Tài liệu Towards Framework for Knowledge Management Implementation ppt

The essence of the proposed integrated model are the knowledge activities permeating an organization, which are categorized in terms of the cyclic knowledge processes of creation, organi

& Research Article

Towards Framework for Knowledge

Management Implementation

1Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

The implementation of knowledge management (KM) in an organization involves the integra-tion of knowledge from the domains of strategy, structure, processes, and technology These domains are generally underpinned—when assimilating roadmaps for holistic KM implemen-tation—with standard KM models in the literature The pioneering models manifesting the holistic ‘growth’ of knowledge in an organization are generally used to underpin the knowledge-based segregation of organizational structure However, some authors take a criti-cal view of such theoreticriti-cal models, and instead suggest the knowledge process-based models manifesting the ‘circulation’ of knowledge as being a more practical approach to KM imple-mentation This paper takes the implementation-oriented approach further, and modifies and integrates the fundamental aspects of KM advocated in these models resulting in the crea-tion of an integrated KM model that renders a practical framework for the broad knowledge processes across the organization The essence of the proposed integrated model are the knowledge activities permeating an organization, which are categorized in terms of the cyclic knowledge processes of creation, organization, dissemination, and use of knowledge These processes traverse the segregated structure of an enterprise.

It is suggested that a modified knowledge-based segregation of enterprise into individual and group, organization, customer interface, and global enterprise be developed based on the cyclic knowledge processes Further, based on the proposed integrated model, an imple-mentation framework is outlined manifesting the cyclic circulation of knowledge across the organization Such a framework can provide a link in the KM roadmaps between the abstract categorizations in KM models and the actual implementations using technologies, organiza-tions, and people Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

To remain competent in the increasingly

competi-tive global markets, enterprises must focus on a

strategy to better manage the knowledge that is

becoming their greatest asset Effectively and

proactively capturing the dynamic customer demands and reorganizing its production pro-cesses and structure to meet these demands are the primary attributes of a ‘learning organization.’

In addition, greater innovation in product develop-ment and customer service entails an enhanced emphasis on the management of knowledge Knowledge assets in an organization, in form of the expertise of employees, production architec-tures, and IT systems and corporate repositories are considered the focal point for management of knowledge

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/kpm.234

*Correspondence to: Dr Ravi Shankar, Associate Professor,

Department of Management Studies, Viswakarma Building,

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi

110 016, India E-mail: ravi1@dms.iitd.ernet.in

The strategies for knowledge management

(KM) implementation in real world and in the

research landscape are related to ‘personalization’

and ‘codification’ of knowledge (Hansen et al.,

1999) In the personalization strategy, knowledge

is closely tied to the person who created it

and disseminated through person-to-person

knowledge sharing networks In a codification

strategy, a knowledge object is developed by

removing customer or project sensitive

informa-tion and stored in repositories for later use A

company deploys a combination of these

strate-gies focusing on one and using the other in a

sup-port function Addressing the strategy, Mentzas

et al (2001) suggested that a holistic conceptual

framework be created to provide a roadmap for

managers in ensuring integrity in KM

implemen-tation efforts The roadmap suggests that

success-ful KM implementation is a truly holistic venture

that should leverage the knowledge assets and

employee networks by integrating the four aspects

of strategy, culture, processes, and KM system The

generic roadmap for KM implementation is

outlined in Figure 1

Figure 1 shows, as part of the generic strategic

plan for KM implementation, the knowledge assets

at the core that need to be integrated with the

knowledge sharing networks/activities The design

and categorization of the knowledge sharing

activ-ities depends on the structure and processes of the

organization These activities are generally

struc-tured at the level of individual, team, organization,

and interorganization as suggested by the

archety-pical segregated organizational structure and the

paradigm of ‘growth’ of knowledge in the

organi-zation (Hedlund and Nonaka, 1993) Similarly,

the knowledge processes related to creation,

orga-nization, dissemination of knowledge, etc are

gen-erally accepted for managing the knowledge

sharing in organization Establishing culture and

technological systems further enable the knowledge

sharing activities

This paper focuses on the use of fundamental KM models from literature to underpin the organiza-tional structure and processes for KM implementation

We suggest that the aspects advocated in these funda-mental models may not be absolutely appropriate for

KM implementation; rather, they may be molded to

a form more suitable during the implementation phase For this, we identify from literature the funda-mental aspects of KM pertinent to the design of knowledge processes and organizational structure (Section Introduction) These aspects are modified using a perspective oriented to sustaining knowledge creation when implementing KM in the organization (Section KM Models in Literature) The modified aspects are then integrated with the objective of pro-posing an integrated KM model that will be useful in knowledge-based segregation of organizational structure and the design of knowledge activities and processes (Section Modified Perspective of Fundamental KM Aspects) To provide a practical linkage for the proposed model, the pragmatic knowledge activities in an organization are then categorized in accordance with the model (Section Integrated KM Model) Finally, an implementation framework is outlined using the proposed integrated model to suggest future research direction for KM implementation frameworks (Section Knowledge Activities, Processes and Cycles)

KM MODELS IN LITERATURE

Many KM models with different approaches and mindsets have been proposed in literature McA-dam and McCreedy (1999) have identified three broad categories of KM models, namely knowledge category models, intellectual capital models, and socially constructed models

1 Knowledge category models: These models advo-cate advo-categorization of knowledge into discrete forms like codified and uncodified knowledge,

Assets

Processes

Individual

Interorganization

Systems

General strategic plan for holistic KM implementation

Fundamental, theoretical manifestation based on paradigm of “growth and expansion” of knowledge

Figure 1 General roadmap for holistic knowledge management (KM) implementation

diffused and undiffused knowledge, tacit and

explicit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi,

1995) Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) suggested a

significant categorization of organizational

knowledge that parallels the theoretical

organizational levels of individual, group,

orga-nization, and interorganization (customers,

sup-pliers, competitors) The model considers that

knowledge is shared through social interactions,

which begin at the individual level and then

‘grow and expand’ within the organization to

include groups and the whole organization

and finally transcend organizational boundaries

That is, knowledge of individual becomes the

knowledge of group through knowledge sharing

among peers in the group Group knowledge

then becomes organizational knowledge as the

best practices in one group are institutionalized

throughout the organization This knowledge

further grows to interorganization level as it is

shared with collaborators and used to service

the customers

2 Intellectual capital models: These models treat

knowledge as an asset and segregate the

organi-zational knowledge in correspondence to its

intel-lectual assets For example, intelintel-lectual capital can

be segregated into human, structural, and

custo-mer assets (Chase, 1997a; Roos and Roos, 1997)

3 Socially constructed models: These models discuss

KM focusing on the various knowledge

pro-cesses (Demerest, 1997) Demerest’s model

focuses on the knowledge processes in an

orga-nization such as the construction of knowledge,

embodiment of constructed knowledge,

disse-mination of the espoused knowledge, and

ultimately the use of knowledge for business

advantages in regard to organizational outputs

The essence of these models is to identify

the simple flow of knowledge within and

across knowledge processes The knowledge

processes may simply be characterized as

crea-tion, organizacrea-tion, disseminacrea-tion, and use of

knowledge

Apart from outlining these three categories

of KM models in literature, McAdam and

McCree-dy (1999) criticize the knowledge category and

intellectual capital models and suggest their

inap-propriateness with respect to KM implementation

In turn, they advocate the socially constructed

models having a knowledge process-based

approach to have greater suitability for KM

imple-mentation McAdam and McCreedy (1999) also

cri-ticize the knowledge processes-based (socially

constructed) Demerest (1997) model and augment

the model to highlight certain guidelines for future

research on implementation-oriented KM models These suggested guidelines are:

(i) to incorporate the recursive and circulatory flow of knowledge across knowledge pro-cesses,

(ii) to set up ‘use’ element for employee and business and

(iii) to include both social and scientific aspects of

KM implementation

These modeling aspects are reflected in Figure 2 The figure outlines the knowledge processes of creation, organization, dissemination, and use

of knowledge It also shows the recursive flows of knowledge between processes and certain aspects important for KM implementation The recursive flows between processes represent the interactions; for example, the process of knowledge organiza-tion organizes the created knowledge, and doing this recursively leads to improvement in the cre-ated knowledge The dotted plain arrow shows the recursive flow of knowledge between creation and use process as suggested by McAdam and McCreedy (1999) We suggest a modification to it

in next section; the dotted arrow is to be replaced

by the modified arrow that is made bold to signify

it as primary factor for sustaining knowledge crea-tion in the organizacrea-tion

From these discussions, three fundamental aspects of KM emerge from the literature: segre-gated organizational domains, knowledge assets, and knowledge processes We propose a KM model based on these aspects However, a modi-fied perspective to these fundamental aspects is suggested by augmenting the corresponding stan-dard KM models in the literature advocating these aspects The modified perspective aims at molding the fundamental aspects to make them more suitable for KM implementation In keeping with this approach, the discussions in the paper become three-pronged First, we present a modified perspective of the KM aspects corre-sponding to standard KM models in literature to suit certain implementation and sustainability criteria Second, we integrate these implementa-tion suited KM aspects to synthesize a proposed integrated KM model Finally, we propose a framework for KM implementation underpinned

by the integrated KM model and use it to suggest a research direction for the development

of KM systems; the coherence of framework to lit-erature is also discussed in terms of the accor-dance of the framework to the guidelines for

KM research as suggested by McAdam and McCreedy (1999)

MODIFIED PERSPECTIVE OF

FUNDAMENTAL KM ASPECTS

The three fundamental aspects of KM and the

cor-responding standard models considered are:

segre-gated organizational domains by Hedlund and

Nonaka (1993) model, knowledge assets by Chase

(1997a) model, and knowledge processes model

by McAdam and McCreedy (1999) and Demerest (1997) Table 1 shows this modified perspective in comparison with the traditional perspective on

KM models

The model by McAdam and McCreedy (1999) advocates knowledge processes and recursive flows between them; we augment the model to emphasize a cycle of knowledge processes focusing

KNOWLEDGE CREATION

KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION

ORGANIZATION

Figure 2 Cycle of knowledge processes in a process-based KM model

Table 1 Two perspectives on KM aspects

Traditional perspective on KM aspects Modified perspective on KM aspects

Knowledge

processes

Socially constructed models

Creation, organization, dissemination, use

Cycle of knowledge processes

Socially constructed models

Creation, organization, dissemination, use

Organizational

knowledge

segregation based

on ‘‘growth and

expansion’’ aspect

of knowledge

Knowledge category models

Individual, group, organization, inter organization (customers, suppliers)

Segregation based

on cycles of knowledge processes

Knowledge category models

Individual and group, organization, suppliers, customer interface, global enterprise Knowledge assets Intellectual capital

models

Human, structural, customer

Knowledge assets based on novel organizational segregation

Intellectual capital models

Human, structural, customer, virtual enterprise

on sustaining knowledge creation Incorporating

this cyclic approach in KM implementation

sug-gests a modified knowledge-based organizational

segregation reflected in the Hedlund and Nonaka

(1993) model The resulting organizational

tion is followed to suggest corresponding

segrega-tion of knowledge assets These views are

presented in the following subsections

Cyclic knowledge processes

Nonaka (1991, 1994) emphasized the critical

neces-sity of sustaining the creation of knowledge in

orga-nizations Employees are the primary sources of

innovations in an organization; however, there

are several other significant activities that may

gen-erate fresh knowledge Knowledge managers

iden-tify and set up diverse activities aiming to sustain

knowledge creation For example, incentives may

be set up to encourage the use of captured

knowl-edge; expertise in new domains may be developed

through recruitment; and valuable information

may be generated in repositories through

techni-ques like data mining (O’Leary, 1998b)

The activities relating to the use of existing

knowledge in the organization primarily support

the creation of new knowledge Employees use

the learnings and experiences of their peers, from

related projects in past, in their current

assign-ments In the process, they generate fresh mindsets

and knowledge pertinent to current projects

Similarly, the mined customer-related data is

ana-lyzed for fraud detection, predicting future

demands of customers, etc Organization uses

cur-rent and predicted future customer demands to

create flexibilities in their production architectures

On basis of these observations—use of knowledge

significantly leading to the creation of new

knowledge—we propose a slight augmentation in

the knowledge processes-based approach

sug-gested by McAdam and McCreedy (1999)

Processes relating to the organization,

dissemina-tion, and use of knowledge bolster the knowledge

creation process through recursive flows of

knowl-edge However, the recursive flow of knowledge

between the processes of knowledge use and

crea-tion is primarily responsible for generacrea-tion of new

knowledge as compared to the recursive flow from

processes of organization and dissemination The

augmented model is shown in Figure 2

Bold arrows in the figure represent the principal

direction of knowledge flow while the plain arrows

represent recursive flows except that the recursive

arrow from use-process to creation-process (dotted

arrow) is replaced by bold to suggest that use of

knowledge primarily supports the creation of

new knowledge This model highlights the impor-tance of a cycle among the knowledge processes to support sustaining of knowledge creation

The cyclic approach to knowledge processes effects an augmented segregation of knowledge-based organizational domains in following subsec-tion secsubsec-tion

Organizational structural segregation The cyclic knowledge processes-based approach tends to segregate a knowledge intensive organiza-tion into different domains, categorized as follows:

 individual and group,

 organization (suppliers, collaborators, competi-tors),

 customer interface, and

 global enterprise

This proposed segregation differs from the funda-mental knowledge-based segregation of organiza-tion suggested by Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) model:

 individual,

 group,

 organization, and

 interorganization (customers, suppliers, compe-titors)

The first domain in the segregated organization refers to an individual implicitly within his/her group’s domain To illustrate, in the process of creation of knowledge individuals work towards creation of fresh knowledge using their creativity,

or report exceptional experiences in day-to-day work as part of the meetings organized by the group heads The group to which individuals belong organizes this knowledge created by the individuals in accordance to the standardized KM processes Processes are also set up to facilitate the sharing of knowledge among peers in the group; and this spurs the process of creation of new knowledge if the individuals analyze and exploit the available knowledge shared by peers in their respective assignments Therefore, to incorporate

a cyclic approach of knowledge creation in a team the individual and his group need to be associated together

Two arguments may arise with this implicit con-sideration of individuals in a group domain First, the explicit segregation level for individual in the Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) model, and second, the notion that cyclic knowledge processes can be applied at individual level Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) model puts individual and group knowl-edge in separate categories in accordance with a

theoretical view of ‘growth and expansion’ of

knowledge from the individual to his/her group

when individuals share their knowledge with the

group peers Contending the arguments, our

approach associates individual together with the

group from the implementation point of view of a

manager who designs the knowledge processes

The knowledge processes of creation, organization,

dissemination, and use in the context of individuals

are too unstructured to be simulated by KM

imple-mentation infrastructure; an impleimple-mentation

infra-structure can, at most, support the knowledge

processes in individual domain From the

manage-rial perspective, setting up incentives may spur the

knowledge processes of creation, dissemination,

and use in an individual domain when the

indivi-dual may create innovations, indulge in knowledge

sharing and use the knowledge feedback from

peers From the technological perspective,

Persona-lization and Groupware technology can only support

the knowledge processes in the individual domain

by rendering relevant organization-wide

knowl-edge contextually to each employee in the

organi-zation Therefore, combining the cyclic approach

with the implementation point of view suggests

indi-vidual to be just a part of a group

Considering the next segregated domain, the

Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) model advocates

sup-pliers and collaborators working together with

cus-tomers at the interorganization level However,

following the cyclic approach necessitates

consider-ing suppliers and collaborators at the organization

level Such a view advocates assembling

organiza-tional knowledge together with the knowledge of

collaborators and suppliers in satisfying the

dynamic demands of customer (Sanchez, 2001b)

This kind of integration is most visible in the

internet-based digital markets where the product

needed by a particular customer may be assembled

from various suppliers depending on the

specifica-tions selected by the customer The integration is

also evident in the increasing integration of

suppli-ers in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

implementations of companies Consultants

devel-op KM solutions as a part of broader ERP (Skyrme,

1999; Shankar and Jaiswal, 1999)

Considering the next organizational domain, a

separate domain of organization may be perceived

explicitly for managing customer knowledge This

is, in fact, evident in the modern business

environ-ments where organizations deploy IT applications

like Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

to develop a customer interface for managing the

customer knowledge These applications simulate

the knowledge processes in context of customers

to manage the customer knowledge (Bose and

Suguraman, 2003) Moreover, these applications are increasingly influencing the structure of the organization (Tsui and Garner, 2000) IBM reengi-neered its CRM process to integrate it with KM to enable the integration of knowledge from the front-end to the back-front-end (Massey et al., 2001) The inte-grated model proposed in this paper will identify a cycle of knowledge processes at the customer inter-face

Finally, a separate domain in the model is rea-lized to enable enhanced sharing of knowledge in

a globally distributed enterprise This is imperative

in the increasingly networked world The global enterprises have realized the importance of analyz-ing the global market conditions to be able to fore-cast possible future changes in their local and global environments

Summarizing, a cyclic approach to knowledge processes groups individual and groups at the same level from an implementation point of view It also groups the suppliers or collaborators along with the organization at the organization level The importance of customer-related and enterprise-wide knowledge suggests separate orga-nizational segregation for each of these domains Considering the third fundamental aspect of KM, knowledge assets are central to any KM implemen-tation effort Mentzas et al (2001) suggest that,

in essence, KM is working to better manage the content, quality, value, and transferability of knowledge assets We follow, in this paper, a knowledge asset categorization corresponding to the segregated domains of organization proposed above

Organizational knowledge assets The organizational segregation proposed in the previous section suggests the following component assets of organizational knowledge:

a knowledge in the form of experiences, expertise

of individuals and groups;

b knowledge of organization that pervades its production architectures involving knowledge gathered from suppliers and collaborators; knowledge embedded in the IT systems and pertinent data warehouses and knowledge bases;

c knowledge regarding customers; and,

d knowledge shared in a global enterprise This categorization of organizational knowledge finds harmony with the categorization of intellec-tual assets suggested by Chase (1997a): human assets (knowledge, experience), structural assets (processes, information systems), and customer

assets (customer relationships, brands) In addition

to these assets, we have added the knowledge

shared across the virtual enterprise—that is,

technology-enabled knowledge sharing among

peer organizations across geographical

bound-aries—as a knowledge asset

Summarizing the modified perspective on

fun-damental KM aspects derived from the literature

from an implementation point of view: a cyclic

approach to knowledge processes, aiming to

sus-tain knowledge creation, effects practical

segrega-tions of organization; be it be the knowledge

based segregation into individual and group,

orga-nization and suppliers, customer interface and

glo-bal enterprise or the segregation of its knowledge

assets into human, structural, customer, virtual

enterprise This modified perspective is used to

evolve an integrated KM model that aims to render

an approach useful for the design of knowledge

activities and processes for implementing KM

across the organization

INTEGRATED KM MODEL

The integrated KM model is developed to cater to

the practical aspects that managers may consider

while setting up the knowledge processes in an

organization Some of these aspects relevant in

the context of this paper are stated Generally,

knowledge-focused activities already exist in any

knowledge-enabled organization Knowledge

pro-cesses may then be designed to clearly identify

these activities, enable them and organize them

for effective process integration Apart from this,

managers need to design processes according to

the theories of KM in order to capture and store

knowledge from various assets and disseminate it

across various departments in the organization

Moreover, the design of similar activity or process

may vary from one department to another

depending on the functionality and context in

which the knowledge is required In these cases,

the process should be customized according to

the need(s) in the particular organizational domain

On this basis, two guidelines are outlined for any

implementation-oriented KM model:

(i) the model should categorize the activities that

constitute knowledge processes, and

(ii) the model should categorize the processes

according to the different domains of the

organization

To further develop the integrated KM model

fol-lowing these guidelines, the integration of the

implementation-oriented perspectives on KM

(knowledge assets, cyclic knowledge processes and organizational segregation proposed in pre-vious section) appear best suited To show this, these perspectives are analyzed using a pragmatic bottom-up approach to set them as the attributes of the integrated KM model (represented by the two leftmost parts of Figure 6, discussed in later sec-tion)

The most fundamental aspect of any organiza-tional business is the hands-on activities performed for the business The hands-on activities relating to

KM are the pragmatic knowledge-focused activities that infuse any knowledge-enabled organization The essence of knowledge-focused activities is essentially the knowledge content that originates

in the various knowledge assets in the organiza-tion So, it seems obvious that the activities and knowledge assets should be the elementary focus area for any KM implementation effort Thus, the focus in this paper is on these activities and the processes in which they are embedded

Knowledge-focused activities permeate every department of a knowledge-enabled organization These activities may be categorized under one

of the processes of creation, organization, dissemi-nation, and use of organizational knowledge In addition, ideally, these activities should be designed and arranged cyclically by process designers who aim to effectively support and sustain the process

of knowledge creation For example, managers should set up mechanisms and incentives to pro-mote reuse of knowledge captured in groups Thus, the proposed cyclic approach to knowledge processes is appropriate in outlining one attribute

of the integrated KM model, that is, the categoriza-tion of knowledge-focused activities in an organi-zation

In the broader context of knowledge processes that embed the activities, the design of same type

of knowledge process may differ in different domains/departments of the organization For example, in the individual and group domain the process of organizing knowledge is designed with aim of capturing day-to-day problematic issues and pertinent improvisations to address these issues carried by team members, while same pro-cesses (relating to the organizing of knowledge) at the company-wide level are designed with the aim

of capturing the learnings and experiences from projects successfully completed by the company The difference in the design of the same processes for organizing knowledge in the domains of group and whole company respectively is due to the dis-tinct characteristics of knowledge assets in these domains; that is, tacit knowledge-based improvisa-tions by team members at the group level, and

experiences related to project at the company level.

Thus, the practical segregation of organizational

domains and their assets (suggested in previous

section) is appropriate as another attribute of the

implementation-oriented KM model

This discussion shows that the aspects of cyclic

knowledge processes, knowledge assets, and

orga-nizational segregation need to be considered

together in order to address to the two guidelines

set up for implementation-oriented KM models

An approach that unifies these fundamental

aspects is manifested in the integrated KM model

as illustrated in Figure 3

Figure 3 delineates the integrated KM model as

segregated into four different levels (of individual

and group, organization, customer interface, and

global enterprise) with cyclic knowledge processes

(of creation, organization, dissemination, and use

of knowledge) occurring at each level and

lever-aging the relevant knowledge assets (tacit

knowl-edge, production architectures, customer-related knowledge, and knowledge shared across the glo-bal enterprise) at that level The funnel shape of model notionally signifies the ‘growth’ of knowl-edge as it traverses up the organizational hierarchy

as suggested by Hedlund and Nonaka (1993) Going forward, the paper renders a more practi-cal view to the integrated KM model

KNOWLEDGE ACTIVITIES, PROCESSES, AND CYCLES

The knowledge-focused activities and processes are designed with the goal of effectively enabling the creation, organization, dissemination, and use

of knowledge in the organization Deploying a pro-cess across the whole organization, however, often requires assigning different orientations to the same process at different levels of the organization

GLOBAL ENTERPRISE

CUSTOMER INTERFACE

ORGANIZATION

Tacit knowledge Creation

Dissemination and analysis Organization

Product and process architectures and Knowledge repositories Creation

Dissemination and analysis Organization

Enterprise-wide strategic and technical knowledge

Customer-related knowledge Creation

Dissemination and analysis Organization

and analysis

Use

Use

Use

INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP

Figure 3 Integrated KM model

For example, the process of knowledge creation in

the context of a group has an altogether different

goal and orientation in design as compared to the

creation process in the context of customers The

varying goals and orientations of knowledge

pro-cesses across the whole organization can be related

to the holistic Integrated KM model as illustrated in

Table 2

Such holistic categorization of processes enables

the corresponding categorization of the

constitut-ing knowledge-focused activities permeatconstitut-ing the

whole organization It is important to state that

the activities are very broadly categorized, that is,

rather than discussing how an activity may be

designed, the crux of the discussion is: what

activ-ities may be a part of a knowledge process in the

organization

Creation of knowledge

In the domains of the individual and group, the

design of processes relating to the creation of

knowledge are oriented to setting up activities

that assist generation of fresh tacit knowledge

Knowledge-creating activities in the individual

and group domains are generally in the form of

innovations by individuals and knowledge sharing

among individuals in groups Innovation by

indivi-duals is generally enhanced in development teams

by facilitating access to knowledge in related fields

Innovation is a part of job for such teams However,

achieving knowledge creation by getting

indivi-duals in groups to share knowledge involves

devel-oping a culture of knowledge sharing Aiming to

achieve it, managers identify and set up activities

for knowledge sharing in groups and set up

appro-priate mechanisms and incentives For example,

knowledge workers may be selected for each

team to organize weekly meetings to enable the

sharing of experiences, such as problems faced

dur-ing the work and the corresponddur-ing

knowledge-based improvization that was needed to address

these problems (Brown and Duguid, 2000) The

incentives and benchmarks that are intended to

promote knowledge sharing need to be strong

enough to attract participation in

knowledge-sharing activities Knowledge-knowledge-sharing activities in

and across groups may further be enabled

techno-logically For example, groupware enables the

indi-vidual to easily set up virtual teams on a topic or

join existing organization-wide forums to get an

answer to a query (Pohs et al., 2001) Moreover,

relevant organization-wide integrated knowledge

may be proactively pushed in the context of

the individual or group domains by deploying

Personalization technology In particular, an

organization may update its employees with customer-specific knowledge in order to ensure appropriate customer-specific interaction and to stimulate innovation This may involve developing appropriate organizational taxonomy related to projects, products, technology, and customers, that is conveniently accessible through the organi-zational portal Thus, it is the right combination of aspects relating to the scope of IT, developing an appropriate culture and incentives that should be the focal point for management in developing an activity or process for enabling creation of knowl-edge in individual and group domain

In the organizational domain, the process of the

‘creation’ of knowledge encompasses activities for developing and improving organizational produc-tion assets, that is the product and process architec-tures The increasingly volatile market conditions faced by today’s organizations drives them to develop modularity in their production architec-tures Modularity of architectures basically refers

to the ability to reassemble the components repre-sented in a particular architectures to bring out a wide range of products in order to meet the diverse customer demands It also provides the ability to leverage the existing customer knowledge in proac-tively capturing the market through customization

of products

Designing modularity in production architec-tures includes activities for developing flexibility related to both the product and process architec-tures An organization may deploy all existing knowledge to engineer product architectures flex-ible enough to satisfy current and near-future demand of organizational products in market (Sanchez, 1999) If the existing product architecture

is not compatible with these demands, it designs and uses its process architecture to acquire the know-whats, -whys, and -hows of collaborators in order to be able to redesign the product architec-ture Generally, vendors have the capability to supply the resulting standardized modular compo-nents of the product architecture Otherwise, the organization may set up development groups in order to develop these capabilities within the orga-nization

To further enable their production architectures, organization deploys IT enablers like ERP systems

to semi-automate the flow of information between core business processes ERP solutions typically capture both information and process knowledge

in the form of encapsulated business rules Codify-ing these business rules enables the process of cap-turing business critical information Another IT enabler emerging in the Internet-age is what may

be referred to as the ‘corporate ecosystem.’ Such

knowledge Goal

repositories Goal

groups Goal

domain Goal