The Importance Of Knowledge Management And Its Role In Organizations

Decision Making in Daily Life

Discuss about the Critical Knowledge Management in Organizations.

I have decided to go for a horror movie and today is the first day of the movie. The movie has done sufficient branding and advertisement and that looked quite interesting. The trailers and pictures were highly attracting for a horror movie lover. However, the movie seemed to be every scary after I watched the movie.  The information’s that I had were the trailers, that seemed really attractive and scary, the banners and advertisements that were hi-lighted for few days before the movie was realised. Apart from this the other source of information was the previous series of the movie that was also well-framed and attracting for horror movie lovers. These were the only information that I had. After watching the movie, I realized the movie was too scary. It was scary than what I had expected. I would have given thought before watching this movie if I had the review from others who would have watched the movie earlier.

I have decided to eat burger from a new store, which has recently opened in our neighbourhood. The store is specializing its collection on snacks and light food items. The store is new and I have got reviews from people about their good taste and sense of flavour. The store has become famous in our locality within a short span of time. The store includes all the latest food items that falls under the snacks item. However, after visiting the store I realized that they have a good sense of flavour and along with that they also have a decent and polite behaviour for each and every clients. I was unaware of this data and that improved my knowledge and preference for this store more. The staffs were really gentle and decent, they were treating every single clients were decently. I think I made a good decision by coming here and I would also recommend my friends to come here.

I decided to buy a book but I was not sure which one to buy. Finally then I bought a fashion magazine that looked very attractive to me. I had a deep concern for fashion readings and culture. The book seemed to be quiet good and attractive to me and thus I bought the book. I do not have a detailed idea about the contents yet I bought the book because in generalised sense fashion relates to different cultures present styling, that might be similar to my choice or not. We generally like a fashion culture or trend if it is common in our culture and we have similar choice for it. even if the book contains fashion culture of my opposite choice or something that is not related my I will not be disappointed. Instead I will be happy and interested to know  about further culture and fashions.

Importance of Knowledge Management in Organizations

The fourth decision that I made was buying a new fruit salad that was sold in the store. The store from where I buy my monthly belongings brings latest food items and tastes. Me being a big-time foodie, decided to try the fruit salad that was wrapped in a pack. They must have been preserved and has a lasting for one day only. I was trying to diet for this month and this fruit salad was ideal for my appetite. My love for food would have never died so I decided to try something new that will go parallel to my diet. Thus, I decided to try the food. The food item was new in market and no one had much idea about it. The salad was good but it had few fruits that were not choices and I had to throw them as I could have it.

Today I decided to travel in the train instead of travelling in the share cabs. The cabs were too less and there was a long queue so I decided to travel in the train. However, I had decided to travel randomly and very rarely I travel in this transport system. The train was very crowded and I was not aware about this as I had very less knowledge about this transport. If I were a daily passenger then I would have had a better idea about the transport and its rush. The choice was just a random one and I wish I had a pre-information about the choice then I could have selected the most desired and suitable source of transportation for myself.

Knowledge management plays a vital role in every organization and institutions. It is important to have proper knowledge management skills in the industry thus determining the easy flow of knowledge to every section and expanding the scope for spread of knowledge in future. In high school knowledge, sharing and information collection is basic part that involves a proper and systematic flow of knowledge in every sector(Holtshouse 2013). Present days are using various technologies that helps to maintain this flow of knowledge and manage them accordingly. High schools will be benefitted if they use latest technologies and tools for proper knowledge management(Jones and Sallis 2013). It will help them to have the following advantage:

• Proper knowledge search
• Content repository
• Communication channels
• Social software’s
• Knowledge visualization
• Decision support
• Big data collection

The high school with which I am familiar with uses the following technologies to maintain knowledge management:

• They use document management system that helps them to keep themselves updated about the student and teachers attendance, educational standard, scores, behaviour, syllabus, working of the teachers and many more information(McKeough, Lupart, and Marini 2013).
• They use the big data supporting technology to analyse, scrutinise information, and make decisions accordingly. The school has to maintain details of many entities and make decision about them. This technology helps them to keep a record of every student as the details are saved in excel and then they are scrutinized whenever required(Lin et al 2013).

Strategies and Technologies for Knowledge Management

The school is using such latest technologies to improve their data however, they can improve themselves in many other ways such as:

• They can use software that will support the communication among the parents and the teachers. This will help the school authority to keep updating the parents about the progress report of the student and inform them if any complains are also to be done to the parents. This will improve the knowledge expansion among the workers. On the other side, this is also beneficial for the teachers and management system as this will also create a continuous communication channel between them. This will improve the communication channel and knowledge spreading scope among the workers thus making work easier(Teo and Bhattacherjee 2014).
• They can use content repository tools to manage and synchronize data in the organization. Presently most organizations are using tools that can diverse contents like social content, web content. They help to manage data and maintain it accordingly. The tool helps to build a better management system and makes the working easier and faster than before(Wu, Lee and Shu 2013).

Transferring of tacit knowledge through socialization refers to a situation where the individuals are not forced to maintain the rules or regulations, however, here every one is expected to know and believe the norms from their own choice and preference(Hislop 2013). There are few pros of such situation like:

• The knowledge does not require any external sources to implement its action to the individuals.
• A mutual understanding and similarity in thought style is found in such situation.
• It makes the individuals more synchronized and compatible among each other.
• There is no need for teaching the rules to the fresher’s or new comers.

Cons:

• Ill practises night be continued by this strategy.
• Harmful knowledge and information may get carry forwarded in the generation or society.
• Wrong information or knowledge might be given to the society.
• Misunderstanding about the culture can created by ill use of the knowledge.

Knowledge is also transferred by explicit approach and the pros of such type are:

• There will be proper implementation of the knowledge
• No unethical practises can be followed.
• The knowledge will be utilized at a desired destination only
• The knowledge will have its own strength and stability in society

• It can be stressful and disturbing for maintaining the knowledge.
• The society might have a different view-point which they cannot implement.
• The knowledge might not be liked by all and instead a negative impression will be created about the knowledge.

If the purpose is to transfer the information from one person to another then socialization is a good approach as in this situation a mere understanding of knowledge will create an idea about the knowledge and it can followed(Hatak and Roessl 2015). Thus, I would select socialized form to share knowledge when it comes to one person.

However, if the information or knowledge has to be transferred from one person to 100 then it has to in the form of explicit type. In this type the knowledge has to be spread in form of externalization and them internalization to make each and every entity understand the requirement for following the knowledge.

The knowledge management system used was inappropriate and has to be implemented in a systematic manner. Thus, software that was used were not correct for this organization. The population in this organization is high and thus they need a more systematic and well-framed management system to handle to entire data. The organization has to be more specific about transferring their knowledge(Blome, Schoenherr and Eckstein 2014). They have very casual and reluctant manner to spread the knowledge and many times the knowledge’s are not considered. The company should make sure that the information is reaching the required destination in an appropriate manner. The change in knowledge or information can be really dangerous and harmful for the organization(Sarala et al 2016). The same has happened with this organization. The knowledge’s or information never reached the destined person or the message was changed thus changing the whole structure of the message. This created a lot of confusion and chaos in the organization thus leading to its downfall. The organization can used a well-framed communication system that will reach to the required person with the required information. The organization should not uninstall the knowledge management section, instead it can use better skills to enhance the knowledge transfer system and maintain it regularly. The management should introduce new plans and strategies that will reduce the misunderstanding and chaos in the organization. A proper knowledge management does not mean only to implement the strategies. It requires the proper implementation of proper strategies that are appropriate for the organization. The above condition is result of lack of proper management of the knowledge management system in the organization. The skilled knowledge that is required to implement the information is not present in the company(Noruzy et al 2013). The company should  take the initiative  to reduce the issues that are relation to this system by making proper changes and not by abolishing the  system. Thus, it is expected that if the company is taking measurable steps to maintain a transparency in the knowledge transfer system then the issues and challenges faced by the company will be resolved.

References:

Blome, C., Schoenherr, T. and Eckstein, D., 2014. The impact of knowledge transfer and complexity on supply chain flexibility: A knowledge-based view. International Journal of Production Economics, 147, pp.307-316.

Hatak, I.R. and Roessl, D., 2015. Relational competence-based knowledge transfer within intrafamily succession: An experimental study. Family Business Review, 28(1), pp.10-25.

Hislop, D., 2013. Knowledge management in organizations: A critical introduction. Oxford University Press.

Holtshouse, D.K., 2013. Information technology for knowledge management. Springer Science & Business Media.

Jones, G. and Sallis, E., 2013. Knowledge management in education: Enhancing learning & education. Routledge.

Lin, H.M., Lin, P.J., Yen, I.F. and Shih, Y.T., 2013. Knowledge transfer among mne’s subsidiaries: a conceptual framework for knowledge management. International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online), 6(1), p.6.

McKeough, A., Lupart, J.L. and Marini, A. eds., 2013. Teaching for transfer: Fostering generalization in learning. Routledge.

Noruzy, A., Dalfard, V.M., Azhdari, B., Nazari-Shirkouhi, S. and Rezazadeh, A., 2013. Relations between transformational leadership, organizational learning, knowledge management, organizational innovation, and organizational performance: an empirical investigation of manufacturing firms. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 64(5-8), pp.1073-1085.

Sarala, R.M., Junni, P., Cooper, C.L. and Tarba, S.Y., 2016. A sociocultural perspective on knowledge transfer in mergers and acquisitions. Journal of Management, 42(5), pp.1230-1249.

Teo, T.S. and Bhattacherjee, A., 2014. Knowledge transfer and utilization in IT outsourcing partnerships: A preliminary model of antecedents and outcomes. Information & Management, 51(2), pp.177-186.

Wu, W.L., Lee, Y.C. and Shu, H.S., 2013. Knowledge management in educational organizations: A perspective of knowledge spiral. International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online), 5(4), p.7.