Lecture 9

Question 1

Outline the steps in establishing a joint venture

Answer 1

1. Test the strategic logic (do you need partner, for how longer, payoffs for both parties)
2. Partnership and Fit (shared objectives, skills, compatible)
3. Shape and Design (venture scope i.e. wide or narrow, the managerial role of each partner, each party payoffs)
4. Doing the Deal (amount of paperwork needed, Agree on endgame)
5. Making the venture work (continued mgt, cultural differences, be flexible)

Question 2

Differentiate Explicit for Tacit Knowledge and give examples

Answer 2

Explicit is academic knowledge that is described as a formal language, print etc. often based on established processes. An example of explicit knowledge work process being organised. Tacit knowledge is practical action-orientated know-how and often resembles intuition. an example of Tacit is the work process being spontaneous.

Question 3

What are the 5 key problems with knowledge management?

Answer 3

Knowledge acquisition (failure to share/integrate external knowledge)
Knowledge retention (employee turnover)
Knowledge outflow (loss of IP, knowledge= power)
Knowledge transmission (innapropriate channels)
Knowledge inflow (not invented here i.e. dont trust knowledge coming from china)

Question 4

Why is knowledge management so important? And Differentiate between codification and personalisation

Answer 4

Since the industrial revolution, knowledge management has become more important.
One of the reasons is new knowledge creation cannot be easily codified
If knowledge could be codified it could potentially lose value (knowledge transfer)

Codification is when everything about a job is noted down and utilise technology heavily. This way knowledge can be patented and not used by other companies.

Personalisation is when the high uniqueness of the business operations means there cannot be repeated solutions. This creates a significant value on expert employees which may or may not choose to share knowledge even though this is encouraged by the company.