Verona, G., Prandelli, E. & Sawhney, M. (2005). Innovation and virtual environments: toward virtual knowledge brokers. Organization Studies. 27(6), 765-788.
Summary (334 words):
This article aims to explore impact of virtual environment and knowledge on innovation in organizations. By examining the influences of virtual environment on innovation and knowledge management processes, the authors has provided the concept of virtual knowledge broker and its advantages on the management of innovation.
To maintain competitive advantages, firms need continuously innovate. To innovate, they need to improve their knowledge resource, and constantly update and search for new knowledge. The authors have acknowledged external actors as an importance source of knowledge and reminded that these external actors can be customers or knowledge brokers. Firms can interact directly with customers to acquire their opinions or dealing with knowledge of customers indirectly using knowledge brokers.
Knowledge broker is not only the intermediator between firms and the source of knowledge. It can transport ideas between unconnected industries and therefore stimulate innovation. The explosion of the Internet has facilitated the connection between customers and knowledge brokers. It enables the knowledge brokers to receive feedback from the diverse groups of users which significantly support new product development activities. Moreover, the Internet has enabled knowledge brokers to generate and maintain large amount of strong and direct ties without trade-off with richness of information.
While firms can also maintain direct relations with customers by using physical channel or virtual environment, knowledge from this sources are not enough for innovation. Customers are not likely to share their personal information and private life in companies’ websites. Moreover, companies will not be able to maintain the relationships with the large amount of users from the industry, who may not be their customers. Therefore, knowledge brokers will overcome this gap and play an important role in the innovation process.
In general, virtual knowledge broker has advantages of knowledge broker and virtual environment. It can absorb knowledge from a huge number of customer ties and support the innovation activity within different industries. Though it had difficulty dealing with tacit knowledge, firms who seek continuous innovation should consider it as an important source of knowledge.
Review (93 words):
This article has provided insight into the knowledge broker in the innovation context. It has an interesting approach in finding source of knowledge and reminds benefit of virtual environment in the knowledge management.
This paper is successful in explaining the role of virtual environment and knowledge broker in the innovation activity. However, while using many arguments for knowledge broker, the concept of virtual knowledge broker deserves more words and practical evidences. The authors should provide audience with a definition of virtual knowledge broker, and more importantly the current status of this interesting model.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Title : A Research Agenda for the Relationships between Culture and Knowledge Management
Author : William. R. King
Summary
This article explores the relationships between culture and Knowledge Management. The author notes that although the theme culture is very prevalent in KM literature and culture has been recognized to have a very important role to play in organization KM, the various relationships between different aspects of culture has not been empirically tested. This article attempts to integrate the different cultural aspects like national culture, organizational culture, organization climate, sub unit and organizational sub cultures, and team climate and develop a research agenda to explore their composite effect on KM. After clearly establishing the theoretical background by examining all the above mentioned aspects, the author proceeds to examine the role of these cultural aspects on KM and vice versa.
National culture (NC) influences the way people belonging to a particular society behave. This will manifest in the risk taking aptitude of a person and influences knowledge sharing behaviour which is associated with risk taking. Organizational Culture (OC) has cognitive, post-cognitive and behavioural impacts which influence aspects such as willingness to search and notice, searching and noticing, and willingness to form new patterns of cognitive association. According to the author, OC also influences the way rules and understandings of ownership of knowledge are formed within the organization. Finally, OC influences KM by affecting the norms of social interaction. Further, the author also briefly addresses the impact of KM on culture and alerts researchers to avoid neglecting relationships in which KM is the independent variable and culture is the dependant one.
Finally, the author presents a research agenda by tabulating the impact of NC, organizational and sub unit culture or climate (OC) on individuals, teams and the overall organization from which research questions could be developed.
Review
This article is highly structured and organized with clearly laid out headings and sub headings which provide for a logical and coherent reading. The theoretical background is established well through an extensive literature review and the premise is well developed. However, while tying it in with the relationships to KM, it so appears that not all the cultural aspects detailed in the theoretical background are explored well enough. The major cultural aspects discussed are NC and OC. The author more or less uses the umbrella term OC to incorporate organizational culture, climate, sub unit culture, team culture etc. whereas there was a mention in the article that all these would be dealt with separately. But I would think a convincing research agenda was developed and possible research questions that could be explored is presented successfully by the author.
By Githin George for Knowledge Regiment
Author : William. R. King
Summary
This article explores the relationships between culture and Knowledge Management. The author notes that although the theme culture is very prevalent in KM literature and culture has been recognized to have a very important role to play in organization KM, the various relationships between different aspects of culture has not been empirically tested. This article attempts to integrate the different cultural aspects like national culture, organizational culture, organization climate, sub unit and organizational sub cultures, and team climate and develop a research agenda to explore their composite effect on KM. After clearly establishing the theoretical background by examining all the above mentioned aspects, the author proceeds to examine the role of these cultural aspects on KM and vice versa.
National culture (NC) influences the way people belonging to a particular society behave. This will manifest in the risk taking aptitude of a person and influences knowledge sharing behaviour which is associated with risk taking. Organizational Culture (OC) has cognitive, post-cognitive and behavioural impacts which influence aspects such as willingness to search and notice, searching and noticing, and willingness to form new patterns of cognitive association. According to the author, OC also influences the way rules and understandings of ownership of knowledge are formed within the organization. Finally, OC influences KM by affecting the norms of social interaction. Further, the author also briefly addresses the impact of KM on culture and alerts researchers to avoid neglecting relationships in which KM is the independent variable and culture is the dependant one.
Finally, the author presents a research agenda by tabulating the impact of NC, organizational and sub unit culture or climate (OC) on individuals, teams and the overall organization from which research questions could be developed.
Review
This article is highly structured and organized with clearly laid out headings and sub headings which provide for a logical and coherent reading. The theoretical background is established well through an extensive literature review and the premise is well developed. However, while tying it in with the relationships to KM, it so appears that not all the cultural aspects detailed in the theoretical background are explored well enough. The major cultural aspects discussed are NC and OC. The author more or less uses the umbrella term OC to incorporate organizational culture, climate, sub unit culture, team culture etc. whereas there was a mention in the article that all these would be dealt with separately. But I would think a convincing research agenda was developed and possible research questions that could be explored is presented successfully by the author.
By Githin George for Knowledge Regiment
Monday, December 14, 2009
Knowledge management in the public sector: stakeholder partnerships in the public policy development
Summary
This paper discusses the importance of the Knowledge Management in the public sector. The government has come to realise its importance since it plays a major role in coming up with a good public policy. A public policy is said to be effective through enhance decision making within public services. Developing a knowledge-based partnership is considered to be a critical success factor in creating, disseminating, transferring and applying the knowledge between the public sector and stakeholders. This is the KM process that needs to be practiced by the government and stakeholders to achieve greater participation and knowledge sharing. This is very important as the paper has stressed that knowledge is a core strategic asset. The partnership can result in coming up with issues as there will always be different views, misunderstanding and value-based disagreements. To have the desired results, communication must be knowledge-effective and providing a feedback will help resolved these issues. Both the government and stakeholders have their own capacity to develop a good public policy. Therefore, it is important to have an active participation in decision-making and to form a knowledge-based within partnership. This increases the collaboration but must be guided by KM goals and strategies. In this way, this can lead to effective and efficient means of sharing and transferring of knowledge. Thus, public policy becomes more effective.
Review
This paper has stressed the need for comprehensive KM within and in support of the public sector. It reveals that KM plays a vital role in the public sector for delivering an effective public policy through partnership with stakeholders. From the analysis of the issues as a cause of partnership, the commentator is suggesting to have a collaboration models between the public sector agencies themselves as well as between public sector and stakeholders. Deeper studies on KM in the public sector should be taken into consideration to look at ways of enhancing the public service delivery.
Posted by Chariebel Enerio for Knowledge Regiment
This paper discusses the importance of the Knowledge Management in the public sector. The government has come to realise its importance since it plays a major role in coming up with a good public policy. A public policy is said to be effective through enhance decision making within public services. Developing a knowledge-based partnership is considered to be a critical success factor in creating, disseminating, transferring and applying the knowledge between the public sector and stakeholders. This is the KM process that needs to be practiced by the government and stakeholders to achieve greater participation and knowledge sharing. This is very important as the paper has stressed that knowledge is a core strategic asset. The partnership can result in coming up with issues as there will always be different views, misunderstanding and value-based disagreements. To have the desired results, communication must be knowledge-effective and providing a feedback will help resolved these issues. Both the government and stakeholders have their own capacity to develop a good public policy. Therefore, it is important to have an active participation in decision-making and to form a knowledge-based within partnership. This increases the collaboration but must be guided by KM goals and strategies. In this way, this can lead to effective and efficient means of sharing and transferring of knowledge. Thus, public policy becomes more effective.
Review
This paper has stressed the need for comprehensive KM within and in support of the public sector. It reveals that KM plays a vital role in the public sector for delivering an effective public policy through partnership with stakeholders. From the analysis of the issues as a cause of partnership, the commentator is suggesting to have a collaboration models between the public sector agencies themselves as well as between public sector and stakeholders. Deeper studies on KM in the public sector should be taken into consideration to look at ways of enhancing the public service delivery.
Posted by Chariebel Enerio for Knowledge Regiment
Article summary for Week 5, Class 7
Rooney, D. (2005). “Knowledge, Economy, Technology and Society: The Politics of Discourse”. Telematics and Informatics. 22(4), pp. 405-422.
Type of article: Empirical research
Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Society, WSIS, Public Policy, Technocracy, Knowledge Regiment
Summary (292 words):
This article aims to provide an outlook of how knowledge is treated in contemporary knowledge-related policy documents to audiences, particularly members of World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) who concern about equity, preserving culture, justice, human right and so on.
By reviewing literatures, the author found that knowledge is an elusive thing which relates to language, culture, power and development. Knowledge societies are not industrial societies permeated by knowledge, but that knowledge societies are permeated by industrial values, which strongly associate with technology.
The empirical research is undertaken by using computer-based analysis applications (Leximancer and Pajeck) to analyze 1.3 million words corpus of knowledge-related policy documents from local, state, national and supranational institutions throughout the industrialized and industrializing world. The data collection process is based on the assumption that public and economic policies’ objective is to make society more knowledgeable and wise about business, culture and environment.
The results indicate that governance, technology and business are the most prominent clusters. Moreover, business cluster is less meaningfully connected to the other clusters, and no cluster that has knowledge as its central focus. The author concluded that current policy documents reflect the technocratic perception which emphasizes the technological and business aspect, and consider knowledge as a convenient vehicle without considering its nature and its connection with social, cultural and economic realms. The author provides three implications to contribute to WSIS objectives, which are (1) we need to choose what politics we want, the politics of emancipation of the politics of technocracy; (2) WSIS members can develop a better knowledge policy which reflect a social and cultural aspect of knowledge; (3) there is an opportunity for WSIS members to progress toward knowledge society by the discourse about knowledge that is not technocratic and unbalanced.
Review (108 words):
This article targets WSIS members, so it brings a specific perspective of humanitarian and culture aspects of knowledge. The author has carefully explained his methodology, and discussed his finding not only from computer-based generated results, but also from comprehensive examples to underpin his claim.
This article has show the manifest inclination and tendency of treating knowledge as a vehicle to achieve technological and business goals in public and economic policy documents. However, the author has not provided a strong evidence to change that inclination. Therefore, this article is appropriate for WSIS members who concern about humanity, culture and social network, but it is not convincing for other audiences.
By Minh Pham - Knowledge Regiment
Rooney, D. (2005). “Knowledge, Economy, Technology and Society: The Politics of Discourse”. Telematics and Informatics. 22(4), pp. 405-422.
Type of article: Empirical research
Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Society, WSIS, Public Policy, Technocracy, Knowledge Regiment
Summary (292 words):
This article aims to provide an outlook of how knowledge is treated in contemporary knowledge-related policy documents to audiences, particularly members of World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) who concern about equity, preserving culture, justice, human right and so on.
By reviewing literatures, the author found that knowledge is an elusive thing which relates to language, culture, power and development. Knowledge societies are not industrial societies permeated by knowledge, but that knowledge societies are permeated by industrial values, which strongly associate with technology.
The empirical research is undertaken by using computer-based analysis applications (Leximancer and Pajeck) to analyze 1.3 million words corpus of knowledge-related policy documents from local, state, national and supranational institutions throughout the industrialized and industrializing world. The data collection process is based on the assumption that public and economic policies’ objective is to make society more knowledgeable and wise about business, culture and environment.
The results indicate that governance, technology and business are the most prominent clusters. Moreover, business cluster is less meaningfully connected to the other clusters, and no cluster that has knowledge as its central focus. The author concluded that current policy documents reflect the technocratic perception which emphasizes the technological and business aspect, and consider knowledge as a convenient vehicle without considering its nature and its connection with social, cultural and economic realms. The author provides three implications to contribute to WSIS objectives, which are (1) we need to choose what politics we want, the politics of emancipation of the politics of technocracy; (2) WSIS members can develop a better knowledge policy which reflect a social and cultural aspect of knowledge; (3) there is an opportunity for WSIS members to progress toward knowledge society by the discourse about knowledge that is not technocratic and unbalanced.
Review (108 words):
This article targets WSIS members, so it brings a specific perspective of humanitarian and culture aspects of knowledge. The author has carefully explained his methodology, and discussed his finding not only from computer-based generated results, but also from comprehensive examples to underpin his claim.
This article has show the manifest inclination and tendency of treating knowledge as a vehicle to achieve technological and business goals in public and economic policy documents. However, the author has not provided a strong evidence to change that inclination. Therefore, this article is appropriate for WSIS members who concern about humanity, culture and social network, but it is not convincing for other audiences.
By Minh Pham - Knowledge Regiment
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
MMIM503 - Lecture 4 Summary & Review
Article Name: A Framework of Knowledge Management Systems: Issues & Challenges for Theory and Practice.
Author: Jungpil Hahn, Mani R. Subramani
Publication: Knowledge Management Systems
Keywords: Information in organizations, knowledge management, knowledge management systems, organizational behaviour, organizational learning.
Summary: (259 Words)
Author: Jungpil Hahn, Mani R. Subramani
Publication: Knowledge Management Systems
Keywords: Information in organizations, knowledge management, knowledge management systems, organizational behaviour, organizational learning.
Summary: (259 Words)
Knowledge management concepts and practices in organizations are increasingly becoming important and firms are making momentous IT investments in deploying knowledge management systems (KMS). Knowledge management is the systemic and organizationally specified process for acquiring, organizing, and communicating knowledge of employees so that other employees may make use of it to be more effective and productive in their work.This paper supplies an in depth research on knowledge management systems by proposing a developed framework called “Locus of Knowledge”. This framework is comprised of:- Document Repository (Data Warehousing)- Yellow Pages of Experts (Expertise Profiles and Databases)- Collaborative Filtering (Internets and Search Engines)- Electronic Discussion ForumThis framework provides a means to explore issues related to KMS and unifying dimensions underlying different types of KMS. As the basis of value creation increasingly depends on the influence of the intangible assets of firms, knowledge management systems (KMS) are emerging as powerful sources of competitive advantage. However, the general recognition of the importance of such systems seems to be accompanied by a technology-induced drive to implement systems with inadequate consideration of the fundamental knowledge problems that the KMS are likely to solve.The possibilities that authors have discussed and raised within this paper is all about the size and diversity of networks, the maintenance of knowledge flows, and the long term effects of the use of KMS. This will facilitate a framework for the organizations as a reference that would enhance the usability of Knowledge Management System to its fullest and will also open avenues for future perspectives.
Review: (105 Words)This article is one of unique writings from other articles. It portrays a sense of formal knowledge management framework and its methodology. One of the beauties about this article is that it explored positive, neutral and negative views of the topic and provided with clear evidences and investigations of each author.One of the few weaknesses of the articles is that it’s not targeting one particular audience and keeping the views quite general. Conclusion is well built but leaves me with few questions to explore and search, which is on the other hand, is productive for audience. Overall it’s a nice article and worth reading.
By Afraz from Knowledge_Regiment group
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
MMIM503 - Lecture 4 Summary & Review
Author: Paul H. J. Hendriks (2001)
The article, “Many rivers to cross: from ICT to knowledge management systems”, is an empirical research paper, intended for IT/IS executives and knowledge managers. The focus of the study is to provide an assessment framework for evaluating the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in organisational knowledge management (KM).
The paper begins with the review of a number of literatures on ICT and KM, and summarising two distinctions for classifying the various KM approaches. First, it distinguishes between engineering approaches and management approaches. Second, it distinguishes between four groups of approaches based on their emphasis in terms of content, which are knowledge storage approaches, knowledge flow approaches, organizational learning approaches and knowledge measurement approaches.
Based on these two distinctions, the author identifies five dimensions of KM and integrates them into a framework. There are three sides to the KM framework: (1) the reflection side includes the relevance of knowledge to the organisation; (2) the content side involves the nature of knowledge, the organisational perspective, and the dynamic nature of knowledge; (3) the action side includes interventions and measures targeted at affecting the organisations as a knowledge system.
The author further claims the five dimensions determine the potential value of ICT applications for KM, and summarise them into five key areas of discussion: (1) relationships between ICT and organizational relevance of knowledge; (2) relationships between ICT and knowledge categories (3) relationships between ICT and the organizational perspective on knowledge; (4) relationships between ICT and the dynamic character of knowledge; (5) relationships between ICT and other knowledge management measures. All five dimensions should be addressed together.
The title of the paper straightforwardly defines the main theme, and the content is succinct, accurate and well-structured. The paper establishes a precise research scope based on a host of literatures. It adopts scientific research methods and techniques to present a holistic view of ICT and organisational KM. The strengths of the paper are using diagrams accompanied with textual analysis, making it easy and logical for readers to follow the discussion.
Monday, November 23, 2009
MMIM503 - Lecture 3 Summary & Review
Article Name: Death by Information Overload
Author: Paul Hemp
Publication: Harvard Business Review
Audience: Practitioners
Summary: 259 words
This HBR article focuses on exposing and addressing the problems associated with information overload caused by the torrent of emails, instant messages, and so forth. Although it is acknowledged by everyone that information is the inevitable potent tool of the knowledge worker, unmanaged information access can be overwhelming and disadvantageous to both individuals and companies. The author identifies the problems faced by individuals and companies and goes on to suggest solutions to alleviate them. While the problems for individuals is primarily piling up of information and inability to process it at the same pace, the major issue for companies is loss of productivity and efficiency. Employees spend a considerable amount of time processing email not all of which is of real value. Studies by Microsoft show that a single interruption will take on an average of 24 minutes to return to the suspended task. Another concern is the hold-up of decision making due to the ‘online silence’ of the recipient whose reply might be required to proceed on a major project. However, many organizations fail to acknowledge this problem partly because it is not easy to quantify the costs and consequences of information overload.The solutions suggested by the author include good use of technology tools in the market like email filters; twitter feed streamlining, work pattern sensors etc. to address individual and organizational productivity issues. The author strongly advises that it is necessary to make a conscious effort to manage information overload at a personal level and bring about cultural changes in organizations to tackle this multi dimensional problem.
Review: 64 words
A genuine practitioner oriented article with many tips to manage information overload at an individual and organizational level. The examples cited are really enlightening. The article is set out with clear structure and headings to guide the reader and therefore contributes to better comprehension. However, I thought the article heavily dwelt upon email and communication information that it could have been more aptly titled.
By Githin - Knowledge Regiment group
Author: Paul Hemp
Publication: Harvard Business Review
Audience: Practitioners
Summary: 259 words
This HBR article focuses on exposing and addressing the problems associated with information overload caused by the torrent of emails, instant messages, and so forth. Although it is acknowledged by everyone that information is the inevitable potent tool of the knowledge worker, unmanaged information access can be overwhelming and disadvantageous to both individuals and companies. The author identifies the problems faced by individuals and companies and goes on to suggest solutions to alleviate them. While the problems for individuals is primarily piling up of information and inability to process it at the same pace, the major issue for companies is loss of productivity and efficiency. Employees spend a considerable amount of time processing email not all of which is of real value. Studies by Microsoft show that a single interruption will take on an average of 24 minutes to return to the suspended task. Another concern is the hold-up of decision making due to the ‘online silence’ of the recipient whose reply might be required to proceed on a major project. However, many organizations fail to acknowledge this problem partly because it is not easy to quantify the costs and consequences of information overload.The solutions suggested by the author include good use of technology tools in the market like email filters; twitter feed streamlining, work pattern sensors etc. to address individual and organizational productivity issues. The author strongly advises that it is necessary to make a conscious effort to manage information overload at a personal level and bring about cultural changes in organizations to tackle this multi dimensional problem.
Review: 64 words
A genuine practitioner oriented article with many tips to manage information overload at an individual and organizational level. The examples cited are really enlightening. The article is set out with clear structure and headings to guide the reader and therefore contributes to better comprehension. However, I thought the article heavily dwelt upon email and communication information that it could have been more aptly titled.
By Githin - Knowledge Regiment group
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