Organizational learning: keeping in the learning loop by managing management knowledge

• Author: Nafisa H. Kattarwala
• Position: NMIMS University, Mumbai, India
• Pages: 313-321

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1. Introduction

The unequivocal organizational need to learn is embedded in the amazing volatility of the business environment and an unprecedented technological metamorphosis which compels every company to maneuver its learning curve to keep in the groove and continue to perform. A comprehensive repertory of skills, knowledge, abilities, attitudes, values and beliefs enables an organization to transact its business and to direct its efforts towards achieving the super- ordinate objectives of the organization. Knowledge may assume other dimensions as well such as news, concepts and ideas which may enable business problem-solving (Sahlin- Andersson and Engwall, 2002) and rationalization of organizational tasks that managers have to take up. Management knowledge often undergoes faddish phases and this implies an entire trajectory of concurrent thoughts, ideas and best practices which might influence the way managers think globally. This dispersed body of knowledge does into lend itself to easy management within an organization until and unless the organization has been able to capture these disparate pockets of knowledge though frequently changing fashion of management thought. Sometime the idea of yesterday may come back today in a more refined shape.

2. Literature Review

Right form the time of reinventing the management thought, it has been pertinent for organizations to use currently available trends in doing business. From the hay day of Scientific Management and Hawthorne Experiments to Business Process Reengineering and Six Sigma, it has been extremely fruitful for corporate organizations to internalize the available business knowledge for greater value. These predominant trends may often sweep across industries and may compel the managers to reorganize their heuristic decisions to adapt to more currently validated way of doing business. Right form start-ups to well established business empires, these concurrent sources of knowledge are very well adapted to the

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challenges of that specific time in a particular industry and captures the vicissitudes of business activity at a given point in time. Because of a high contemporary relevance, these fads in knowledge are regarded with great expectation and have often lived up to those. Be it Frederick Taylor's Therbligs, which initiated the time and motion studies and enabled manufacturing industries to benefit form precision of work-place behavior or be it the quality fetish of Six Sigma driving the business engine to minimize errors, these novel ideas of the time have helped streamline processes and systems to boost the revenue curves. It would be therefore only naïve to ignore the need for capturing such an enriched and relevant form of knowledge. When the industrial revolution commenced, Taylor's engineering perspective crystallized in the principles of scientific management helped many businesses shape their initiatives in a more systematic fashion avoiding the ad hocism which prevailed at that time. Management of means of production and controlling the efforts of the people responsible for production was imperative. But how to channelize this effort meaningfully was the task of thinkers such as Frederick Taylor, whose pioneering ideas facilitated the transition on the shop-floor. A Peter Drucker or a C K Prahlad would do a similar thing a century later.

The importance of knowledge cannot be ever underestimated but in recent times more than at any other, knowledge has become a common currency in business decision-making and with the "knowledge economy" and the information age (Drucker 1993; Reich 1991), the technological impetus has led to the value-creation in business domains through management knowledge and its myriad forms of utilization. Management knowledge and ides are particularly gaining popularity in the knowledge economy and there is a spurt of experts pedaling the same. However for any business organization it means that there has to be a constant filtration of what is wanted and what is not and only the applicable concepts or information should enter the organizational "knowledgeware". In order to leverage from organizational competencies, the organizational effort should be geared towards using knowledge in a strategically effective manner so that it keeps the organization ahead of its competition and helps overcome complex business demands and challenges.

In a world predominantly dominated by media and technology, it is fascinating to observe that knowledge itself has acquired a highly ephemeral state and has become so dynamic that capturing it forever in a certain form eludes all probability. New thinking is emerging each day at a phenomenal speed, this means that organizational crucibles of knowledge, particularly that which is responsible for managerial decision-making will have to follow the "fountain-head effect". This implies that at its origin any form of knowledge that is acquired will have to be fluid enough to flow down and out of the organization when it is no longer needed to satisfy the organizational needs. New influences and management thought when it becomes available will have to be imbibed immediately and then this will have to also find suitable exit out of the organization whenever the management needs a more functionally valid and worthy idea, concept or thought. The skepticism that knowledge cannot outlive the use of it obviously holds true for any body of knowledge, including management knowledge. Scientific Management itself has traversed the path and evolved as Ergonomics and does not merely remain a mechanical contraption to measure the body movements of workers. Reinventing a new body of knowledge from the old source confirms that the "fountain-head effect" may just about help organizations remain in the learning loop with greater flexibility and boost the efficiency of managerial processes and systems. Upon scanning the existing literature on knowledge management, it is significant to observe that right from Peter Senge to T. A. Judge, great emphasis is being placed on the acquisition and dissemination of organization-specific knowledge and of course also on keeping the learning within the organization contemporaneous and perennial.

In an article entitled "What is knowledge Management?" Rebecca O. Barclay Managing Editor, & Philip C. Murray, Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge Praxis defines knowledge

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management as a business activity with two basic attributes, which emphasize the focus of organizational knowledge management:

"- Treating the knowledge component of business activities as an explicit concern of business reflected in strategy, policy, and practice at all levels of the organization.

- Making a direct connection between an organization's intellectual assets

- both explicit [recorded] and tacit [personal know-how] - and positive business results." As mentioned above, if the role of knowledge in management of business is to support the strategy, policy and practice of the organization and to establish a...