Lecture 6: knowledge management Flashcards
Why knowledge management? (KM)
- Information economy
- Knowledge management is a serious issue
What do we mean with ‘information economy’?
- Knowledge (as a human asset) is now the most important production factor
- Most values companies are knowledge organizations (e.g., Apple, banks, insurance companies)
Why is knowledge management a serious issue?
- Organizations face more andmore knowledge related issues
- Increasing need to work together globally
- More and more information needsto be processed
- Working together beyondorganizational boundaries…
- In multiple teams…
- Less face-to-face
What are the 2 types of knowledge?
- Explicit knowledge
- Implicit knowledge
What is explicit knowledge?
- Knowledge that can be codified, stored, and easily transmitted
- Simple knowledge (i.e., information) which can be stored in databases and manuals
What is implicit knowledge? (tacit knowledge)
- Knowledge based on experience, collaboration, commitment & competence
- Made up of mental models, values, beliefs, perceptions, …
- Difficult to store & transfer
- Requires no information storing (e.g., databases) but communication and collaboration
What are the challenges of KM in modern organizations?
- Sharing explicit knowledge
- Task-related information
- planning - Making implicit knowledge explicit
- Who knows what
- Expertise - Managing implicit knowledge
- Shared mental model
- Values & beliefs - Managing the social process
- Attitudes towards sharing
- Common bond / common identity
What are the challenges of KM in modern organizations because of ‘networked individualism’?
- Lack of stadarization (weak ties)
- Decentralized information sources (Less place-time bound)
- Knowledge heavily dependent on individual (More and more person-to-person)
- Specialized (difficult capturing)
- Rapid switching
What challenges knowledge sharing even more due to modern work life?
- Virtual teams
- Communities of Practice (CoPs)
- Networks of practice (NoPs)
What is the definition of Communities of Practice (CoPs)?
(colocated) groups of people, working together on a shared practice
What are the characteristics of Communities of Practice (CoPs)?
- Tightly knit group
- Shared practice and goal (work or social)
- Strong interpersonal ties
- Bond over identity
- (Typically work FtF)
What are the characteristics of virtual teams?
- Not constrained to physical location
- Not constrained to specific time (asynchronous)
- Team members work on task separately
- Varying composition (different project teams, organizations)
- Always: Mediated by technology!
What is the definition of Networks of practice (NoPs)?
geographically dispersed groups of people, sharing knowledge about common (local) practices
What are the characteristics of Networks of practice (NoPs)?
- Loosely knit
- Shared practice, but goals may differ
- Weak interpersonal ties
- Identity over bond
- Typically work mediated
What is the influence of social media affordances on knowledge management on creative performance?
- all affordances had a positive influence on knowledge acquisition & knowledge provision
- knowledge acquisition & knowledge provision had an positive influence on creative performance
What are the three functions of technology in virtual teams?
- Information processing
- Process structuring
- Communication support
Explain the function ‘information processing’ in virtual teams…
- Conveyance of task-related information
- Decision making
Explain the function ‘Process structuring’ in virtual teams…
Coordination of group process
Explain the function ‘Communication support’ in virtual teams…
E.g., chat, discussion boards, email
Necessary to reach convergence
How will newer technology influence virtual teams functions?
Newer technologies may enhance processes even more:
1. Information processing
- Expert systems
- AR/VR to share information
2. Process structuring
- Stimulating creativity (brainstorming, augmented senses)
3. Communication support
- AR/VR to stimulate social process
- Morphing
- Enhancement of nonverbal cues (e.g., pupil size)
- Extrasensory information (e.g., heartbeat)
Where does social capital refers to?
Social capital refers to the benefits you derive from your social network
In which terms is social network defined?
- Strong ties
- Weak ties
What are the three types of social capital?
- Structural social capital
- Relational social capital
- Cognitive social capital
What did the study of Zhang et al. (2020) found about social capital?
- structural, coginitive, and relational linkage all have a positive effect on knowledge transfer effectiveness
- Only structural linkage has a positive effect on absortive cappacity
- Knowledge transfer effectiveness had a positive effect on absortive capacity, which had a positive effet on organizational performance
- Social media use mediated structural and cognitive linkage on knowledge transfer effectiveness
What is a common solution to enhance the social process
Common bond vs common identity
What are the characteristics of common bond?
- Attachment through interpersonal bonds
- Personal information sharing (self-disclosure)
- Interpersonal similarity
- Interpersonal comparison
- Familiarity with members
What are the characteristics of common identity?
- Identity-based attachment
- Group categorization
- Group information
- Homogeneity
- Intergroup competition
- Familiarity with group
