KM Most Cited 1012

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KM Most Cited 10-12

• Karthik Gaekwad
• Graduate Student
• , Computer Engineering

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Papers Covered Today

• Exploring Internal Stickiness Impediments to the
  transfer of best practice with the firm.
• Organizational Memory Review of concepts and
  Recommendations for Management.
• The firm as a distributed knowledge system A
  constructionist approach.

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Exploring Internal Stickiness Impediments to the
transfer of best practice with the firm

• Gabriel Szulanski, 1996

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Exploring Internal Stickiness

• Summary
• By Gabriel Szulanski, Wharton School of Business
  (1996)
• Introduction
• Stages in the transfer process
• Origins of Stickiness
• Research Results and Conclusions

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Introduction and Definitions

• Transfer of Best Practices
• Transfer
• Movement of knowledge within the organization is
  a distinct experience
• Practices
• Organizations of use of knowledge
• Contains Tacit components embedded

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Stages in the Transfer Process

• Initiation
• Implementation
• Ramp-Up
• Integration

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Initiation Stage

• All events that lead to the decision to transfer
• Begins when a need and the knowledge to meet that
  need coexist in the organization (possibly
  undiscovered)
• Could take months of information collection and
  evaluation

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Implementation Stage

• Resources flow between a source and recipient and
  maybe a 3rd party
• Activities diminish after the recipient beings
  using the transferred knowledge.

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Ramp Up Stage

• Concerns of the Recipient
• Identifying/solving unexpected problems
• Likely to use the new knowledge ineffectively.

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Integration Stage

• After the recipient achieves satisfactory results
  with the transferred knowledge.
• In time, new practices become institutionalized.

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Origins of Internal Stickiness

• Factors that impede knowledge transfer
• Characteristics of
• Source of Knowledge
• Recipient of Knowledge
• Knowledge Transferred
• Context

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Characteristics of Source

• Lack of motivation - may fear losing ownership,
  privilege, resent not being rewarded for sharing
  success
• Not seen as reliable, trustworthy, knowledgeable

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Characteristics of Recipient

• Lack of motivation
• the "not invented here" syndrome
• Lack of Absorptive capacity
• Lack of ability to value, assimilate and apply
  new knowledge successfully to commercial ends
• Lack of Retentive Capacity
• Lack of persistence to make it work instead of
  giving up and reverting to status quo

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Knowledge Transferred

• 2 Factors Casual Ambiguity, Unproven ness
• Some knowledge is easier to transfer than others.
  
• Difficult to transfer practices that have a high
  proportion of indefinable knowledge due to the
  tacit components
• (human skills involved, collective nature of the
  information, idiosyncratic features of the
  context )
• Knowledge that does not have a proven track
  record will be harder to "sell"

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Characteristics of Context

• barren organizational context
• hinders gestation and evolution of transfers.
• It would be nice to have a fertile context
• Arduous relationship between unit
• if the communication is fluid and the overall
  relationship is "intimate," the transfer will go
  more smoothly than if the relationship is
  laborious and distant.

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So, the question is

• Out of all the factors mentioned above, which
  ones are most impede the transfer of knowledge?

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Research Results

• The three factors that most impede Knowledge
  Transfer are
• Causal Ambiguity of the Knowledge Transferred
• Lack of Absorptive capacity of the recipient
• Arduous relationship between the units

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Discussion of Results

• Contrary to conventional wisdom that blame only
  motivational factors
• Knowledge-related barriers dominate rather than
  motivation-related barriers
• Fundamental question Why organizations do not
  know what they know?
• It may be less because organizations do not want
  to learn but rather because they do not know how
  to

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Organizational Memory Review of concepts and
recommendations for management

• E. W. Stein, 1995

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Summary

• Introduction and Definitions
• Contents of Organizational Memory
• Process of Organizational Memory
• Recommendations and conclusions

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Introduction

• Definition
• Organizational Memory
• Means by which knowledge from the past is brought
  to bear on present activities, resulting in
  higher / lower levels of organizational
  effectiveness.
• Organizational Memory is persistent

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Introduction

• Reasons to explore the concept
• Provide insight into organizational life (as a
  metaphor)
• Embedded in other management theories
• Relevant to management practices
• Assist managers in solving issues related to
  retention of knowledge in the organization

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As a metaphor

• Can steer an organization by using
• Information from the outside world
• Information from the past
• Information about itself
• Implies that long term autonomy is dependant on
  memory

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Relevance to management theories

• Relates dialectics of
• Learning vs. unlearning
• Flexibility vs. stability
• Human resources vs. info resources
• Required for the decision making and planning
  process!

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Relevant to management practices

• Significant during times of restructuring and
  employee turnover
• Loss of employee leaves hole in the social
  interaction network
• Undermines the competitiveness and competence of
  the firm
• Need to retain the components!

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Characteristics of Memory

• 3 types of memories
• Information tokens encoded but not sent
• Information tokens in transmission
• Information tokens that are received

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Recommendations for a Manager

• Identify the types of memory that dominate in the
  firm?
• Examine coupling between sender and receiver?
• Consider role of short/long term memories.
• Classify the contents of memory

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Process of Organizational Memory
Provides means by which knowledge from the past
affects current knowledge
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Acquiring Process

• Focus on learning
• Different kinds of learning basic/higher order/
  first order learning/ second order
  learning/single and double loop learning.
• Learning is completed when new knowledge is
  accepted and encoded in employees mind.
• Organizational learning is incomplete until
  individual learning is embedded !

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Acquiring Process

• Recommendation
• Explore impact of both individual and
  organizational learning on knowledge acquisition
• What extent are single loop learning favored?
• How do organizational memories impede double loop
  learning?

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Retention Process

• The graybeards serve as a repository for
  institutional memory.
• There are 3 categories
• Schemas Helps people organize efficiently
• Scripts Describes sequence of events
• Systems set of inter related elements that are
  connected

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Retention Process
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Retention Process

• Recommendations
• Examine retentive capacity of personnel/shared
• Schema
• Scripts
• Social and physical structures
• Need to leverage IT to support the
  processes/products of organizational memory

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Maintenance

• Turnover is key for this stage
• Departing members introduce holes into existing
  networks
• Maintenance Techniques
• Hire former employees as a consultant
• Recurrent social patterns of interaction

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Maintenance

• Recommendations
• Assess loss of knowledge due to turnovers
• How to maintain different types of knowledge
  through communication process/repetition/sanctific
  ation and validation

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Retrieval Process

• Memories can be recalled to support decision
  making and problem solving
• An inquirer is motivated to retrieve information
  if
• the inquirer values what has been done in
  previous contexts
• the desired information exists and the inquirer
  is aware of the information
• the inquirer has the ability to search, locate,
  and decode the desired information
• the cost to locate the information is less than
  re-computing the solution from scratch
• An organization that maintains but does not use
  its knowledge-base is dysfunctional

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Retrieval Process

• Recommendations
• Examine degree to which the firm supports the
  retrieval of knowledge from the past
• Impact of past knowledge on organizational
  effectiveness

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Conclusions

• Organizational Memory can benefit a firm in many
  ways
• Assist managers to maintain strategic direction
  over time
• Avoid reinventing old solutions
• Facilitate learning
• Strengthen the identity of the organization
• Provide newcomers with access to experts

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The Firm as a distributed Knowledge System A
Constructionist Approach

• Haridimos Tsoukas, 1996

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Organizational Memory

• Summary
• By Haridimos Tsoukas, School of Economics and
  Management, University of Cyprus (1996)
• Introduction
• Recent Developments
• Structure of Social Practices
• Industry Recipes
• Conclusions

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Introduction

• 2 key management questions
• What direction should a firm channel its
  activities?
• How should a firm be organized?

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Introduction

• Traditional approaches dont take into
  consideration for particulars of space and time
• Full knowledge is assumed
• However, this knowledge is cannot be surveyed as
  a whole!

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Recent Developments

• Agrees with the idea that firms draw upon
  existing knowledge and its collective knowledge
• Individuals interact to a scenario using their
  past experience and create their surroundings
• This idea
• Creates Taxonomies
• Creates analogies between mind and organization

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Recent Developments

• Taxonomists
• Create types of organizational knowledge and
  explain their implications
• Tacit v/s Explicit
• Against the view of Nonaka/Takeuchi (inter
  connectivity between tacit explicit)
• Analogies
• Between Mind and Organization
• Knowledge is distributed
• Collective mind is created as employees interact
  with one another.

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Recent Developments

• Human understanding uses background knowledge
• the rationalist view is left lacking
• The individual uses his background to a target
• Results in understanding the target
• The background is a result of socialization

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Structure of Social Practices

• Has 3 dimensions
• Normative expectations
• past socializations affect current situations
• Interactive-situational dimension
• Specific context of activity activates
  expectations
• The absence of predictable rationale results in a
  dispersed environment!

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Structure of Social Practices

• Human decisions are always grounded in
  local/socialized and personal experience
• Institutional context manages the infinite number
  of resulting possibilities.
• Human agency is always confronted with specific
  conditions and choices

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Industry Recipes

• Recipe Consists of background distinctions tied
  to a particular field of experience
• Represent tacit knowledge
• Managers must understand distinctions to get
  things under control.
• Managers internalize industry specific
  distinction through socialization

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Conclusions

• Resources are created through human interaction
• Firms rely on knowledge that is dispersed through
  employees
• Firm is a distributed knowledge system
• Knowledge is a broad context

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Conclusions

• Management should be the process of allowing
  individuals to interact not be rule making
• The interaction of individuals creates knowledge

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Discussion

• I thought the first 2 papers were easy to read
  and more helpful.
• I found it a little difficult to read the paper
  on distributed knowledge.
• The 3 papers are management type papers trying to
  appeal to a managerial audience inside a firm

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Themes/Emphasis

• The emphasis of the papers written by Stein and
  Tsoukas is knowledge itself.
• Stein Knowledge in a company in general
• Tsoukas Breakup of knowledge in a company.
• Emphasis of Szulanski is how to transfer
  knowledge in a smooth manner in a firm

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Issues and questions raised

• Stein Doesnt mention details about how managers
  should go about the recommendations.
• Tsoukas His paper seems a little generalized
• difficult to understand the background.
• Doesnt talk about the different roles in the
  organization (Experts vs new hires)

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Issues and questions raised

• Szulanski
• How to reduce the origins of stickiness after
  discovering what the origins are.
• Expects the management to have solutions for that
  already.

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Final thoughts

• I think overall,
• these papers matched well together
• common theme of knowledge inside of an
  organization