MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

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MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

• Lecturer Donna OConnor
• Lesson 1

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MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

• LO1 Understand how to assess information and
  knowledge needs

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The Basic Syllabus

• Understand how to assess information and
  knowledge needs
• Be able to create strategies to increase personal
  networking to widen involvement in the
  decision-making process
• Be able to develop communication processes to
  improve the gathering and dissemination of
  information and organisational knowledge
• Be able to design and improve appropriate systems
  for the collection, storage and dissemination of
  and access to the information and knowledge
  gathered

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Learning Objectives

• At the end of the class, students should be able
  to
• Discuss the range of decisions to be taken
• Examine the information and knowledge needed to
  ensure effective decision taking
• Assess internal and external sources of
  information and understanding
• Justify recommendations for improve

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Overview

• Communications do not automatically take place
  effectively in organisations
• Information and work-based knowledge is often
  insufficient when decisions are made
• Managers often need to improve planning of
  communications processes and skills
• IT systems can be used as a management tool for
  collecting, storing, disseminating and accessing
  knowledge and information

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Communication

• The root of the word communication in Latin is
  communicare, which means to share, or to make
  common. Communication is defined as the process
  of understanding and sharing meaning. 2
• At the center of our study Communication is an
  activity, skill, and art that incorporates
  lessons learned across a wide spectrum of human
  knowledge. (Saylor.org)
• Communication is key to your successin
  relationships, in the workplace, as a citizen of
  your country, and across your lifetime.

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Understand how to assess information and
knowledge needs

• Organizations set up systems and services that
  are designed to acquire, share and disseminate
  information of all kinds, from the production
  data from factories to events in the
  market-place. However, information also reaches
  the organization by all kinds of routes that are
  not initially set up as information acquisition
  mechanisms. For example, the salesman in the
  field collects information on the contracts made
  and the discounts provided by competing firms,
  and the CEO learns of the market difficulties of
  his/her competitor when playing on the golf
  course. In other words, organizational (or
  corporate) information behaviour embraces not
  only the formal systems set up to manage internal
  information flows, but also the systems,
  including libraries and information centres
  designed to access external information as well
  as the organizational and personal communication
  systems through which information reaches the
  organization and is disseminated.

Maija-Leena Huotari Maija-Leena Huotari (2001)
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Knowledge

• We gain knowledge from information
• We use information to make decisions.
•  Knowledge can be split into two categories
• Explicit knowledge is rules or processes or
  decisions that can be recorded either on paper or
  in an information system.
• Tacit knowledge exists inside the minds of humans
  and is harder to record.
• It tends to be created from someones
  experiences, so again it is based on a set of
  rules or experiences.

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Information

•  Information - required to make good decisions
• Formal information - created by organisations
  procedures (e.g. filling in application form)
• Informal information - information that rises
  naturally (e.g. through conversations).

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Information

•  Many ways to classify information
• Source (internal, external, primary, secondary)
• Nature (quantitative, qualitative, formal,
  informal)
• Level (strategic, tactical, operational)
• Time (historical, present, future)
• Frequency (continuous, hourly, daily, monthly)
• Use (planning, control, decision making)
• Form (written, aural, visual)
• Type (detailed, sampled, aggregated)

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Sources of Information

• Primary information
• provides data from an original source document.
  There are many examples of primary sources in
  many walks of life, but generally a primary
  source is defined as being where a piece of
  information appears for the first time
• may be as simple as an invoice sent to a business
  or a cheque received
• may be more complex, such as a set of sales
  figures for a range of goods for a tinned food
  manufacturer for one week, or it may be a set of
  sales figures over several weeks and several
  locations..
•  Secondary information
• provides information from a source other than the
  original.
• processed primary sources, second-hand versions.
• Examples of secondary sources could be an
  accounts book detailing invoices received, a bank
  statement that shows details of cheques paid in
  and out.
• Where statistical information is gathered, such
  as in surveys or polls, the survey data or
  polling data is the primary source and the
  conclusions reached from the survey or the
  results of the poll are secondary sources.

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Sources of Information

• Internal information
• internal information is vital to the successful
  management of the organisation.
• may be available from a number of sources within
  the organisation, for example
• Marketing and sales , information on performance,
  revenues, markets shares, distribution channels,
  etc.
• Production and operational information on assets,
  quality, standards, etc.
• Financial information on profits, costs, margins,
  cash flows, investments, etc.
• Internal documentation such as order forms,
  invoices, credit notes, procedural manuals.
•  External information
• concerned with what is happening beyond the
  boundaries of the organisation.
• covers any documentation relating to a subject
  area produced as a summary or detailed report by
  an agency external to an organisation.
• may be obtainable from government agencies or
  private information providers. Examples might
  include
• census figures , telephone directories, judgments
  on court cases , computer users yearbook,
  legislation, for example the Data Protection Act,
  Gallup polls, national opinion polls, trade
  journals , professional publications, industry
  standards, the Internet, financial services
  agencies such as Dunn and Bradstreet

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Nature of information

•  Formal information
• Presenting information in a structured and
  consistent manner.
• Defined, within an organisation, as the main way
  of communicating between and within parts of the
  organisation.
• the main way of communicating externally from an
  organisation.
• The main methods are the formal letter, properly
  structured reports, writing of training
  materials, etc.
• Formal information is communicated in cogent,
  coherent, well-structured language.

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Nature of information

•  Informal information
• Less well-structured information that is
  transmitted within an organisation or between
  individuals who usually know each other.
• It tends to be categorised as unofficial
  information, and is communicated by casual
  conversations, e-mails, or text messages between
  colleagues.
• The language is less well structured and tends to
  include colloquialisms and shorthand and
  spelling is less important.

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Nature of information

• Quantitative information
• This is information that is represented
  numerically.
• Any event or object that can be represented as a
  set of numbers is an example of quantitative
  information.
• Qualitative information
• This is information that is represented using
  words.
• Any event or object that is represented using
  words to describe its attributes is an example of
  qualitative information.

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Levels of information

• Planning, control and decision-making are carried
  out at various levels within the structure of the
  organisation.
• There is a direct correlation between the levels
  of importance of individuals or groups within an
  organisation and the level of information that is
  being communicated.
• The three levels at which information can be used
  are
• strategic
• tactical
• operational

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Levels of information

• Strategic information
• used at the very top level of management
• broad based and will use a mixture of information
  gathered from both internal and external sources.
• timescale may be from one to five years or even
  longer depending on the project
• will have little or no detail in them and more
  detailed strategic plans will be made slightly
  lower down the managerial ladder

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Levels of information

• Tactical information
• tactical planning and decision-making takes place
  within the guidelines set by the strategic plan.
• mostly internal with a few external sources being
  used. I
• internal information is likely to be function
  related for example, how much down time a
  production line must allocate for planned
  maintenance.
• used by middle management (employees)
• timescale is usually at least between 6 months
  and 5 years (depending on the scale of the
  strategic project). Circumstances vary but a
  small project may have a tactical timescale of
  between one and six months.
• have a medium level of detail and will be very
  specific they deal with such matters as who is
  doing what and within what specific budgets and
  timescales.
• have medium scope and will address details at the
  operational level.

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Levels of information

• Have medium scope and will address details at the
  operational level.
• Operational information
• operational planning takes place based on the
  tactical plans.
• The lowest level of management or workers in an
  organisation implements operational plans.
• The timescale is usually very short, anything
  from immediately, daily or at most a week or
  month.
• Results of operational work will usually be
  passed upwards to let the tactical planners
  evaluate their plans.

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Be able to develop communication processes

• Types Meetings and conferences, workshops and
  training events, internet and email, written,
  telephone, video-conferencing, one-to-one
  meetings
• Approaches structured and coordinated, planned,
  formal and informal
• Strategy advantages, disadvantages informal,
  face-to-face, formal in writing, emotional,
  intelligence

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Be able to improve systems relating to
information and knowledge

• Type hard and soft, websites and mailings,
  access and dissemination
• Style Trends and patterns, diagrams and text,
  consistent and reliable, current and valid legal
  and confidential

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The Decision-Making Process

• Programmed Decision - a simple, routine matter
  for which a manager has an established decision
  rule
• Nonprogrammed Decision - a new, complex decision
  that requires a creative solution

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Review Questions

• Describe the differences between data and
  information.
• Explain the relationship between knowledge and
  information.  
• Explain the difference between explicit and
  implicit knowledge, giving an example of each and
  of the kind of information that made that
  knowledge possible.
• For each of the following situations say whether
  the information is primary or secondary and
  internal or external.
• the minutes of a golf club committee meeting
• a till roll showing the days transactions in a
  corner shop
• a university prospectus
• the published accounts of a large public business
  Secondary internal 1 mark
• Describe the differences between
• formal and informal communication
• quantitative and qualitative information

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Review Questions

• 6. There are three levels of information,
  strategic, tactical and operational. State the
  characteristics of
• information used for decision making at the
  strategic level
• information used for decision making at the
  tactical level
• information used for decision making at the
  operational level
• 7. Explain the differences between information
  categorised by time
• Historically
• In the present time
• In the future
• 8. Describe how information can be used in
• Planning
• Control
• Decision-making

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Review Questions

• For each of the following characteristics of
  information explain why that characteristic
  affects the quality of the information
• availability or accessibility
• accuracy
• completeness
• reliability or objectivity
• timing
• presentation
• value

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Additional Reading

• Daft, Richard. Organization Theory and Design .
  West Publishing, 1992.
• Graham, John R. "Avoiding Dumb and Dumber
  Business Decisions Why Even the Experts Make
  Mistakes." American Salesman. April 1997.