Unstructured KT Process

As defined in Section 2.5.5, the unstructured KT process is an unplanned KT process. Responses from 67% of the total Indonesian and Australian participants referred to cases of unstructured KT. There were several examples of unstructured KT processes mentioned by both IU-A and IU-B participants, such as transfer of knowledge of student services, admission processes, and the idea to establish a new faculty. Most of them remained an individual experience, not an institutional knowledge acquisition phenomenon.

From the aforementioned examples, IU-A’s idea to establish a new Faculty of Creative Industries (FCI) was an exception to the mostly individual level knowledge acquisition phenomena. Due to its perceived university-wide importance, this section delves into how IU-A acquired the knowledge to establish FCI. The following excerpt explained the unstructured KT process that allowed IU-A to acquire knowledge regarding the operations of AU’s FCI.

IU-A has just opened a new faculty—Faculty of Creative Industries and has learned a lot from AU... While visiting AU, our team learned quite a lot about the curriculum, what the faculty does, the facilities for creative industries... The purpose of the visit was actually related to the computer studies DDP, but they eventually talked about other things too. (IU-A University Executive 1)

As stated by IU-A University Executive 1, the main agenda of IU-A’s team that visited AU was discussing the progress of the computer studies DDP. The visit to AU was intended to discuss the computer studies DDP. Nevertheless, IU-A’s team, consisting of a university executive, the faculty dean, and the head of School of Computer Studies, was able to acquire additional knowledge about AU’s FCI in regards to its curriculum, operations, and facilities. In the above excerpt, a key phrase to understand this unstructured KT process was “eventually talked about other things too” implying the unplanned nature of this event. This particular unstructured KT process was based on the use of the soft KT mechanism—face-to-face interactions between IU-A and AU officers during IU-A’s visit to AU. As could be seen from the above excerpt, the acquired knowledge could be classified as explicit. For example, the knowledge concerning AU’s facilities for creative industries was limited to what could be observed and briefly discussed by IU-A’s team, not complex comprehension of how to build and manage the facilities. Similarly, the acquired knowledge of FCI’s curriculum was about the content of the curriculum, not the process of curriculum development. The analysis on the utilisation of the explicit knowledge of creative industries curriculum content will be further clarified in the ramp-up stage (see the following Section 4.3.4).

Given the unplanned nature of the unstructured KT process, five out of seven AU participants were not aware that they shared knowledge with the Indonesian universities. The next excerpt typified AU participants’ views regarding sharing knowledge.

...we [i.e., AU] don’t really tell them [i.e., Indonesian partner universities]...

culturally, I don’t think it’s right... unless they ask. I think there’s a mutual respect we have. Of course when they ask, we’re happy to share or give them ideas. So we always wait to be asked. (AU Faculty Officer 4)

As stated by AU Faculty Officer 4, AU would only share their knowledge if requested by the Indonesian partners out of respect and cultural appropriateness.

One factor that helped to respectfully share knowledge with due consideration for cultural practices was strong social ties, formed through previous face-to-face interactions between officers from the Australian and Indonesian universities. The following excerpts represented views from 93% of the total participants who discussed the role of social ties in KT processes.

If we have a close relationship with one other, we can give each other advice... (IU-B Lecturer 2)

But you’ll only have willingness on both sides to share good ideas if you have the close relationship built up... (AU Lecturer 1)

The key phrase in the above quotes, each representing the Indonesian and Australian sides, was “close relationship,” referring to the social ties between the officers in the partnering universities. By having this close relationship, there was willingness to

“give each other advice” and “share good ideas,” essentially referring to KT processes. One of IU-A participants who visited AU stated that a close personal relationship (i.e., social ties) characterised by openness during the face-to-face meeting was important for knowledge acquisition, “...from discussion when we visited AU, AU [officers] were very, very open to us, told everything to us. So we learned a lot” (IU-A Lecturer 4). Supported by the positive personal relationship, AU officers “told everything” to the visiting IU-A officers and enabled IU-A to acquire knowledge about FCI. Therefore, social ties were associated with willingness to engage in KT. While social ties did not directly turn into inter-university KT processes, they had a supporting role in the KT processes.

This section has demonstrated how the unstructured KT process enabled the Indonesian universities to acquire knowledge from AU. While there were several minor examples, the acquisition of knowledge that led to the establishment of FCI at IU-A was noteworthy. Without a prior plan, IU-A was able to learn about AU’s FCI, facilitated by the soft KT mechanism (i.e., a visit from IU-A’s leadership to AU) and strong social ties between the two universities’ officers. The knowledge acquired was mainly explicit knowledge concerning the creative industries curriculum. Therefore, in regards to the third research question on the acquisition of knowledge, the

another avenue for the Indonesian universities to acquire knowledge from the DDP partnerships as depicted in Figure 4.1. As the three sections above have explained and elaborated on how the Indonesian universities acquired knowledge from their DDP partners using both structured and unstructured KT processes with varying degrees of success, the next two sections explore the utilisation and integration of the acquired knowledge among the Indonesian universities.