued that KM, as a theoretical area of enquiry, has been constituted through the coalescence of a number of management subjects. It would be misplaced, however, to suggest that KM constitutes a synthesis between different disciplines. Instead, different perspectives each bring particular analytical concerns. It would however be erroneous to suggest that each discipline has an equal bearing on KM. For example there has been a concerted attempt by the Information Systems (IS) community to colonize KM, while there has been considerable concern among the HR profession that KM is fast developing a people management gap (Scarbrough & Swan, 1999). The preponderance of the IS community in KM initiatives has led some writers to warn that KM must be seen as more than a technicist fix, reducible to the implementation of a company Intranet, such as through Lotus Notes or Groupware. From the perspective of strategy, issues of knowledge have acted as the foundation stone of the influential `Resource Based Theory' approach. Resource Based theory emerged as a critique of the Harvard-based `design school', a perspective which has been influentially criticised as not sufficiently concerned with process and too much with rational planning and market analysis. The Resource-Based View (RBV) in strategic management has put issues of path dependency, the role of (organizational) history, firm-specific resources, appropriability and politics on the agenda (Kamoche, 1996; Mueller, 1996). Undoubtedly, the RBV has emerged as an influential alternative to approaches that were more concerned with market positioning, segmentation, and acquisition and diversification strategies. The appeal of RBV is that it places emphasis on what the organization `can do' as opposed to what Clark (2000:p. 214) has termed `the strategic fantasies of formal, written mission statements'. It is this concern with `what an organization can do' that has fuelled the interest of strategists in Knowledge Management. This is a relevant starting-point for acknowledging the recent emergence of the interest in Knowledge Management. One of the most striking features of this is the debt to the resource based approach in the way that knowledge is presented as an endogenous, if sometimes elusive, organizational resource. The shift towards looking at the organization, and its immediate supply chain, is a cornerstone of approaches to KM. The spread of the discourse seems to be driven by claims that this hitherto hidden but highly valuable resource is now accessible to management and exploitation. In order to make sense of intangible assets, there have been a number of attempts to introduce concepts that help clarify the nature of `knowledge in organizations'. Perhaps most famously, Nonaka and Takeuchi, (1995: 236) in their highly influential `The Knowledge Creating Company', have claimed that the insights of KM mean that the `knowledge creating process is no longer an enigma'. They have argued that knowledge can be distinguished in terms of whether it is `tacit' or `explicit', and whether it is held collectivelysuch as in a teamor individually. For instance, Lam (1998) argues that organizations' possess a key knowledge agent, such as an `individual', a `team' etc. This work has been developed more extensively within the team working literature (Dyerson & Mueller, 1999; Proctor & Mueller, 1999), where issues of the distribution and value of knowledge have been placed at center stage. Whatever one's view concerning the techniques of Knowledge Management, it is clear that the intention is to arrive at codified knowledge such that this knowledge can be applied by anyone with access to the manual. To use a manual does not need an expert, with his/her associated cost, in order to apply the knowledge. The position taken in this paper is that this `knowledge' is in fact data which has been captured for subsequent usethus it is possible to consider data warehousing as a mechanism for Knowledge Management. The author is an expert in wiring custom essays/dissertations in the field of human resource management. He has been with the company for some years as a senior writer.About the Author:
James Smith is one of the senior staff writers at essayacademia.com, specialized in dissertation writing for master and Ph.D. students. He has been with the company for over five years. EssayAcademia provides you with professionally prepared free draft for your dissertations. You need to place order for completed paper once you are satisfied with draft, for which you need to make no payment at all. To avail this unique service visit essayacademia now and place order for professionally prepared free draft
