This report aims to identify and analyse the issues of knowledge management present in the global technology giant, Hewlett-Packard. Knowledge management as argued by Noruzy et al. (2013) is a process adopted by the organisations which allows the company to capture, distribute and effectively using the knowledge for the development of products and services provided to the customers. Knowledge as perceived by the contemporary business organisations is an important element and is relevant in attaining sustainability. This is because every tangible or intangible factors associated with business operation is considered as knowledge. It is often associated with the common factors like employees, customers, money, leverage, learning, flexibility, power and competitive advantage. Hence, it makes it important for the companies to look after the accumulation, distribution and utilisation of knowledge for attain sustainability in the competitive market. In other words, knowledge based organisations have to constantly update their knowledge database for keeping themselves up to date. This will keep them aware of the market condition. The company then have to circulate the accumulate knowledge in various section of the organisation. However, accumulation and distribution of knowledge is not sufficient for bringing sustainability in the competitive market. They require utilising the knowledge to bring sustainability through advancement of the business process as per the requirement communicated in the knowledge acquired. A number of principles guide the knowledge management process in an organisation. These are the principles developed for addressing the commonly faced by the organisation managing their knowledge (Geisler and Wickramasinghe 2015). The principles related to leadership and organisational culture, communities of practice and human resource management will be discussed in the following in accordance to the issues of found in HP. The issues present in the case of HP will be identified and analysed in the report. The report also provides recommendation for overcoming the knowledge management issues identified in the case.
Leadership, Organisational Culture and KM at HP
One of the primary issues that can be identified in the case of HP is the leadership and cultural issue. This can again be attributed to the organisational structure. HP has a decentralised structure that allows the units to operate as single autonomous group. This again facilitates in the development of autonomous culture in the single units. Hence, the circulation and distribution of the developed knowledge is restricted into the individual departments. Moreover, the knowledge educators and trainers reflects reluctant attitude in sharing their knowledge with other similar groups that potentially restricts the capabilities for the overall organisation. HP as a united organisation has little information about the extent of its actual knowledge database.
According to Taylor (2013), it is important from an organisation to develop an integrated structure for increased efficiency in knowledge management. This further requires an efficient leadership approach for motivating the employees to take part in the knowledge sharing process. Decentralised structure of HP has definitely facilitated them in directing employees’ brainpower towards business-specific focus. This can be attributed for the business success. Moreover, this helped them establishing an autonomous culture that developed an open and high level of information sharing among the autonomous groups. This caused them in considering decentralised structure even after failing in knowledge management in the overall organisation and connecting the units through channelizing the knowledge throughout the units.
Supervision is one of the essential factors involved in knowledge management of an organisation. Leaders facilitate in motivating the employees in sharing the knowledge. These are responsible for motivating the employee and promote knowledge sharing throughout the organisation. The motivational leaderships will help in communicating the goals to the group members so that they are able to maximise their potentials (Casey et al. 2013). It also maintains the institutional morale in against the negative attitudes. Motivation keeps the employees confident in all conditions and they perform more efficiently. Motivational leaders show commitments to the tasks of the others in order to demonstrate the commitment to the team as well as the mission of the company. Moreover, this can help in gaining a positive attitude, creativity and optimism in every projects (Hislop 2013).
As explained by Carmeli, Gelbard and Reiter-Palmon (2013) the role of a leader is not only to motivate the employees in knowledge sharing, but also in tracking the performance of the employees in the process of sharing. They are responsible for developing culture within the groups that has the potential to motivate the employees in taking time for sharing the knowledge. The employees share courage and responsibility in doing their tasks backed up by proper knowledge (Tseng and Kuo 2014). HP’s autonomous culture has successfully established knowledge sharing within the autonomous groups that considerably increases the group performance. However, this culture according to Mueller (2014) fails to satisfy the knowledge management need of the overall organisational structure as it restricts the knowledge flow in the overall structure.
Hence, it is necessary for the organisation to implement leadership for enabling knowledge sharing between the units of HP. It is required for motivating the employees for taking part in the knowledge sharing process. As put forward by Mittal and Dhar (2015), transformational leadership can help in gaining success in the field. Moreover, change in culture can be brought revising the decentralised structure into centralised or semi-centralised structure.
Transformational leadership will help encouraging the employees for participating into knowledge sharing activity with the units within the organisation (Kark and Shamir 2013). Moreover, the case also reflects that implementation of motivational factors have limited utility and the employees largely reflects reluctant attitude towards knowledge sharing. Implementation of transformational leadership will help identifying the issue within individual employees and act accordingly to motivate them separately towards the purpose. It enhances motivation along with the job performance of the average employees through various mechanisms. Transformational leadership connects the sense of identity with the projects build a collective identity of the organization. The leaders have knowledge as well as understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the followers and then align them for enhancing their performances (Casey et al. 2013).
Semi-centralised organisational structure on the other hand will give the higher authority limited power through which they will be able to control a considerable portion over the autonomous units within the organisation. Here the higher authorities will have limitations in acting as a supreme power so they will not be able to change the entire policies of the company but will be needing recommendations from these autonomous bodies managing different sections of the organization. This will help changing the prevalent culture of the company and will be more democratic. The employees will have more power and authorities to control the company’s norms and prevent undesired changes in the organization.
Principles of KM and HP
HP case of knowledge management reflects failure in holding some of the primary principles of knowledge management that are requirement of leadership, simplicity of the knowledge, knowledge sharing culture, knowledge access and finally the community of practice. The company is failing in addressing the mentioned principles due to various organisational factors that is restricting them from making the right decision and establishing necessary knowledge management for organisational success in the competitive market.
Leadership issue in the knowledge management of the organisation can be attributed due to the decentralised structure. This limits the upper management to direct the workforce according to their need of knowledge management. The company however have developed an autonomous culture in their separate units that in turn helped them to attain greater success in the specific fields. Autonomy of the organisational units again imposes restriction in knowledge management by denying circulation of knowledge developed (Hau et al. 2013). This restricts the organisation to develop understanding of the actual volume of their stored knowledge. Moreover, this restricts them from exploring and utilising the knowledge when required. Principles of simplicity in knowledge management on the other hand prioritise the need of simplification of the knowledge. The knowledge shared needs to be simple enough, so that the stakeholders utilising it can develop understanding of the knowledge and utilise it according to the need.
Knowledge sharing culture on the other hand, as mentioned in the earlier section is absent in the organisation. According to Titi Amayah (2013), knowledge sharing is one of the important activity enlisted under knowledge management process. This principle of knowledge management seeks the organisation to establish efficient knowledge sharing. In other words, it is the circulation of developed knowledge within the organisation enabling various departments to gain access to the knowledge that can be used for directing the business accordingly in accordance with the respected units. This synchronisation between the units using knowledge management helps the organisations to explore greater efficiency, help aligning the units of the organisation, and direct it towards the attainment of the same overall goal set by the organisation.
Lastly, principle of community of practice in knowledge management is the intranet network designed by the management of the organisation. This helps in channelizing the knowledge between the stakeholders of the organisation. This helps in the utilisation of the knowledge developed. The manager of HP, however, needs to develop understanding of the knowledge requirement and possessed knowledge of the company for designing the appropriate network that will make the knowledge available to the stakeholders associated. The contemporary knowledge management process incorporates the intranet connection between the geographically dispersed units of the organisation for establishing knowledge sharing between the communities. Establishment of the same further help in sorting the knowledge depending on the content that will make is easy for the stakeholders in accessing the shared knowledge (Majchrzak et al. 2013). Development of social intranet software can be recommended for resolving the internal communication issues and information sharing. The internal stakeholders like employees belonging from other units of the organisation can explore the knowledge at the time of need. Establishment of customer helpline portal on the other hand can be used for satisfying the customer need of knowledge.
HRM Practices at HP
Company is also facing issues in the human resource management as it is failing in facilitating knowledge management. This can be considered as a knowledge management crisis in the company. HP holds firm grip on both the external sources of knowledge and internal expertise that can facilitate in developing quality knowledge management within the organisation. The HR management of HP is compromised in establishing well-built communication due to the decentralised structure. This helps the company in building autonomous units that have the potential of attaining increased specialisation, which again makes it difficult in knowledge sharing between the units. The decentralised structure of the organisation reflects a culture of sharing knowledge within the unit that helps in individual growth. Lack of motivational practices incorporated by the HR management of the organisation further restricts the employees from taking time in sharing the knowledge with the other units. The held the workshop for identifying the needs of knowledge and mediums of transferring it to the desired.
As defined by Sikora and Ferris (2014), efficiency of a knowledge management depends on the capability of human resource management of the organisation. HP’s human resource management fails in establishing communication and collaboration between units that makes it hard for the company to gain fluent knowledge sharing between the departments. However, the HR management prefers the decentralisation of the organisational structure as it is serving them well in bringing unit autonomy that helps in attaining sectional success.
As identified by He et al. (2013), the structure is the primary obstacle that is limiting the opportunity for the company in bringing overall unity and cross-sectional knowledge sharing. This facilitates in communication gap between the units. The failure of HR management in establishing communication between the units can be attributed to the failure of leadership abilities of the knowledge management champions. These leaders are responsible for taking specific initiatives, facilitating community practices and similar activities that will enable to establish a greater network of knowledge sharing within the organisation. Hence, better leadership style is required for attaining success in HR management that will help in attaining success in company’s knowledge management. Moreover, the HR management also face in issues in motivating packages offered. The company has not incorporated any incentive policy for motivating the units in knowledge sharing. Olubusayo, Stephen and Maxwell (2014) argued that it is important for HP to establish an incentive package that will enable the company in motivating them for taking part in data sharing as the activities required is the extra effort the employees have to put. The workshop conducted by the organisation promotes for the incentive in terms of airlines miles for limited number of participants, which fails in motivating the employees. The HR management of the organisation needs to establish an effective incentive policy and have a transparency for providing equal opportunity for the employees participating in knowledge sharing.
Recommendation and Conclusion
The primary issues that have been identified that are creating restricting HP from exploring full potential in knowledge management are ineffective leadership, decentralised structure, non-sharing culture and poor HR management practice. The company can explore the full benefits of knowledge management in the global organisation on adaptation of the following modifications recommended.
The first modification that can be recommended for HP is the change in leadership style. Engelen et al. (2014) have argued that transformational leadership is effective in the contemporary competitive market for both directing and motivating the employees of an organisation. Implementation of transformational leadership in the current business structure of HP will enable them to explore greater possibilities for knowledge management over the geographically dispersed units. This will encourage the employees of autonomous units to share take time for sharing the generated knowledge with the supporting units of the company.
The transformational leader is further expected to play the role of a knowledge leader. This as defined by Birasnav (2014) will help the company in designing required knowledge sharing network. Development and implementation of social intranet software can be recommended for building network between the units. This will help the internal stakeholders of the company that are employee over the units to access required knowledge from other units of the organisation that are geographically dispersed. External stakeholders of the company under the community of practice can be connected through the helpline portal. This will require the company to conduct survey for understanding frequent issues. Knowledge can be made accessible aligning with the survey results for ensuring customer satisfaction in the process.
The second modification required in HP is the change in structure. Jani?ijevi? (2013) explained that decentralised structure does have potential of increasing capability of specific units of an organisation. However, this directs the company towards greater threat of disharmony in the organisation, which HP is currently facing. Centralised or semi centralised structure of the company will enable the higher management to gain moderate level of control over its units that will help changing the non-sharing culture of the company. The management can then direct the employees in developing knowledge sharing between the units that will also help them estimating the extent of the knowledge database possessed by the company. This can again help them directing the knowledge flow according to the need and utilise them for attaining growth. In association of this, it is possible to recommend that the company can enrol knowledge navigator. The responsible of a knowledge champion, who is otherwise considered as the leader, extends in motivating the employees in sharing simplified knowledge in the network enabling the readers to make meaning out of it. Furthermore, understanding of the knowledge requirement and channelizing of the same falls under the responsibility of the knowledge navigator. It is expected from a knowledge navigator have understanding where about of the knowledge and connect it with the people is in need of the same. There is no as such position created in the HR management of HP who will rack the location of knowledge and help the needy to gain access to the knowledge.
Benefits of it as identified by Ceptureanu and Ceptureanu (2015) lies in knowledge mapping and knowledge distribution according to the need of particular need. The personnel will be responsible for tracking the source of the knowledge and area of need for the particular knowledge. This will then help the company is directing the knowledge flow accordingly for utilisation of the generated unused knowledge of the company.
Lastly, HR management of the company fails in motivating their employees in knowledge sharing that limits the potential as discussed several times. The gap of communication can be bridged implementing effective communication strategy. An effective communication strategy in an organisation as argued by Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok (2013) is the two-way communication. This not only helps in conveying message to the employees but also provides opportunity to the employees to communicate issues faced. Recommended strategy for establishing two-way communication is training program. This will help communicating the communication policy of to the employees and develop communication skills of the employees. Motivation as mentioned earlier is another issue. The company can develop beneficial incentive policy for the employees on sharing and accessing knowledge for attaining greater growth of the company (Olubusayo, Stephen and Maxwell 2014). The role of transformational leadership can facilitate in the process as they can then identify the greater need of the employees working under the units and develop their incentive policy accordingly.
Hence, the above recommendation for incorporation of knowledge navigator will help in identifying the position of the knowledge within the organisation, which can then be transferred to the desired location for supporting the needy. For instance, HP can then help the computer dealers who seek technical support by providing them appropriate knowledge regarding the issue faced. The knowledge champion on the other hand will help in designing the channel, which will be utilised in transmitting the knowledge throughout the organisation and supporting the external stakeholders for the matter. Knowledge champion will further help in establishing leadership and encouraging the employees in sharing simplified knowledge that have utility to the other internal and external stakeholders of the organisation.
Henceforth, it can be concluded that HP can gain access to the full potential of knowledge management on implementation of the above recommendation that will not only modify the organisational culture, but also utilise the developed unused knowledge towards the goal of attaining growth for the company.
References
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