As an answer to all your queries on my last post Need of KM in Organizations: Its motivating Factors and Economic Paybacks I am writing this post.
For Faran:
You feel that innovation is not one of the ‘goals’ of KM. Well from what all literature I read I found that it is. As a real world example apart from the one I gave in my last post; Imagine that you were in 1950’s and you had those Mainframe computers. People were using them quite with easy at that time. Now just think what if there had been no sharing of thoughts given on how to make these computers better. People were doing knowledge management even then. It was just that it wasn’t an independent discipline like it is today. At that time if they had just shared their thoughts and have not done any reflection, research or assessment on that would we be having PCs and Laptops today? Knowledge to me is something which when managed will take you to unexplored areas and will force you to think over matters which you have not thought about before. So if I am not wrong it is Innovation again. If you are still not clear you can tell me. Below are some links which I think may help us:
Wiig
Demarest
For Mctse:
Thank you for such a thoughtful question Mctse. Yes I believe that Knowledge is wealth. As an example all the organizations are thriving for this knowledge. Why so much competition? Its because of knowledge. Companies are bribing employees of rival companies for knowledge. There are instances of murder also (AMD and Intel case if you could please check out). Each company is trying to beat its rival and only way today is to have knowledge about something more, be innovative. Why do you think there are so many phones or laptops in the market today? What if a company has Millions of dollars; but it’s of no use until it has knowledge (Wealth) to use it in a different (Innovative) way then existing things. This wealth is being captured by organizations with CoP’s. Today knowledge has started flowing if I could use the word; from person to person from team to team within an organization.
And yes you are right when you say that employees may be afraid to share there knowledge because they think that it is their wealth and such cases are found but now things are changing at a rapid pace. People have started to accept the saying that “Knowledge increases when shared.” I hope I have provided you with something that will clear your doubts. Here are links below that might interest you
Wenger
KM: Practices and Challenges
For Milind:
I hope your doubts have been answered with Faran’s. If not, do tell me.
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Hello Nidhi,
ReplyDeleteWhere in my comment i said that innovation is not one of the goals of KM, what i said was "knoweldge creation" and i consider knowledge creation and innovation as two different concept. Innovation is to create something new and knoweledge creation is just creating/gathering of knowledge. Hope you got my idea.
Hi Faran,
ReplyDeleteI think in my topic of innovation I wrote about Knowledge creation and mentioned it as one of the goals; as I feel both are subsets of each other. I think that Knowledge creation is not just gathering of knowledge it’s much more than that. And saying Knowledge creation is creating knowledge is like saying organization is art of organizing. Well if anything new is in making then of course there is innovation in it. If someone today develops a new gadget called AA then he would have done both innovation and knowledge creation. I think both of them go hand in hand. I hope I have made myself clearer now.
Hello Nidhi :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback.
if things are changing at a fast rapid pace does that mean companies are bribing employees... to get the knowledge
I will tell you one thing from my past experience that I have come across... which draws my 2 angle axis:
-Organisation's out there use employees knowledge as form of use & abusement for themselves.
-Organisation's out there acknowledges the people with these type of knowledge -a sign of mere appreciation - but nothing done about it enough. So is this appreciation or recognition or all for nothing?
It's too discretionary to determine the rationale behind knowledge. Hence my reason of 'sharing' comes on many perspective angles.
Hi McTse,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experiences with me. You have given me a new direction to think in. Since I have no experience of working in a real world my thoughts and knowledge is limited to what I read and assess. It seems am lagging a lot.
The 2 instances which you provide do need to be thought on. Also I have heard that many times the employee’s knowledge is “stolen” by his or her boss. I have never given thoughts on these perspectives. But I think that if organizations want KM to give that success and competitive edge to it; it is utmost needed that KM is “Fair”.
By Fair I mean there should be no stealing of knowledge or use or abusement. The true appreciation of knowledge is only when it is applied or shared. KM in organizations should be free where there is equal give and take, it should be an environment where everyone is happy to share their knowledge and no one stealing it.