The Explicit Knowledge Approach

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

INTRODUCTION

In the new world where terms like globalization, interconnectivity, intangibility, inter-firm collaboration are not uncommon, business organizations are finding it hard to survive. All these terms add to the complexity of business scenarios and make the business environment more dynamic. Gone are the good old days when the companies could just finalize on a product, produce it and the simply sell it. Companies are forced to critically analyze their business processes and get back to the drawing table to formulate strategies to stay ahead in the competition. Knowledge management (KM), with its ability to systematically acquire, develop and renew the knowledge and information sources help the companies become proactive and adaptable to change and acquire competitive advantage. This study proposes that successful adoption of knowledge management by organizations can help them to leverage their knowledge internally and externally to create and sustain a competitive advantage.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

Alavi, M. and Leidner, D. (1999), stated that the barriers to knowledge management implementation in organizations give this topic a strategic importance. They found out that systems are being designed and developed with the purpose of sharing knowledge. Such systems are referred to as Knowledge Management System (KMS). They analyzed the current usage of KMS and their benefits as well as its future in fifty organizations. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are drawn from the study findings

Evangelista, P, Esposito, E, Lauro, V and Raffa, M.(2010), investigated KM implementation in small firms through empirical research in eighteen SMEs located in the eastern area of Naples. They found out that the surveyed companies need KM.. they also found out that the companies needed a KMS that could facilitate inter-company collaboration in projects.

Mr. S. Manivannan, "Knowledge Management in Software Organization",

"Software organizations' main assets are not plants, buildings, or expensive machines. A software organizations main asset is its intellectual capital, as it is in sectors such as consulting, law, investment banking, and advertising. The major problem with intellectual capital is that it has legs and walks home every day. At the same rate experience walks out the door, inexperience walks in the door. Whether or not many software organizations admit it, they face the challenge of sustaining the level of competence needed to win contracts and fulfill undertakings.

Manish Kumar, Souren Paul and Suresh Tadisina (2005), found out from their research that Indian IT and software companies are very well aware about the abilities and benefits of KMS and are benefiting from it in terms of reduced defects, higher productivity, and ability to share information and experiences form previous projects.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Qualitative research approach is one of the main approaches of research methodology. Qualitative methods study the experiences, behaviors ad attitudes of the respondents. since qualitative methods are based on experience, opinions and attitudes of its respondents, and do not rely much on quantitative analysis of figures, so the conclusions of such studies are generally propositions in nature. Quantitative methods can then be used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses. As opposed to quantitative research which uses numerical and statistical methods to arrive at conclusions, qualitative methods use logic to interpret the collected data. Qualitative methods use a smaller sample size and may not be representation of the whole population which makes it less reliable and valid. But Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg, who argues that qualitative methods and case study research may be used both for hypotheses-testing and for generalizing beyond the particular cases

3.2 DATA COLLECTION:

Primary Data: This study deals with the adoption and practices of Knowledge

Management in IT and software consulting companies in Karnataka Region i.e. ‘what exists’ thus it is a descriptive research. The survey method was used. A questionnaire was sent out to IT professionals working in 4 major IT companies, namely Wipro, Accenture, TCS, and Satyam Mahindra. The questionnaire consisted of 12 questions and the respondents had to reply based on a 5 point Likert scale.

3.2 THEORY

Knowledge: the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2): acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

3.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is one of the most important assets for an organization to create values and hence, sustainable competitive advantage.

Characteristics of knowledge

1. Increasing Return

2. Unlimited Usage

3. Production and Consumption Separated

4. Difficulties in Market Transaction

5. New Value by Re-categorization

6. Quickly Outdated

7. Created by Human in Relationship

3.4 TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE

3.4.1 THE TACIT KNOWLEDGE APPROACH

The salient characteristic of the tacit knowledge approach is the basic belief that knowledge is essentially personal in nature and is therefore difficult to extract from the heads of individuals. In effect, this approach to knowledge management assumes, often implicitly, that the knowledge in and available to an organization will largely consist of tacit knowledge that remains in the heads of individuals in the organization. The tacit knowledge approach typically holds that the dissemination of knowledge in an organization can best be accomplished by the transfer of people as "knowledge carriers" from one part of an organization to another. Further, this view believes that learning in an organization occurs when individuals come together under circumstances that encourage them to share their ideas and (hopefully) to develop new insights together that will lead to the creation of new knowledge

3.4.2 THE EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE APPROACH

In contrast to the views held by the tacit knowledge approach, the explicit knowledge approach holds that knowledge is something that can be explained by individuals -- even though some effort and even some forms of assistance may sometimes be required to help individuals articulate what they know. As a result, the explicit knowledge approach assumes that the useful knowledge of individuals in an organization can be articulated and made explicit. The explicit knowledge approach also believes that formal organizational processes can be used to help individuals articulate the knowledge they have to create knowledge assets. The explicit knowledge approach also believes that explicit knowledge assets can then be disseminated within an organization through documents, drawings, standard operating procedures, manuals of best practice, and the like.

3.5 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

There are many interpretations of what knowledge management is, and many terms that describe computer systems to support managing knowledge in companies. In 1974, the book "The Corporate Memory" was published, arguing on the benefit of collecting information from different sources in a company and making it "searchable". At this time, the information was gathered on paper, and "search" would mean to submit a form to a department who would manually search through their files. The term corporate memory is still in use, but now meaning a computerized database for storing documents from many people n a company. The term "corporate brain" is also used to describe such a database. Another related term is "organizational memory", which does not really have a clear definition, but "intuitively, organizations should be able to retrieve traces of their past activities, but the form of this memory is unclear in research literature. Early efforts assume one could consider memory as though it were a single, monolithic repository of some sort for the entire organization" Many see this term as meaning both a process of collecting and using information as well as a repository. In Software Engineering, to reuse life cycle experience, processes and products for software development is often referred to as having an "Experience Factory". In this framework, experience is collected from software development projects, and are packaged and stored in an experience base.

So what do we mean by knowledge management? This term includes issues from all the terms discussed. Some goals of knowledge management can be "To make the enterprise act as intelligently as possible to secure its viability and overall success". Thomas Davenport has defined it as "a method that simplifies the process of sharing, distributing, creating, capturing and understanding of a company’s knowledge". That some important aspects are

Survey, develop, maintain and secure the intellectual and knowledge resources of the enterprise.

Determine the knowledge and expertise required to perform work tasks, organize it, make the requisite knowledge available, "package it", and distribute it to the relevant points of action.

Provide knowledge architecture so that the enterprise’s facilities, procedures, guidelines standards, examples, and practices facilitate and support active

defects, higher productivity, and ability to share information and experiences form previous projects.

5. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The aim of this study is to explore the adoption of Knowledge Management and different practices of Knowledge Management IT consulting companies.

The specific objectives are as under:

Explore through analysis and discussion the adoption level of Knowledge Management in selected software consulting firms.

Explore through analysis and discussion the benefits for the selected companies by implementing KM Practices.

5.1 HYPOTHESIS

A hypothesis is an assumption about the relationship between variables or the level of influence of independent variables on the dependent variable or the value of population parameter. In other words of George A. Lunberg, "hypothesis is a tentative generalization, the validity of which remains to be tested".

The following are the hypotheses considered under this study:

H01 = the identified factors do not have any impact on implementation of knowledge management

Ha1 = the identified factors have an impact on implementation of knowledge management

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive Statistics

N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

Organization stores information in manuals and databases

99

3.00

5.00

4.3636

.63010

Employees are regularly provided with updated information

99

3.00

5.00

4.3434

.51827

Organization uses patents and licenses to store knowledge

99

3.00

5.00

4.3434

.53760

Organization ensures that there is quick information flow

99

3.00

5.00

4.3434

.60881

Organization has substantial documented information for use by employees

99

3.00

5.00

4.3030

.69186

Employees are skilled at collaborating with each other

99

3.00

5.00

4.2828

.63952

Employees partner with customers, suppliers to develop solutions

99

3.00

5.00

4.2727

.53104

Regular cross departmental meetings are held

99

3.00

5.00

4.2525

.70484

Employees interact and exchange ideas with people from different areas of organization

99

3.00

5.00

4.2525

.61185

Awareness about the term Knowledge Management

99

3.00

5.00

4.2525

.62830

Employees are able to link existing information to new

99

3.00

5.00

4.1818

.62863

Valid N (listwise)

99

On the basis of the Mean scores calculate d for the Food & Grocery stores we can conclude that regular documentation of information and availability of manuals and databases, use of patents and copyrights, quick information flow and employee collaboration are the factors that have maximum impact due to the implementation of knowledge management.

Factor analysis

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha

N of Items

.853

11

Cronbach alpha for the 12 variables was .853. Cronbach value of above .70 is reliable to conduct factor analysis.

Rotated component matrixa

 

Component

 

1

2

Organization ensures that there is quick information flow

.305

.514

Employees are regularly provided with updated information

.306

.346

Employees are able to link existing information to new

.549

.412

Regular cross departmental meetings are held

.646

.342

Awareness about the term knowledge management

.511

.420

Organization uses patents and licenses to store knowledge

.630

.198

Organization stores information in manuals and databases

.295

.721

Information for use by employees

Organization has substantial documented

.585

.455

Employees are skilled at collaborating with each other

.377

.584

Employees interact and exchange ideas with people from different areas of organization

.815

-.032

Employees partner with customers, suppliers to develop solutions

-.052

.807

Total

2.800

2.606

% of variance

25.457

23.692

Cumulative %

25.457

49.150

For the factor analysis conducted on the specific impacts of knowledge management, 11 statements relating to factors impacting the processes were factor analyzed using principal component analyses with varimax rotation. The analysis yielded two factors explaining 49.15% of the variance for the entire set of variables.

S.no

Factors

Statements

Loading

Cronbach Alpha

1

Cross functional interaction

Regular cross dept. meetings

Patents licenses

Documented information

Link information

Awareness about Knowledge management

.815

.646

.630

.585

.549

.511

.794

2

Customer supplier employee alliance

Manuals databases

Employee collaboration

Quick information flow

Availability of updated information

.807

.721

.584

.514

.346

.698

Naming of factors

Regression Analysis

Model Summary

Model

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

1

.486a

.237

.187

.44703

ANOVAb

Model

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

1

Regression

5.696

6

.949

4.750

.000a

Residual

18.385

92

.200

Total

24.081

98

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

T

Sig.

B

Std. Error

Beta

1

(Constant)

2.367

.458

5.172

.000

Employees are able to link existing information to new

.145

.088

.183

1.645

.103

Regular cross departmental meetings are held

-.031

.081

-.044

-.381

.704

Awareness about the term Knowledge Management

.161

.084

.204

1.917

.058

Organization uses patents and licenses to store knowledge

-.033

.099

-.035

-.330

.742

Organization has substantial documented information for use by employees

.202

.082

.282

2.475

.015

Employees interact and exchange ideas with people from different areas of organization

.007

.089

.009

.079

.937

Regression analysis was used to report if the identified factors have an impact on knowledge management implementation.

R2= .237, F(5,93)=4.750, P=.000

So, we reject our H0 at p value less than .05.

Thus our H1 is accepted- the identified factors have an impact on implementation of knowledge management

Model Summary

Model

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

1

.367a

.135

.088

.47340

ANOVAb

Model

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

1

Regression

3.239

5

.648

2.891

.018a

Residual

20.842

93

.224

Total

24.081

98

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

T

Sig.

B

Std. Error

Beta

1

(Constant)

2.603

.557

4.670

.000

Organization ensures that there is quick information flow

.193

.089

.237

2.165

.033

Employees are regularly provided with updated information

.105

.098

.110

1.066

.289

Organization stores information in manuals and databases

.083

.092

.106

.911

.365

Employees are skilled at collaborating with each other

.060

.088

.077

.680

.498

Employees partner with customers, suppliers to develop solutions

-.055

.102

-.059

-.539

.591

Regression analysis was used to report if the identified factors have an impact on knowledge management implementation.

R2= .135, F(5,93)=2.891, P=.018

So, we reject our H0 at p value less than .05.

Thus our H1 is accepted- the identified factors have an impact on implementation of knowledge management