2. Knowledge Development
A world of increasing knowledge flows….
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Growth
Time
Output of information and knowledge
Human absorptive capacity
3. • …that is increasingly connected.
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Nodes are individuals and colors represent organizations
Casper & Murray 2002
4. The extent to which networks of individuals and
organizations, markets, and technologies are
interconnected across geographic and cultural
boundaries
– Beech and Chadwick 2004, Friedman 2002
What is your company’s global strategy?
From a multi-domestic company to a successful global
firm
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6. Benefits of knowledge Development
• Profitable growth through higher efficiency and innovation
– Preventing the waste of valuable resources - avoid reinventing the wheel
– Ensuring the use of leading-edge technology and thinking across the firm
– Increasing customer satisfaction through shorter lead-times and
consistent behavior
– Creating a competitive cost structure
– Facilitating breakthrough and incremental innovations through
combination of technologies and ideas from across and outside the firm
• An attractive workplace that encourages cross-functional co-operation
across the globe
– Attracting and retaining key individuals
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7. “We know more than we can tell.” (Michael Polanyi, 1966)
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Creating
knowledge
Embedding
knowledge
Disseminating
knowledge
Organizing
knowledge
C
KD
8. Information Technology & Knowledge Development
1) Stocks of knowledge: Database and database
management systems to collect and hold
information
2) Flows of knowledge: Communication channels to
connect individuals independent of location
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9. Challenges to knowledge databases
• Time consuming and difficult
– Takes times for writer to document experiences
– Takes time for reader to search through databases,
information overload
– Often weak incentives to contribute golden nuggets
• Difficult to understand
– Difficult for writer to explain context, tacit ->explicit
– Difficult for reader to interpret experience and use in
own situation
• Data becomes out-of-date very quickly
– Difficult to maintain, especially in fast moving
industries
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10. • Avoid creating information junkyards
• Connecting people so that they collaborate, share
ideas, and create knowledge
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11. Communities
• Groups of people who come together to share and to learn from
one another face-to-face and/or virtually.
• They are held together by a common interest in a body of
knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share
problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best
practices.
• Members deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing
basis.
• This interaction leads to continuous learning and innovation
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12. Role of Communities
• Create: Own & develop knowledge
– Develop & manage good practice
– Build organizational competence
• Organize: Develop & manage materials
– Develop tools, guidelines, templates
– Manage databases
• Disseminate: Connect people across boundaries
– Who knows what
– Home in changing organization & an uprooted society
• Embed: Share ideas & insights
– Share tacit, complex ideas & insights
– Help each other solve problems & find innovations
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16. R'tist @ Tourism
Organization
Don’t forget to support informal external networks at the individual level!
Electronic
communities
Partners
Customers and
suppliers
Previous work and
school colleagues
External
Large portion of new ideas and formal
collaboration relationships come from
personal external contacts
17. R'tist @ Tourism
Encourage an open innovation attitude
Not all the smart people work
for us. We need to work with
smart people inside and
outside the company.
The smart people in our
field work for us.
If you create the most
and the best ideas in
the industry, you will
win.
If you make the best use
of internal and external
ideas, you will win.
Closed attitude Open attitude
Chesborough 2003
