Week 5 - knowledge & technical aspects of org learning Flashcards
Define knowledge
expertise or skill acquired through experience or formal education/training
Define the level of knowledge: Data, information, knowledge & wisdome
What is data.
• The raw facts describing characteristics of an event.
What is information.
• Data converted to a meaningful and usful context.
Knowledge
• Acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation
Wisdom
• Using knowledge to establish & achieve goals.
Define the forms of knowledge: tacit & explicit knowledge
Nonaka
Forms of Knowledge
Tacit knowledge: best practices, experience, wisdom and unrecordable intellectual property that lives within individuals and teams.
Explicit knowledge: material representation of knowledge in the real world or online.
Define the 3 facets of knowledge (Nonaka)
PCA
Perceptual knowledge understanding of the world through direct experience and involvement in a particular situation.
Conceptual processing abstract concepts and a scheme of interrelated concepts that may be transferred across situations
Affectual Knowledge (affect) an individual’s sentiment attached to certain objects and feelings about particular things we know and feel emotional affection for.
Describe the relationship between knowledge sharing and competitive advantage
Competitive advantage is built by companies creating new knowledge, spreading it through the org & embodying it in new tech and products.
CA depends on ability to develop new knowledge but keep it from outside orgs
How do you create knowledge in a knowledge sharing company? (Nonaka)
Tacit to tacit
• via observation, imitation & practice. People are socialised into this knowledge
Explicit to explicit
• Synthesises info from many explicit sources but into a new whole.
Tacit to explicit
• When tacit knowledge is distilled into explicit knowledge it can be shared through the org.
Explicit to tacit
• When tacit knowledge is shared through the org, others internalize it, broadening, extending and re framing their own knowledge.
Figurative language can be used to translate a vision into roles, structure, practices that result in products. Describe the building blocks of figurative language. (Nonaka)
Metaphor : a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
• distinctive method of perception that individuals understand intuitively using imagination and symbols without the need for analysis.
Analogy: a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
• Structured process of recognising contradictions and making distinctions.
Model: use (a system, procedure, etc.) as an example to follow or imitate.
• Concepts are resolved and become transferable through consistent and systemic logic.
Describe the fundamental processes of a knowledge sharing org (Nonaka)
Redundancy of information:
- The conscious overlapping of company info, business activities and managerial responsibilities.
- eg: open dialogue, open info, explicit knowledge, divisions working together, stage rottation
Dynamic interaction between levels of staff.
- E’ees have frontline knowledge
- Teams engage in dialogue
- Managers orient e’ees and synthesise tacit infor to explicit info
Conceptual umbrella
- Senior manager set direction through figurative language.
- Set qualitative standards for knowledge sharing
- Equivocal direction stimulates e’ee autonomy
Tacit knowledge is difficult to express, codify and transmit making it secure. (Nonaka)
What are the catagories of tacit knowledge
SMWO
- Skills or Know how
- Mental models (schema) - Ideas on how the world is constructed, central elemants and how parts interrelate
- Ways of approaching problems - how others think through problems and arrive at solutions.
- Organisational routines - Regular and predictable patters of behaviour
Knowledge management can be a means to develop CA. Its more than just an electronic means to share knowledge. (Lubit) Explain it’s larger aspects:
o Knowledge mment culture o Overcome devensive routines o Measure and rewards are required o Knowledge mment department o Org levers that promote best ideas held in the company
A social learning framework sees learning as the result of the groups we belong to and our experience. (Wenger)
How does learning take place in this framework?
EIA
Through 3 forms of belonging to communities:
- Engagement – doing things together, talking, producing artefacts.
- Imagination – constructing an image of ourselves, of our communities, the world in order to orient ourselves, to reflect our situation and explore possibility.
- Alignment – This is a mutual process of coordinating perspectives, interpretation and action within the group so they realise higher goals.
Define the 3 structural elements of Social learning systems.
Wenger
Communities of practice enable members to share cultural practices reflecting collecting learning.
Boundary processes are the connections between different communities of practice. The connect and define communities and offer opportunities for intergroup learning.
Identity comes from the communities we identify with and provides context for our learning to exist in. From this we judge our ‘belonging’, our ‘efficacy’.
What are the implications of a social learning system for individuals, communities of practice, organisations?
(Wenger)
New knowledge economy will value informal learning systems as the primary source of value creation over formal learning systems.
- Individuals – finding a dynamic set of communities they should belong to
- Communities of practice – decide on a balance between core & boundary processes
- Organisations – foster participation in social learning systems.
