Yukika Awazu

Engaged Knowledge Management: Engagement with New Realities

The authors contend that current knowledge management efforts in organizations need to be re-focused so that they can be better poised for success. Topics discussed include: missing capabilities of knowledge management, knowledge management in strategic alliances, customer knowledge management, knowledge markets, and knowledge management systems, among others. The authors take a pragmatic approach to knowledge management and present the material in a jargon free and accessible way.

Sustaining innovation is challenge for incumbents

OVERVIEW: In todays competitive environment, the ability of an organization to innovate is paramount. While most organizations have flashes or spurts of innovation, only a handful have been able to innovate on a continuous and sustained basis. This paper surveys the challenges faced by firms when trying to build sustainable innovation programs. These findings have been derived from an examination of innovation programs in over 30 organizations in North America, Europe and Asia.

Engaging to Construct Knowledge Markets

Malls and markets are part and parcel of our daily life. Imagine life without designated markets. Where would we go to purchase a quart of milk or a pint of ale? Additionally, consider life without the regulations that govern markets. How do we verify that the can of soup we purchase actually contains the stated ingredients? How do we know that the sign ‘Closeout Sale’ signifies a bargain? While most of us take the existence of markets and their regulators for granted, life would be very difficult without them.

Engaging with Customer Knowledge Management

Businesses exist to serve their customers’ needs. Customers can make or break or a business. Historically, an organization could design, build, and price a product without engaging the customer. Those days are long gone. Today, unless an organization can understand its customers’ needs, transform those needs into products and services, and manage their relationship with customers, they will not survive in the marketplace. Why? In his most recent book, the strategy guru C.K. Prahalad and his colleague Venkat Ramaswamy identify several trends changing the way organizations manage customer interaction.1

Managing knowledge in SMEs: What are some peculiarities?

In this chapter we discuss seven peculiarities about knowledge management practices at smallto medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We draw our findings from a nine-month investigation of knowledge management practices at 25 SMEs. Managing knowledge is a critical capability for SMEs to master because it helps them leverage their most critical resource. Organizational knowledge is the most salient resource at the disposal of SMEs in terms of availability, access, and depth. Successful SMEs are those who can leverage their knowledge in an effective and efficient manner, so as to make up for deficiencies in traditional resources, like land, labor, and capital. In our research, we discovered that SMEs do not manage knowledge the same way as larger organizations do. Viewing SME knowledge management practices as scaled down versions of the practices found in larger organizations is incorrect. SMEs have understandable resource constraints, and hence have to be creative in working around these limitations in order to manage knowledge. Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to describe peculiarities in SME knowledge management practices, with the hope of enticing scholars and practitioners to follow-up with more detailed research undertakings.

Engaging with Distributed Knowledge Management

‘We live in a global world’ has become a cliche. More recently, we have also seen considerable interest in the term ‘distributed’, in the context of distributed work, distributed teams, and so on. A recent tragedy may help illustrate the critical issues of globalization. On September 11, 2001, the USA was attacked by the terrorist organization of Al Qaeda. The terrorists who hijacked the aircrafts resided in various geographical locations in the USA. The command-and-control centers for the coordinated attacks were based in the USA, Germany, Afghanistan, and Malaysia. The resources and skills required to carry out the attacks were garnered from multiple global locations. The success of the effort can be linked to the ability of the terrorists to blend into local cultures and go undetected by law enforcement officials. A wide assortment of communication tools were used to exchange the information and knowledge required to coordinate the attacks. Every aspect of the assault was global and distributed in nature.

Engaging the Knowledge Chiefs

While almost all organizations recognize that knowledge management is essential for organizational success, only a select few ones put their money where their mouth is. It is not uncommon to find organizations managing knowledge unsystematically; often this lack of a knowledge management program can be attributed to lack of appropriate accountability and reporting mechanisms. Absence of senior personnel to lead efforts is one reason for a lack of accountability and credibility in organizational initiatives.

Engaging to Calibrate Knowledge Management Systems

When the term ‘knowledge management’ was introduced into the business vocabulary, the first wave of interest was in the development of knowledge management systems (KMSs). We remember our experiences during the late 1990s, when almost every technology vendor had a knowledge management offering in the works or one that was being positioned in the market.

The Future of Engaged Knowledge Management

Thus far we have shown how knowledge management must be engaged with to get suitable results for investments in the effort. In doing so, we have outlined eight topics that call for a renewed effort to realign current knowledge management practices in order for an organization to be poised for success. We began by highlighting tensions when trying to exert centralized versus decentralized control over knowledge management programs. Following this, we highlighted the three missing capabilities that will need due attention as knowledge management programs advance. Next came the intricacies of four senior-level knowledge personnel, the need to pay attention to the concept of distributedness and its impacts on knowledge management, how to garner and leverage knowledge from external sources, how best to engage in the management of customer knowledge, and the intricacies of knowledge markets. Finally, we surveyed the design of knowledge management systems.

Engaging with Missing Knowledge Management Capabilities

Successful knowledge management in a competitive business environment requires an organization to possess certain capabilities. In particular, the organization must be able to create, transfer, store, retrieve, and apply knowledge. Traditionally, an organization can claim capability in knowledge management if it can execute these activities with rigor, clarity, effectiveness, and efficiency. Any book about knowledge management — including this one — will devote a great deal of time to discussing topics associated with the five major capabilities, and this devotion is entirely justified. Creating knowledge is a significant aspect of any knowledge management program. If an organization cannot create knowledge by examining data and pieces of information and by harvesting information from the expertise of its agents, there will be nothing to manage. Once the knowledge is created, the next logical steps are to transfer, store, and retrieve it. Without these three components, it will be difficult for an organization to ensure knowledge generated in one sector of the organization or at a single, unique time is transferred to another sector and available for future use. It will also be difficult for the organization to ensure that agents who require particular knowledge are able to retrieve and apply it efficiently and effectively. Unless an organization can demonstrate competency in these five activities, its knowledge management program is incomplete and likely flawed. Often an organization excels at one activity and is hopeless in another. For example, if an organization has a sophisticated storage mechanism in place, but fails to generate or create knowledge, the storage mechanism is useless — they will have no knowledge to store! Such imbalance among the five capabilities will cause serious problems for any organization in the future.