Knowledge - to share or not to share? That is the question Professor John Edwards.
-
date post
19-Dec-2015 -
Category
Documents
-
view
224 -
download
0
Transcript of Knowledge - to share or not to share? That is the question Professor John Edwards.
Overview
Collaboration and competition
Knowledge Management (KM) basics
Co-opetition, strategy and KM strategy
Making and implementing decisions about sharing knowledge
Facing the future
Collaboration and competition
Types of collaboration
> Strategic alliances
> Joint ventures
> Licensing
> Standardisation
> Trade associations, Chambers of Commerce (KvK) etc.
My view of collaborative competition (co-opetition) is drawn from the literature on learning and knowledge
People at Aston first wrote about this ten years ago (Edwards and Kidd, 2001), following the work of Inkpen (1996) and Larsson et al (1998) – we’ll see if my views have changed since then!
Learning strategies in alliances (Larsson et al, 1998)
Avoidance Accommodation Compromise Competition Collaboration
Collaboration
Competition
Compromise
Accommodation
Avoidance
Learning strategies in alliances (Larsson et al, 1998)
Avoidance Accommodation Compromise Competition Collaboration
Collaboration
Competition
CO-OPETITION
Compromise
Accommodation
Avoidance
Knowledge Management Basics
> Life cycle of knowledge
> Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer
> Knowledge management strategy
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer
Do these two terms have the same meaning?
For me, sharing should be reciprocal (two way); transfer is one way
Others have different definitions
From here on I will treat knowledge transfer as a weak form of knowledge sharing
Sharing is clearly the more relevant to collaboration
Knowledge sharing concepts
Sticky knowledge (Szulanski, 1996)
Some knowledge is by its very nature harder to share
Absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990)
Some organisations have a better climate for absorbing new knowledge
Boundary spanners (Daft, 1989)
A key role in any collaboration – someone who understands enough of two knowledge domains to be able to act as the go-between or translator
This person does not have to be an expert in either domain – boundary spanning expertise is not the same as domain expertise
Knowledge management strategy
The seminal work on KM strategy is by Hansen et al (1999)
Their paper introduced the two fundamental strategies for managing knowledge
Personalisation
> People-centred
> Suits customised products or services
Codification
> Technology-centred
> Suits more standardised products or services
A new development?
De Toni et al (2011, to appear) see the personalisation and codification strategies as specifically relating to knowledge sharing
They actually regard them both as policies rather than strategies, with there being three knowledge management strategies, namely knowledge sharing, knowledge development and knowledge exploitation
Generic strategies (Porter, 1980)
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
ST
RA
TE
GIC
TA
RG
ET
Uniqueness Perceived by the
Customer
Industrywide
Particular Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Why collaborate?
May collaborate to:
> Reduce cost
> Develop new product/service
> Jointly market
> Obtain access to expertise your organisation does not possess
> Concentrate on “core business”
Fundamental strategies are still the same for a collaboration as for a single organisation – differentiation, cost leadership, focus/niche
Making and implementing decisions about sharing knowledge
Why are we doing this? (Strategic reasons/goals)
Why are they doing this?
Alignment of knowledge management strategies (do they need to be the same, or just consistent with each other?)
Sharing knowledge, and using the shared knowledge - How do we make it happen?
Making decisions: know your strategy
A joint venture (say in China) is very different from the Philips/Sony agreement that brought us the CD (Compact Disk)
The business objectives must be understood by the organisation's leaders
This can be difficult for public sector or third sector organisations who may not be able to see their strategy in Porter’s terms
Share what you need to achieve the strategic collaboration objective and no more
If necessary, carry out a knowledge audit first on what your organisation knows, and where that knowledge is located
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
ST
RA
TE
GIC
TA
RG
ET
Uniqueness Perceived by the
Customer
Industrywide
Particular Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
ST
RA
TE
GIC
TA
RG
ET
Uniqueness Perceived by the
Customer
Industrywide
Particular Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Implementing decisions: know your KM strategy
Standardisation Distribution
Customisation Assembly
Customisation Fabrication
Customisation Full
Customisation
(More) Personalisation
(More) Codification
No need to share?
Product/service
e.g. Extranets e.g. Colocation
People, processes and technology in a KM system (Edwards, 2009)
TECHNOLOGY
PEOPLE
PROCESSES
Help design and then operate
Define the roles of, and knowledge
needed by
Determine the need for
Help design and then use
Provides support for
Makes possible new
kinds of
Conclusions
What to share (and what not to)
> Depends on the nature of the collaboration and where it fits into your organisation’s strategic aims
> Share knowledge of your core processes with extreme caution, and only if you need it to make them better!
How to share
> Depends on the nature of your strategy (how your organisation competes) and consequently your knowledge management strategy
> ICT alone is never the answer, though it is often part of the answer
References
COHEN WM and LEVINTHAL D (1990) Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly 35(1), 128-152.
DAFT RL (1989) Organization Theory and Design. West, New York:.DE TONI AF, NONINO F and PIVETTA M (2011, to appear) A model for assessing the coherence of
companies’ knowledge strategy. Knowledge Management Research & Practice 9(4).EDWARDS JS (2009) Business processes and knowledge management. In Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology (KHOSROW-POUR M, Ed), Second ed, pp 471-476. IGI Global, Hershey, PA.
EDWARDS JS and KIDD JB (2001) Knowledge management when "the times they are a-changin'". In Proceedings of Second European Conference on Knowledge Management (REMENYI D, Ed), pp 171-183. MCIL, Reading, UK, Bled, Slovenia.
HANSEN MT, NOHRIA N and TIERNEY T (1999) What's your strategy for managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review 77(2), 106-116.
INKPEN A (1996) Creating knowledge through collaboration. California Management Review 39(1), 123-140.
INKPEN AC and DINUR A (1998) Knowledge management processes and international joint ventures. Organization Science 9(4), 454-468.
LARSSON R, BENGTSSON L, HENRICKSSON K and SPARKS J (1998) The interorganizational learning dilemma: Collective knowledge development in strategic alliances. Organizational Science 9(3), 285-306.
PORTER ME (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. Free Press, New York.
SZULANSKI G (1996) Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal 17(Winter Special Issue), 27-43.