Developing a conceptual model of Knowledge Society

DEVELOPING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

Peyman Akhavan, PhD student of Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran

[email protected] Dr. Mostafa Jafari, Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran

[email protected] Dr. Mehdi N. Fesharaki, Malek Ashtar University of Technology, Iran

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Knowledge management is known as the main enabler for competitive advantage in knowledge era. The governments have also understood the importance of knowledge in this era and try to manage their knowledge efforts at the national level within their organizations in public/private sectors. The intelligent governments are moving towards knowledge society and support knowledge activities in an effective way. This research is to analyze the knowledge efforts in different countries within different continents to develop a common model for knowledge society. This conceptual model can help governments to concentrate their knowledge efforts towards knowledge society. Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge society, conceptual model, strategic planning, government, qualitative research

INTRODUCTION

We are facing with a revolution in the world economy, a change for an economy based on knowledge. In the “knowledge society” (7), traditional production factors, such as work, capital and land, have become secondary and knowledge is now the most important resource. Stewart (20) reinforces this idea saying that in the new “information era”, the main resources are not natural resources or physical work, but knowledge and communication. This transformation is apparently irreversible and uncontrollable. In other words, political economies are increasingly transformed into knowledge-based economies by the additional sub-dynamics of systematically organized innovation processes. Because national economies are open systems surrounded by an external environment, they interact with a variety of elements in the society. The resulting dynamics are complex and can therefore no longer be expected to contain central coordination. As society continues to integrate computers and the Internet more and more into daily life, knowledge management becomes increasingly more important (4). This exploding access to information and knowledge has created many changes in our economy and in the way we do business. These changes have accelerated the global economy, as evident by the tripling of global goods and services from 1980 to 2001. This in turn has created more demanding consumers as this acceleration in the market has increased competition and created more supply choices (12). All of these effects have led to a new, buyer demand market where the buyers dictate what they want. This buyer-pull economy means that businesses must be ready to change their processes quickly in order to meet their customer needs (16). In addition, the

1

efficiency and processing power of computers have drastically shortened the supply chain, making faster decisions even more important. This has pushed many companies to streamline their process in order to get their items up for sale faster or at a lower price than their competitors (21). Of course, this increase in the pace of business has its associated costs, and is forcing companies to reduce costs and save money wherever possible. This is where KM comes in. In order to compete, the businesses and companies of today must maximize the efficiency of their processes and systems in order to survive and thrive in today’s markets. Companies no longer have the luxury of protracted research and product development cycles (4). It is quickly becoming mandatory for modern organizations to be flexible and have the ability to deal with change. This is where KM can help the most, by utilizing the untapped wealth of knowledge and ability available to an organization from its information systems and its worker’s wisdom and experience. Knowledge gained from these sources can streamline processes, shorten process times, and reduce overall costs. With this ever-increasing pace of business, organizations must be able to change quickly to deal with these changing trends in order to remain competitive (6). In other words, we are living in what can be considered a ‘post-industrial’ society because the system is no longer local, but knowledge-based and hence continuously globalizing (2, 3, and 5). In the post-industrial society a plethora of information and knowledge has continuously to be managed. One witnesses the explosion of information and knowledge produced and distributed by the traditional forms of knowledge supplier systems such as universities as well as research and development sectors in both public and private organizations, government institutions, and pressure groups. In this configuration, it is essential for a nation that the institutional retention mechanism is adapted to the evolving knowledge base (8). In addition, the transition to a knowledge-based economy requires the transformation of the political economy. While the latter is mainly based on the coordination between private capital and public control, the systematic organization of innovation at the social level continuously upsets and transforms the public/private interfaces in new arrangements among heterogeneous partners. The function of government itself then also has to change. Furthermore, in this knowledge-based economy, it is obvious that knowledge management is a crucial issue for firms to develop and to maintain competitive advantages (13).

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Nowadays organizations have realized the importance of knowledge and knowledge management. The organizations know that machines, equipments, and building cannot count as the most important properties of the organization. It is clear that the most important property of every organization is organizational knowledge and correct management of it will cause core competencies for the organization and victory against the competitors (1). The organizations have realised that “knowledge” is a strategic resource that gives them sustainable competitive advantage and helps them achieve their long term organisational goals. The realisation that knowledge is the key driver behind organisational success comes from the need to respond to markets that are becoming global and increasingly competitive, stakeholders that are more sophisticated and demanding, and an ever-increasing rate of technological change. It is knowledge that helps organizations deal with these challenges effectively. With the realisation that knowledge is their core competency, organizations are now attempting to manage knowledge in a more systematic and effective way using the latest advances in computer and information technologies. Knowledge management techniques and tools, a collective of processes or activities that helps organizations harness knowledge, have

2

been used by organizations to encourage the creation and sharing of knowledge. It thus results in the improvement of productivity, innovation, competitiveness, as well as the relationship among people in those organizations. Knowledge is a strategic and important resource, especially to the production process that the specific knowledge embedded in the organization members are needed (9). There is a strong linkage between organization knowledge and competitive advantage. Therefore, the main role of the firm is to integrate effectively various types of knowledge. In other words, the essence of organizational capability is to integrate specific knowledge, further apply in various functions and then create value. As a result, knowledge management has attracted increasing attention over the last decade (10, 11, and 18). The debate about what is “knowledge,” has a long and torturous history in the social and natural sciences. For our purposes, however, the concept of “knowledge” can be narrowed down to several key dimensions. In its most basic form, “knowledge” is the combination of information and human context that enhances the capacity for action. There are two dimensions that managers must keep in mind, however. The fist dimension of knowledge is usually characterized as explicit or tacit, or structured and unstructured knowledge. Explicit or structured knowledge is represented in documents, databases, products, and processes. This is knowledge that can be codified and shared in formal, systematic languages or objects. Tacit or unstructured knowledge is more dependent on action, context and personal experience, which makes it difficult to formalize and communicate. Secondly, knowledge may be viewed at the individual, group, or organizational levels. The focus of knowledge management is primarily to improve use at the organizational level. In this research, we want to add a new level in addition to individual, group, and organizational level. In this way, knowledge management will be analyzed through country lens and the necessities will be studied at national level by monitoring knowledge management activities at different countries in different continents. In this way, a multinational KM approach will be developed and a new mode will be conceptualized.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION

In the methodological approach for this study, the authors adopted a qualitative research design due to their need for rich data that could facilitate the generation of theoretical categories that could not derive satisfactorily from existing data. In particular, due to the exploratory nature of this research and the interest of authors in identifying the main subjects, events, activities, and influences that affect the progress of change management efforts during knowledge management establishment in a country, they selected the grounded theory style of data interpretation, which was blended with the case study design. Data used in this paper comes from a longitudinal study during some months examining new knowledge establishment processes with respect to knowledge management efforts at a macro level (country). This research paradigm, which was based on an in-depth qualitative study, derives its theoretical insights from naturally occurring data including observations, texts, interviews, or questionnaires (15). Especially, the researcher should intervene in the results of project on a matter of genuine concern to them on which they have a genuine need

3

to take action. Research data and insight are gained alongside or on the back of the intervention (14). In addition to the use of literature, grounded theory differs in a number of respects from other qualitative methodologies, particularly with regard to sampling. Most sampling is purposive and defined before data collection commences. In the case of grounded theory, sampling begins as a “commonsense” process of talking to those informants who are most likely to provide early information, which is known as theoretical sampling. This information is then analyzed through the application of open coding techniques, or line-by-line analysis (looking for words and sentences in the text that have meaning), which can help to identify provisional explanatory concepts and direct the researcher to further “theoretically” identified samples, locations, and forms of data. For this research, data from some countries from different continents, which follow knowledge management programs, were collected; Singapore and Malaysia from Asia, United states and Canada from America, England and Norway from Europe, and South Africa from Africa, were the selected countries. Such differences for case study selection might lead one to conclude that it is impossible to base a study on the views and experiences of each case from different locations. However, two strategic considerations and one very practical reason lie behind the choice. Firstly, as different as the conditions may currently be between these case studies, what they all have in common is the challenge of transformation in the knowledge era. For different countries located in different continent, significant knowledge striving is a matter of survival. Therefore, exploring the implicit theories about knowledge management developed by governments in these countries is a promising research strategy. Secondly, scholars conducting internationally comparative studies can choose between two strategies: the “similar” or the “different systems” design. The advantage of the “different systems” strategy is that it permits the inclusion of the greatest possible variation. Common elements or patterns found under such conditions promise to have a wide applicability in theory-building, whereas findings generated by studies of similar case studies cannot be assumed to be valid beyond their shared context (19, 17). The data collected over the period of the intervention have derived from different papers, journals, books, reports and through browsing the internet. During these interventions, the expressed experiences, views, action-centered dilemmas, and actual actions of the countries have been recorded as research data. After reviewing the data for each case study, some of them were selected according to the requirements of the research. In this analysis, the authors were to answer: -Why do these countries have to apply a knowledge management program ? -What are the essential issues of knowledge management program in these countries? -What are the critical issues of knowledge management program at a national level? The data analysis for the research consists of following stages: - Accumulating different data; - Developing an in-depth case history of the country activities from the raw data that provided all the information; - Open coding and subsequent axial and selective coding, the in-depth case history for the characteristics and origin of knowledge management program in the country; and - Pattern analysis of relationships among the conceptual categories

4

DISCUSSION: DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

By analyzing input data of selected case studies, some concepts were found for following the knowledge management policies within the countries. Here we explain more about some important concepts. Case study name/s between the parentheses shows that the related concept has been extracted by that case study analysis. In the analysis, the authors searched for some important concepts that were common or had a common sense making for understanding knowledge efforts in the countries. It means that some common ideas were followed to extract common concepts of knowledge management adoption at national level. Strategic planning At first, the authors found that most of the selected countries follow a specific strategic planning which is highly supported by government. In other words, great programs in the countries need strong "government support" (Singapore, Malaysia, United states, Canada, England, Norway). The leaders should carefully define and review their mission, vision, strategy and the aims for their KM initiative. This task is not a one-off exercise, but an iterative process. The defined strategy and aims have to be reviewed in the light of future market requirements, the development of knowledge in the respective areas inside and outside of the organization and the results of the ongoing KM initiative. All these subjects can be implemented by strong "leadership" (Malaysia, England, Norway, and South Africa). Any knowledge management strategy designed to improve business performance must address three components: the work processes or activities that create and leverage organizational knowledge and in a greater scale in a country; a technology infrastructure to support knowledge capture, transfer, and use; and behavioral norms and practices often labeled as culture. Whether the objectives of a knowledge management strategy are to improve operational efficiencies, enhance learning, intensify innovation, or speed up response to the market, a culture change strategy designed to shift behaviors and practices is a critical part of almost any knowledge initiative. "Strategies" show how we can reach objectives. Without a strategy there is no touchstone to assess what has changed and what the implications will be for the KM initiative. What it does mean is that the strategy should be concise, developed over a fairly period of time, and a process put in place to monitor the need for revisions to the strategy in the future (Singapore, Malaysia, United States, Canada, Norway). "A common reference model" and framework acts as a meaningful and practical guide to the context of KM initiatives (economic, technical, structural, socio-cultural) within the enterprise, and the interplay between important factors towards strategy implementation. Also a common reference model describes the most essential factors (assets, people, processes, tools) influencing the success or failure of a KM initiative, and their interdependent relationships. Typically, it is built up into a pictorial representation which serves as an aide-memoir for implementing KM within an organization, helping users to position individual KM initiatives within a wider context (Canada). While developing and implementing a KM solution, an organization will usually embark on a "change management" process, by attempting to change some beliefs and behaviors of the management and the employees (United states, Canada).

5

In the other hand, change adoption in the corporate environment, while often necessary, is always expensive and needs "investment". Overcoming the inertia of corporate culture, especially in larger corporations, and especially in large scales such as a country takes time, energy, and money. For this reason, any change such as implementing and establishment of knowledge management system needs investment and budget assignment (Malaysia , United states, Canada, England, Norway). The dimensions of this framework could therefore help an organizations’ KM project team to check whether all relevant factors are addressed within the implementation and change program towards learning environment. The idea of a learning organization is seen by many as a response to an increasingly unpredictable and dynamic business environment. A learning organization is an organization creating, acquiring and transferring competence and being able to change its behavior according to new knowledge and views. "Organizational learning" presents an organization that views its future competitive advantage as based on continuous learning and use of knowledge and an ability to adapt its behavior to changing circumstances (Norway). Culture Even though the economic incentives are becoming clearer and technological capabilities now exist to support learning organizations, pioneers in knowledge management are finding the behaviors supported by their existing organizational cultures to be a major barrier to this transformation. Our premise is that organizational knowledge and culture are intimately linked, and that improvements in how a firm creates, transfers, and applies knowledge are rarely possible without simultaneously altering the culture to support new behaviors. Since most knowledge processes are on a more or less voluntary basis and knowledge is to a large degree personal, there should be within an organization a culture of motivation, a sense of belonging, empowerment, trust and respect before people really start to engage themselves in developing, sharing and using knowledge. It requires a "culture" in which people are respected, based on the knowledge they have and the way they are putting it to use for the organization (Singapore, Malaysia , United states, Canada, England, Norway, South Africa). One of the barriers to understanding how knowledge and culture interact is that they are two of the most intangible elements any manager must deal with. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that both terms - knowledge and culture - are used inside most organizations in multiple ways to mean many things. But, without definitions, both terms just become buzzwords, which promote ineffective thinking. To develop an action plan for aligning culture with knowledge management objectives, there must be some shared understanding about culture between human resources as the most important capital in knowledge economy. "Human capital" describes the value of the know-how and competencies of an organization's employees. An organization which systematically develops and attends its human capital is more likely to become a successful learning organization. Many employees can be considered as knowledge workers. Effective KM means for them creating an organization in which they can develop and use their talents. It provides an environment in which it is fun to work and where they can learn and share with their colleagues, partners and clients (Singapore, Malaysia , United states, Norway).

6

For developing the culture within the organizations of a country , employees should become completely and deeply familiar with knowledge concepts. So, "educations and training" programs (United states, Canada, Norway), different "publications about KM" (United states, Canada), "conferences and seminars" (Singapore, Malaysia , United states, Canada, England, Norway), and "academic research" about knowledge management (Malaysia , United states, Canada, Norway), are very important factors for cultural development in the organizations within a country for "public awareness" (Malaysia , United states, Canada). Implementation The cultural changes can be assumed as one of the most important preliminary phases of KM implementation. Knowledge management establishment requires some techniques and tools for success. "Technology" is one of the most important tools of a KM system. Especially information and communication technology plays a vital role as the important infrastructure of KM initiatives. Search engines, categorizers, portals, expertise location and visualization are some KM tools that are highly dependent to technology (Singapore, Malaysia , United states, Canada, England, Norway). In an ideal situation, instead of implementing the project immediately across the whole organization, a "pilot" implementation should be carried out, during which it should be possible to learn from the process and to avoid the pitfalls encountered when extending the implementation process across the whole organization or in a larger scale, across a country. Also the implementation phase should include a feedback process for amendments (Canada). Throughout the selected case studies, "public and private sectors" communities are refocusing their activities to collaborate and compete through knowledge. This work item will assist both sides in identifying their readiness for KM, building the business case for KM, identifying and motivating key players, implementing KM successfully within and across their organizational boundaries and networks, and measuring the results of their efforts (Singapore,United states, Norway, South Africa). In the other hand, "Communities of practice" (CoP) should be reinforced in both public and private sectors. CoP is an informal, self-organized, collaboration of people, within or between organizations, who share common practices, interests or aims. When the CoP proves useful to its members over time, they may formalize its status by adopting a group name and a regular system of interchange through enabling tools (United states, England, South Africa). Furthermore, flat organizations with "horizontal structures" (England, Norway), helps knowledge management adoption in the organizations and finally "benchmarking" from the other successful plans (Malaysia, England) is the other vital factors that play important roles in successful knowledge management adoption in a country. A model can be conceptualized by the findings of this research. This model is composed of three main components: strategic planning, culture, and implementation. Theses main factors which are related with some other elements can move the countries towards knowledge society, if design and implement in an effective way. The conceptual model is depicted in figure 1.

7

figure 1. Figure 1: conceptual model of knowledge society

CONCLUSION Over the last few years in the emerging new economy, although the topic of KM has been studied, our understanding of how to design a knowledge management discipline for a country is limited. This paper has presented the conceptual model of knowledge society based on some important factors such as strategic planning, culture, and important enablers for implementation. The new model of knowledge society is strongly supported by the findings of case study analysis which have been selected through different countries within different continents which have start knowledge management efforts. Through analysis of case studies, this conceptual model uncovers some key aspects of the knowledge management dimension at the country level. The results provide a basis for understanding the knowledge society and critical issues of it. This paper also presents a detailed instance study of important factors based on the above discussion for knowledge management adoption in a country. Governments need a conceptual framework that shows the links between critical issues of knowledge management establishment at the country level. The purpose of this paper has been to suggest that model for conceptualizing the relationship between the important factors such as culture, strategies and enablers for implementation.

8

REFERENCES

1. Akhavan, Peyman, Jafari, Mostafa, and Mohammad Fathian. (2006). Critical Success Factors of Knowledge Management Systems: a Multi-Case Analysis, European Business Review Journal, 18 (2), 97-113. 2. Bell, D. (1999). The axial age of technology foreword: the coming of the postindustrial society Basil Book: New York. 3. Bergeron, Bryan. (2003). Essentials of knowledge management, John Wiley & Sons. 4. Brown, J., & Duguid, P. (2000). The Social Life of Information. Boston: Harvard Business Press. 5. Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA. 6. Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge how organizations manage what they know. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press . 7. Drucker, P. (1992). The New Society of Organizations, Harvard Business Review, 70(5), 95-104. 8. Freeman, C., & Perez, C. (1988). Structural crises of adjustment, business cycles and investment behaviour. In Giovanni Dosi, C. Freeman, Richard Nelson, Gerald Silverberg, and Luc Soete (Ed.), Technical Change and Economic Theory (pp. 38-66). London. 9. Grant, R. M. (1996). Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm, Strategic Management Journal, (2)17, 109-122. 10. Gupta A. K., & Govindarajan, V. (2000). Knowledge flows within multinational corporations, Strategic Management Journal, 21(4), 473-496. 11. Inkpen, A. C. (2000). Learning through joint ventures: a framework of knowledge acquisition, Journal of Management Studies, 37(7), 34-45. 12. Jimes, C., & Lucardie, L. (2003). Reconsidering the tacit-explicit distinction – A move toward functional (tacit) knowledge management, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 1(1), 23-32. 13. Lin, Julia (2002). Knowledge management: a comparison of cooperative and competitive strategy, PanPacific Management Review, 5(1), 27-43. 14. Locke, K. (2001). Grounded Theory in Management Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. 15. Marshall, C. and Rossman, G. (1989). Designing Qualitative Research, Sage, London.

9

16. Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 17. Noon, M. and Blyton, P. (2002). The Realities of Work, Palgrave, Basingstoke. 18. Phan, P. H., & Peridis, T. (2000). Knowledge creation in strategic alliances: another look at organizational learning, Asia pacific journal of management, 17(2), 201-222. 19. Przeworski, A. and Teune, H. (1970). The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, New York: Wiley. 20. Stewart,T.A. (1997). Intellectual Capital, NewYork: Doubleday. 21. Zack, M. (1999). Developing a Knowledge Strategy, California Management Review, 41(3), 125-145.

10