The document discusses how to create learning organizations. It states that leaders must set conditions for effective learning by ensuring learning can occur through strategic actions and interventions. Managers should act as coaches rather than controllers and criticism should be accepted. Incentives should encourage experimentation and knowledge sharing across organizations. Organizations should be flat with few hierarchies and sparse formalization. Training focuses on collective learning through shared experiences about behavior and skills.

1. Learning Organisations IV -
How to do it? I
• It seems as if the leverage to become a
Learning Organisation is not structure, or at
least not alone, but the Human being itself
• ”Performance of Organisations is depended
on the Implementation of sound and fitting”
HRM measures (don’t we know this already
from Knowledge Sharing?)
© OK 2005
ULa

2. Learning Organisations IV -
How to do it? II
• ”The role of leaders in organizations is
to set necessary conditions for the
organization to develop an effective
learning capability. That is Managers
need to take strategic action and make
specific interventions to ensure that
learning can occur” (Goh 1998)
© OK 2005
ULa

3. Learning Organisations IV -
How to do it? III
Goh, 1998, p. 16
© OK 2005
ULa

4. Learning Organisations IV -
How to do it? IV
1. Employees act according to the Information that they have
obtained in respect to priorities of the organization in an
empowered manner – Aims have to be unambiguous
2. Managers are fellow workers, they should forget about rank
differences; they are not controllers but coaches; criticism is
to be accepted
3. Incentives should be in place for people who are
experimenting and thereby generate new knowledge;
Experimentation is foundation of the Learning Organisation
4. ”best Practices” should be shared not only across the Domain
borders but also across Organisations
5. shift from Domains to Team work as this allows for better
Dissemination of Knowledge across all parts of the
Organisations
© OK 2005
ULa

5. Learning Organisations IV -
How to do it? V
• Organisations are
– Flat
– few hierarchies and
– sparse formalisation
• Training is
– not oriented to fill gaps in order to improve
efficiency of workers
– about collective learning by shared experiences
– about behaviour and skills
© OK 2005
ULa

6. End Day 2
• “Knowledge Management” is allegedly an answer to current
economic conditions
• “Knowledge Management” can be differentiated into a
technological and Business oriented stream
• “Knowledge Management” is pretty much about “Knowledge
Sharing” as a precondition, and than to reframe it
• We have seen what “Knowledge Sharing” is, and what some of
its problems are
• “Learning Organisations” are those which are willing to
encourage their employees to engage in Knowledge Sharing,
set-up fitting measures and change their modes of internal
cooperation to take lessons from experience made at different
levels
© OK 2005
ULa

7. The term of Learning I
• As usual different ideas exist what Learning
means and at which level it occurs
– Is it at the Individual Level, without a strong
relation to the Organisation?
– Is it at the Group/Domain Level when people
exchange ideas and “chit-chat”
– Is it happening with a focus on Organisational
repositioning to a given Environment, lessons
learnt by Senior Management or
– Is it in respect to Organisational internal changes,
like setting up routines (Jones 1995)
© OK 2005
ULa

8. The term of Learning II
• Learning is not confined to the idea of taking ”on
board” more knowledge
• Learning can mean also to engage in a dialogue with
somebody else and by evaluating some statements
engage in new Knowledge generation
⇒ Learning means to construct new perspective,
perceptions
⇒ Learning is aimed and happening in an Interactive
process with others (which do not have to be present
personally)
© OK 2005
ULa

9. On the way to
Knowledge Integration I
• Project work has been used mostly in
settings, which are problem driven and not
allow for Line Organisation solutions
• From this description it becomes apparent,
that Projects may include members of all
parts of the Organisation
• Remember: Projects are time bound Objects
that are there to solve a Problem (s. above)
© OK 2005
ULa

10. On the way to
Knowledge Integration II
• Members of a Project are therefore reflecting
different Domains of the Organisation
• From Psychology it is known that a process
can be observed by which Domain members
– Depersonalise (reduce own characteristics)
– Adapt their behaviour to that of their Domain
– Try to imitate the behaviour of a Sub-group leader
• This phenomena is in particular observable if
a given Domain is subject to „Intra –
Organisational“ stress factors
© OK 2005
ULa

11. On the way to
Knowledge Integration III
• In negative terms these phenomena can be observed
– Stereotyping
– ethnocentrism
• Positive aspects that are observed
– cohesion,
– Cooperation
– Altruism
– Empathy
• In short: Domains that are under stress tend to contract, and
networking is confined to its own circle
– Because external relationship are negative evaluated
– Members might be frightened by uncertainties when working
individually and may loose communication channels with
“outsiders”
© OK 2005
ULa

12. On the way to
Knowledge Integration IV
• Project work in the field of Engineering,but not only there, has
been run as work in the Line Organisation
– Strictly sequential
– Without informing other Domains when in a particular
Domain things turned out to run not smoothly
⇒ Altered Milestones with impacts to overall time scales
⇒ total rework in some Domains, as their contribution would
not fit anymore into the solution as existent, while working to
original agreed plans
• Project work across Domains seem to lack something like an
internal supervision body
• Not necessarily the Project Managers task to supervise that the
different contributions fit together
The Project Manager is in a way the Lion tamer,
© OK 2005
ULa
but not functional oriented!

13. On the way to
Knowledge Integration V
© OK 2005
ULa

14. On the way to
Knowledge Integration VIKI
“knowledge” ”knowing”
© OK 2005
ULa

15. Knowledge Integration I
• Knowledge Integration (KI) is evolving from the field
of Engineering, and there in particular from the field
of Integrated Product Development
• it first was developed implicit by some Swedish guys,
who tried to draw some lessons from the the failures
described
• Is for now focussing on the Individual level of ...yes
what?
– Knowledge Sharing?
– Knowledge Management?
– Knowledge Understanding?
© OK 2005
ULa

16. Knowledge Integration II
I am taking my Approach to KI from the field of
Rapid Product Development (RPD)
⇒ How to minimise time-to-market cycles, in times of
globalised markets?
⇒ How can we generate quick, Prototypes to visualise
solutions while not increasing Project costs?
⇒ What to do if you are working in separate time-zones, with
quit different cultures potentially?
⇒ Have to agree your Project inputs via Tools like CSCW
Applications
⇒ You and your colleagues are coming from very different
Domains (e.g. Design Department vs. Marketing; Production
vs. Design)
© OK 2005
ULa

17. Knowledge Integration III
• „It [KI] examines the processes under which a
successful exchange of Information and Knowledge
is happening“ (Hislop 2003)
• “synthesis of individual specialised Knowledge into
situation-specific systemic knowledge” (Alavi/
Timawa 2001)
• “the compilation of systemic networked meta-
knowledge which forms a bridge between previously
isolated areas of knowledge and experience. It relies
on the ability to define problems independently of
disciplines and to solve them on an interdisciplinary
basis“ (Ganz/Hermann 1999)
© OK 2005
ULa

18. Social Identity Theory
Group-membership
-assimilation to prototype
- social attraction hypothesis
- Leadership based on Prototypicality
Leadership allows
- change in def. Of Prototype
- define new Norms
- pressure on Deviant members
Results:
-Leaders are not selected based on capabilities
- overall in the Orga. Management is a rep.of a dominant Type
- overall Org. are becoming prone to be abusive to others
(Hogg/Terry 2000)
© OK 2005
ULa

19. Knowledge Integration IV
• Problems that were identified as being
endemic to Project work
– Coordination (as described if plans would
have to be altered)
– Communication (the sequential form of
Development/ work is maintained)
– Knowledge Sharing (with all the short-
comings described there)
© OK 2005
ULa

20. Knowledge Integration V
(Steinheider 1999)
© OK 2005
ULa

21. Knowledge Integration VI
• Essential premises on which KI rests:
– People know different things if they are engaged
in Project work
– Different Disciplines take different views, and
perceive different components if looking onto the
same Problem (!!)
– Socialisation proliferates Domain specific
• Role models and “Norms”
• Cognitive styles
• Sets of knowledge
• Standard Approaches to Problem solution
© OK 2005
ULa

22. Knowledge Integration VII
• Therefore some important features can be
isolated:
– Project members need to understand the Project
in the same way
– Vocabulary has to be agreed and stored for all
members accessible
– Project members have to become known to each
other to build Trust (why?)
– Projects need to have a set of „Norms“ which
allows to sanction behaviour if a certain length of
Project is to be expected
© OK 2005
ULa

23. Generation of shared Project
meaning
E1 E2 E3 Project Level w. working fields
Secondary Socialisation
S1 S2 S3 Socialised Individuals
Primary Socialisation
I1 I2 I3
Individuals
© OK 2005
ULa

24. „Norms“ in Projects
© OK 2005
ULa

25. Knowledge Integration VIII
• Different Methods of KI are distinguished and
focussing on different aspects:
– Formal Interventions (Oykhusen/Eisenhardt)
– Thinking along (“Dutch school”)
=> Are in a strong sense methods as they give
suggestions for behaviour and what should
happen during them
– “Communities of practice”
=> Are in my view not a method, but a description of
a group of people who share sufficient Knowledge
to understand what the partners mean
© OK 2005
ULa

26. Knowledge Integration IX
• Challenges when taking KI serious
– Fit of Incentives to this mode of Project internal
Cooperation
– Individual Project members will have to live with
challenges to their Domain SI
– While embedded in an overall Organisational
setting, large Scale Projects are becoming
„Departments“ on their own
– Surveillance and control options for Line
managers are more and more alienated from the
workers experience
© OK 2005
ULa

27. General results I
• Rethinking some of the basics
– Project work is not independent of the general
climate in the Organisation
– Knowledge has different meanings and modes of
existence
– Worthwhile to ask which term of Knowledge is
used and
– Knowledge and its spread can be considered from
at least two perspectives: ICT and Business
© OK 2005
ULa

28. General Results II
• the field of topics dealing with Knowledge
KM, KS, LO, KI
• Some of these Areas are seemingly more compact
than others, while being internally more complex
• Dealing with Knowledge means in the first instance
dealing with Human beings and their motivations!
• A meaningful discussion in the field of Knowledge
means to lay open the individually used conception of
Knowledge!
• Knowledge is socially negotiated and agreed
meaning about nature as well as social Objects
© OK 2005
ULa