Week 6 Article Summary

Wow, we’re already into week 6…more than half way through. I'm doing the first part of the articles here the the "6a" in a seperate post after this one.

Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. King.

Figure 1 show the KM cycle model and is very similar to the diagram that we have been talking about in class starting with knowledge in a cloud. The class model goes if my notes serve me correctly…

Knowledge => Capture => Structure => Store => Disseminate => Use => Reuse => Integrate

We also had a simpler model in the second class that went…

Knowledge => Encoding => Channel => Information

So the model presented in the article looks to be much more from an organizational point of view while our class discussions were more general. Sub-bullets under some of the models provides more information and it is interesting that Nokana’s model from reading a few weeks ago shows how knowledge is created. I still believe that not all tacit knowledge can be encoded. Also acquisition of knowledge was not previously explicitly discussed in the model. Before reading the article I could not tell you the difference between transfer and sharing, but transfer is direct learning from one source to another and sharing is putting information out there for anyone to get.

Per the blog question, the learning aspect has been added in addition to the other sub-points. Learning is in almost the end of the process. That makes sense that to learn something, it must be transferred or shared, but how did it get to be transferred or shared in the first place? Something or someone has to learn about something before it can be stored. I would think that learning also occurs in the creation and acquisition phases. It depends on who is learning it. It may be the context that this is how it is perceived from an organization.

The article states that Organizational Learning (OL) is complimentary to KM. It states that they are really the same thing, but OL is a process and KM is the content. Or it also says that OL is the goal of KM. I like the goal inference better and again it is the context of the organization that creates the OL. My original thinking is that KM encompassed all the concepts of OL and I think it still may. However, OL is a unique concept that can be looked at in addition to KM.

Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures. Huber.

For this article, the four different ways that an organization learns are listed: Knowledge Acquisition, Information Distribution, Information Interpretation, and Organizational Memory. To answer the blog question about where does media richness fit in here, it is in the Information Interpretation. The article is somewhat theoretical in its definition of media richness, but is on target describing it in terms of the enhancement of the sender and receivers understanding of each other. It really does not talk about technology, but given the time it was written, 1991, it would have missed the current technological trends.

Perception of information is enhanced with media richness by adding sensory information. The expression a picture is worth a 1,000 words is true, but a video is probably worth 1,000,000 words. The media richness exercise with the Metallica song lyrics, song, and video was meant to illustrate the power that media can highlight. This article does address the media, but not our current mediums that further enhance the Information Interpretation.

Unlearning is a new term to me and like media richness falls in the Information Interpretation category for learning. It seems like relatively self-explanatory. However; it is a purposeful action that can lead to new learning and reading about is difficult in the context of the article. Unlearning may be getting rid of undesirable information or even personnel. If undesirable learning is hurting an organization, it must drop them. If they are dropped, but organizational memory learning may also need to be altered. Unlearning is in the same category as media richness, but I really do not think that it should be in the Information Interpretation category and may be better suited for Organization Memory. Interpretation to me means how something is learned while memory is what is retrained. Since unlearning is discarding what is learned memory seems a better fit.

This was a very difficult article to even browse. The concepts are solid, but not my favorite article.

Organizational Learning Questionnaire 12 21 04

I really like the questionnaire. In my profession, we have acquired other companies and always start with a questionnaire to gather knowledge about that institution. Questionnaires are useful to access what the current state is for an unknown situation. Although may of the concepts are subjective, trying to give them values it helpful in understanding.

Working Knowledge How Organizations Manage What They Know.chapter 5.doc

I really liked the introduction to the article and it is much easier to read than Huber. The antidote that to be successful you hire smart people and get them to talk is really obvious, but insightful. The article states that getting them to talk is the difficult part and thus the crux of KM.

Getting people to communicate and the barriers to this communication are summarized nicely in the article. Many of the solutions point to promoting teamwork and “thick communication” (as we discussed in class). Rewards and education are other ways to overcome barriers. One of the biggest barriers that I have seen is lack of time. If everyone had time to transfer knowledge, then many problems could be avoided. Setting aside time to transfer knowledge must come from the top of the organization. Differences in culture and frames of reference are also getting to be very common especially with globalization. This may be one of the most difficult to combat and getting face-to-face time is often difficult.

Transfer = Transmission + Absorption (and Use)

I really like this equation and summarizes KM transfer nicely. Many of the barriers discussed are either a transmission or absorption issue. Media richness as discussed in the Huber article can enhance transmission. Almost any KM issue can fit into this equation.

General Discussion:

Difference between Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning

In my own words without consulting references beyond the articles read here, OL is a part of KM and applies to how KM is applied and learned in an organization. As we’ve discussed before, KM can apply to individuals as well. OL is group behavior and how an organization acquires, uses, retains, and applies knowledge.

Difference between knowledge transfer and OL

Knowledge transfer as described earlier is the transmission and absorption of knowledge. Organizational learning is larger, more formal and encompasses the four categories that Huber describes. Transfer may occur, but in OL it states how to get the knowledge, how to integrate it, how to distribute it, and how to retain it.

Difference between knowledge transfer and KM

Similar to the above question, knowledge transfer is a piece of KM. KM is even broader than OL. Knowledge transfer is one piece of KM and like we discussed in class, almost anything can be classed as a KM problem, but knowledge transfer encompasses only the transmission.