“The organizational implementation of Knowledge Management ‘solutions’: Towards a
framework based on Sense Making and Organizing Visions”
Kostas Samiotis, MSc. IS
Department of Informatics
Athens University of Economics and Business
76, Patission Str.
10434 Athens
GREECE
E-mail:
[email protected]Words: 4.800
Keywords: knowledge, IS implementation, strategy, resources, work practices,
intervention, adoption
Extended Abstract
The quest for technologies with strategic value for the organization but also with empowering strengths for the work context of the firm has persistently occupied the landscape of information systems. Knowledge Management is the latest techno-managerial buzzword earmarked for improving the work processes and creating value for a firm’s operations. Knowledge Management comprises a multiplicity of technological offerings for potential applications. Nevertheless, there is scarce empirical evidence on phenomena, conditions and factors related to the organizational adoption of these offerings. The research treats Knowledge Management systems as IS innovations by explaining organizational situations and phenomena related to its adoption.
This research seeks a deeper understanding of organizational phenomena taking place during the adoption and implementation of KM technical solutions. The author utilizes Weick’s sense making theory to identify the drivers affecting the adoption of Knowledge Management as a new form of techno-managerial practice, and the potential areas of its application. Subsequently, the research studies the organizational preparations that accompany the decision to adopt KM practices. This study is based on the perception of KM as technological innovation and utilizes Burton Swanson’s organizing vision to expose the building blocks of relevant organizational behavior.
Empirical work is based on a longitudinal Case Study. The research monitors a Retail Bank in a state of rapid business development and intense innovative behavior. Knowledge Management is being considered for adoption as a practice that could facilitate the sustainable development of new products and services, and beyond that the transition to a radically different set of operational arrangements. Specifically, the organization under study has recently established an electronic banking division that is responsible for the creation of awareness for the new electronic services and
their promotion to existing and new clients. Ultimately, the strategic orientation of this organization is to become a virtual service provider (electronic banking).
In tandem with these developments, the Bank in collaboration with the author’s institution is proceeding with the development of an experimental KM infrastructure. This KM infrastructure consists of a technological solution and a set of guidelines related to the management of its adoption. This initiative, the focus of the research, targets knowledge resources requirements both of the functional level, where the clients interact with the bank and, and the tactical-strategic level, where the design and implementation of the new e-banking services and products is taking place.
One of the challenges related with this research is drawing the distinction between organizational and individual knowledge in this case. Inevitably, the notion of requirements capturing in the context of such technological and organizational innovation is also an open concern. Most of the conventional requirements capturing practices do not cater satisfactorily for radical changes envisaged to management practice. In the case under study, such practice refers to preparing the existing work environment to accommodate the intervention introduced through the KM technological “solution”, and to familiarization of employees with the notion of knowledge and its role in their work practices resulting in the introduction of the new work arrangements needed to put knowledge to action. The research has already started to map the working environment of the Bank and to investigate attitudes concerning the introduction of a new technological platform, in order to incorporate them in the behaviour and the functionality offered by the system. At the moment, an environmental analysis is taking place along with the design and development of the KM system. As soon as the system is installed in the organization, the research turn to its main concern, namely its interaction with the organizational context.
1.
Introduction
Despite the ambiguities surrounding Knowledge Management more and more organizations start to realize its strategic potential for coping with the turbulence of the new corporate environment. Within the knowledge era, it has become widely recognized that the intangible assets of an organization will be key to both its ability to create competitive advantage, and to grow at an accelerated pace [Itami, 1987][Sveiby, 1996]. According to Drucker, the period we cover is characterized by the shift of traditional production factors, which used to be capital, land or labor, to the only meaningful resource that can lead to the obtainment of social and economic results, which is knowledge [Drucker, 1993]. As a result, more and more organizations are showing increased attention to the creation of value through leveraging knowledge. The importance of knowledge as a strategic resource and its role in the firm’s competitiveness has been widely recognized lately by a large number of scholars [Spender, 1996, 1998][Drucker, 1992][Grant, 1996][Davenport and Prusak, 1998][Teece et al, 1997][Teece 1998][Nonaka et al 2000].
The increasing interest in knowledge intensive organizations coincides with the recognition of the fundamental role knowledge plays in the formulation of business strategies, as the only corporate resource that can provide sustainable competitive advantage [Rumelt, 1974][Grant, 1996]. “New economy firms“ comprise companies where most work is said to be of an intellectual nature and where well-educated, qualified employees form the major part of the work force. The characterization of a firm, or of particular aspects of work within a firm as knowledge intensive implies that knowledge has a more important role than all the others production factors, like capital and labor so much as input as output. Examples of companies in this category are law, accounting firms, management, engineering and computer consultancy companies, advertising agencies, R&D units, and high-tech companies [Alvesson, 1995].
The notion of knowledge has inspired lately a surge of research within the field of information systems. Knowledge management systems are in the center of interest due to the challenges that they
raise concerning the issues of organizational design and application, implementation, and use. Despite the undoubted necessity of appropriate technologies that would enable the organization and conceptualisation of firm’s knowledge, there hasn‘t been until know a comprehensive framework for the analysis, design and use of KM systems.
The IS community has not paid enough attention up to now to the technological proposal of the emerging field, and its implications for the adoption and institutionalisation of current technological solutions. Partly, this is due to the gap that currently exists between the two different perspectives, adopted within the knowledge management domain. For many researchers, KM is seen as a strategic business development practice, in which knowledge and organizational competences are closely interrelated as the source of wealth creation [Teece, 1998][Spender, 1996][Prahalad and Hamel, 1990]. For technology providers and system experts, KM is a technological innovation, which can provide organizations with intelligent knowledge management systems.
In accordance to the above perspectives, current research proposal refers to knowledge management as a socio-technical practice, which draws upon relevant IS and organizational theory [Checkland, 1981][Wahsham, 1993]. It is important that a discussion is initiated around the IS character of knowledge management practice as the convergent notion for strategy and work context. The research employs theoretical constructs to explore the implications of the development of KM systems from an IS perspective. We utilize Weick’s sense making constructs to highlight issues related to the organizational character of a KM “solution”, and Swanson’s and Ramiller’s organizing visions to trace the evolution of a KM “solution” from a technological design to a sustainable organizational resource.
Central in the current research discussion are the innovative aspects of Knowledge Management, both methodologically and technologically, and more specifically the issues referring to the exploitation and contribution of knowledge in an organizational context that transforms and tries to become an e-business. The research is engaged in the study of knowledge management notions in terms of technological and organizational intervention required to support new business environments. To this
been chosen for the investigation of knowledge management efficiency and effectiveness in its organizational processes.
The research will be based on a case study of a Banking organization, which has started to apply Knowledge Management in specific operations that the firm thinks are of strategic importance for its competitiveness in the digital era. The application of Knowledge Management comprises an information system and an organizational methodology. The research aims at monitoring the evolution of the implementation of the KM technological proposition as a means to extrapolate generalizable evidences for the embodiment of innovative technologies within the work practices of an organization.
The literature review that is presented below does not comprise yet a coherent theoretical framework that could provide the lens for interpreting the social constructions emerging within the organizational reality under study. The research is now trying to make sense out of the theoretical pluralism that characterizes the knowledge management arena with regards to the work practice oriented IS enablements.
2. Literature
Review
Knowledge management practice has been developed to address the problems of knowledge work within knowledge intensive organizations [Sveiby, 1992][Drucker, 1988][ Starbuck, 1992]. Initially, the challenge was to manage the functional aspects of knowledge by categorizing and making it available. However, knowledge is a social process, which mainly involves the interaction of people. People gain knowledge through learning and also translate their knowledge into firms‘ routines and competences, job descriptions, plans, strategies, and cultures. In knowledge intensive companies the competitive advantage lies mostly in the effective use of human resources [Pfeffer, 1994].
Since knowledge became the focal asset of contemporary organizations, there has been a multiplicity of arguments regarding issues of definition and exploitation. Before we review these literature streams in knowledge management field, we have to understand that the concept of knowledge implies more than an accumulation of information, rather it is an organized collection that reflects the intentions of
the humans who create it and interpret it [Laudon et al., 1996]. Thus, knowledge should be treated not as a factor that simply is put into use for the solving of problems, but is the key feature impacting the performance of the organization for many organizations and workers [Starbuck, 1992]. Below we try to make justice of both organizational and strategic perspectives of knowledge theories.
2.1 Aspects and Categories of Knowledge
A variety of aspects and categories of knowledge have been identified in the organisational literature. Aspects of knowledge like its nature (knowledge as an object, or as a process), its context (i.e. social, organisational, groups, individual) and its location (i.e. routines, brains, symbols etc) have been discussed by a variety of scholars. The distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge has a prominent position in this discussion. Explicit or codified knowledge is the knowledge that is objective and rational and can be expressed in formal and systematic language [Nonaka, 1994][Nonaka et al, 2000]. Explicit knowledge is very often codified in a written form such as manuals, brochures, standardized procedures etc. However, as Borghoff and Pareschi [1998] very correctly point out,
Explicit knowledge defines the identity, the competencies, and the intellectual assets of an organisation independently of its employees; thus it is organisational knowledge par excellence, but it can grow and sustain itself only through a rich background of tacit knowledge (p. 6)
Tacit knowledge is what is difficult to be articulated in a meaningful and complete way: “the knowledge of techniques, methods and designs that work in certain ways and with certain consequences, even when one cannot explain exactly why” [Rosenberg, 1982, p.143]. Polanyi encapsulates the meaning of tacit knowledge in the phrase "We know more than we can tell’ [1966, p. 4]. Tacit knowledge is subjective, experiential and hard to formalise and communicate. Tacit knowledge has a personal quality, it is deeply rooted in action and understanding, involves both cognitive and technical elements, and is non-transferable without personal contact [Nonaka, 1994][Nonaka et al, 2000][Senker, 1993]. According to Kay [1999, p.13]:
tacit knowledge can take many forms, … is unique to an organisation - and therefore cannot be copied...The benefits of such tacit knowledge arise only through a culture of trust and knowledge sharing
In fact the issue of sharing the organisational knowledge, what is called transferability of knowledge, is one of the most important ones in the knowledge discussion. It seems that there is a powerful relationship between codification of knowledge and the costs of its transfer; apparently the more a given item of knowledge or experience has been codified, the more economical is its transfer [Teece, 1998]. Whether the transferred knowledge will be considered useful or not by its recipients depend on whether they are familiar with the code chosen as well as the different contexts in which it is used [Teece, 1998][Shannon and Weaver, 1949]. In fact the marginal cost of knowledge transmission rise very rapidly with "distance" from the context in which the knowledge was generated [Pavitt, 1987]. This happens mainly because of the tacit dimension of knowledge: tacit knowledge is less observable in use, more complex and less teachable [Shapiro, 1999]. As a result tacit knowledge transfer is slow, costly and very difficult to take place. While the new information technologies have facilitated the diffusion of codified knowledge, they have not been equally efficient in facilitating transfer of tacit knowledge. Some form of direct personal interaction (either physical or virtual) is necessary for transferring tacit knowledge.
Blumentritt and Johnson’s [1999] framework for categorising knowledge puts the primary emphasis on the degree of difficulty in transferring knowledge. They distinguish four different categories of knowledge:
!"Codified knowledge, equivalent to information. The knowledge has been made explicit by a human and it is in a readily transferable form;
!"Common knowledge, knowledge that is accepted as standard without been formally explicit; !"Social knowledge, knowledge about cultural and interpersonal relationships; Knowledge of
!"Embodied knowledge, tacit knowledge related to experience, background and skills of a person. According to this framework, the transfer of codified knowledge involves the smallest degree of difficulty while the transfer of embodied knowledge is the hardest task.
The notion of knowledge is only one part of this research and is being studied in combination with its strategic implications. To this end, a short overview of the theories related to the notion of knowledge are presented.
2.2 The Strategic Context: Knowledge as a Resource
Neo-classical theory assumes that firms have perfect knowledge of market conditions and thus they respond automatically in changes to factor prices. The organisation theory has been dominated by a paradigm that considers the organisation as a system that ‘processes’ information and ‘solves’ problems. Both perspectives are overly static because they consider information processing as a problem-solving activity; the emphasis is on what is given to the organisation without due consideration of what the organisation creates with it. In other words both perspectives assume the same reaction when a certain set of information is given to different companies. Both approaches pay little attention to exploitation of unique skills and capabilities.
The resource-based view of the firm, mainly developed by Penrose [1959] and Rumelt [1974], challenged these approaches by recognising the heterogeneous endowments of resources in different firms. Decisions about various strategic moves must be taken in the light of capturing rents from scarce firm-specific resources rather than economic profits from market positioning. New resources cannot develop quickly since their development is an extremely complex process while firms may have limited profit from purchasing new ones, at least because assets like tacit knowledge and culture are simply not tradable. In few words the resource based view of the firm considers the firm as a repository of resources which are developed by the knowledge-creating activities of an organisation [Teece, 1984][Rumelt, 1974][Teece et al, 1997][Prahalad and Hamel, 1990][Grant, 1996][Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995][Leonard-Barton, 1995][Nonaka, Toyama, Nagata, 2000].
2.2.1 The Concepts of Competencies and Capabilities
Members of the academic and the business communities alike recognised that the concepts and tools of analysis that formed the backbone of traditional organisational studies needed a basic re-evaluation in order to allow the development of new ideas. One of the more important re-considerations was the shift of emphasis from specific actions to patterns of behavior underlying these actions [Cooper, 1984]. In Coombs' words [1994, p.384]:
Until the mid 1970s the study of industrial innovation was mainly conducted within a framework which took the individual instance of innovation as the unit of analysis ... Gradually however, the focus of research shifted towards taking larger samples of innovations and looking for distinctive patterns of firm behavior which characterised successful innovation
In other words, the strategic actions through which firms grow require organisations to develop firm-specific patterns of behavior i.e. difficult to imitate combinations of organisational, functional and technological skills [Teece et al. 1997]. These unique combinations have been called competencies and capabilities and take place through the firm’s intangible knowledge applied in its value-adding processes. Competitive advantage stems from the firm-specific configuration of its intangible knowledge, through which it adds value to the final product/service [Schumpeter, 1942][Penrose 1959][Grant, 1996][Coombs and Richards, 1991][Teece, 1982, 1984].
Prahalad and Hamel [1990] describe a contemporary firm as a large tree whose "trunk and major limbs are core products the smaller branches are business units; the leaves, flowers and fruit are end products. The root system that provides nourishment, sustenance, and stability is the core competence" (p.82). At the level of core competence the goal is to build leadership in the design and development of a particular class of product functionality. Conceiving companies as a collection of discrete businesses inevitably leads to resources confined to individual departments and bounded innovations since hybrid opportunities rarely take place. But core competence involves many levels of people and functions.
Leonard-Barton [1995] explores the concept of capabilities to include the employees' knowledge and skills, the physical technical systems, the managerial systems of education and rewards and finally the organisational values and norms which "determine what kinds of knowledge-building activities are encouraged" (ibid., p.19). She distinguishes between supplemental, enabling and core capabilities. The first kind of capabilities are "nice to have -but unessential", the second are "the minimum basis for competition in the industry but that, by themselves, convey no particular competitive advantage" while the core ones are those that "at least potentially provide a competitive edge" (ibid., p.18).
2.3 Knowledge Management: Towards an Organizing Vision
The problem that is encountered in the current state of knowledge management is related to the ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding the nature of the innovation it constitutes for an organization. KM technology is still at an immature state, puzzling as to its future prospects, and eventual form. Hence, the technology itself and the set of understandings that define its applicability and use are incomplete and unstable [Rosenberg, 1994]. A relevant theoretical construct for conceptualising KM as an IS innovation is Swanson’s and Ramiller’s organizing vision, which is the collective product of the actions and decisions of the members of a community for the development and diffusion of an IS innovation [Swanson & Ramiller, 1997]. The rise of knowledge intensive organizations and the growing significance of knowledge, as firms’ strategic resource, stipulate for the need of constructing an organizing vision for Knowledge Management.
According to Swanson and Ramiller, the organizing vision is defined as a focal community idea for the application of information technology, in our case a KM technology, in organizations. In other words, an organizing vision for a KM innovation is, hence, a vision for organizing in a way that embeds and utilizes technology in organizational structures and processes. In our case, related to knowledge work, however, a KM innovation - as all IS innovations - cannot be extrapolated from new technology; rather, the innovation must be willfully cast in future insights and potentials.
The organizing vision for knowledge management entails particularities that refer to its development process, raised by the fact that the building block of this innovation, which is knowledge, exhibits
challenges related to its social character. In our research, we adopt concepts of sense making, in order to develop a shared interpretation that can serve as a guide to KM implementation. Weick’s Sense making explains the organizational reality, by providing the means of making sense of events and actions that occurred in the past and, hence, constructing meaning. An organization makes sense of its environment through four sets of interlocking processes: ecological change, enactment, selection, and retention [Weick, 1995]. In the current research, these processes are used as a guide for the implementation of KM system.
2.4 Requirements for the support of Knowledge Intensive Work
Knowledge intensive activities can be considered as a type of knowledge work, since they involve the use and application of knowledge. According to Davenport et al, knowledge work comprises four activities, which are acquisition, creation, packaging, or application of knowledge [Davenport et al., 1996]. What makes knowledge work special and different are its characteristics of variety, exception, complexity, and volatility in contrast with routine, and the fact that it is performed by professional or technical workers with a high level of skills and expertise. People engaged in knowledge intensive activities have the above attributes and their work does not follow any predetermined task sequence that facilitates and guides the generation of the outcome. They operate by an intuitive feel of how to accomplish their work and through accumulated experience.
Knowledge intensive organizations, with their wealth of knowledge form a challenging arena for knowledge-focused techniques and tools. The need for the appropriate KM technologies has been stressed during the last years, as knowledge management became a critical success factors for competitive organizations [Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995][Davenport and Prusak, 1998]. The aim of these technologies would be to optimise the creation, dissemination and exploitation of both explicit and tacit knowledge in order to enhance business value and compete with knowledge.
Through the above elicitations, it is clear that the activities of the knowledge intensive organizations depend highly on the knowledge and its organization that derives from individuals or groups employed in such firms. The adoption and application of knowledge management is hence essential, in order to
facilitate the accession of the appropriate corporate knowledge at the appropriate time. This necessity is more stressed in knowledge intensive organizations, where most of the work processes rely on knowledge.
2.5 Sense Making of the Knowledge Management application context
The efficient and effective management of knowledge prerequisites the establishment of the appropriate business practices and the technologies that best serve this purpose. Sense making is considered an approach for understanding organisational needs and capturing the knowledge, which resides within organizations. This approach assist to understand what is happening in the organization and to develop a shared interpretation that could serve as a guide to action. According to Weick, we end up making sense about certain environments through four inter-locking processes: ecological change, enactment, selection, and retention. Each process could guide the implementation of KM systems through the investigation of the problematic areas and finally their modeling.
The ecological change triggers sense making by urging organization’s members to understand and determine the significance of the knowledge discontinuities taking place in the organizational environment. Enactment of the environment to which KM technology is applied follows the realization of the meaning of the changes needed to happen in the knowledge landscape of the organization. In creating the enacted environment, focus is placed on certain elements of the environment and isolation of appropriate actions and documents, key persons, and relationships is needed. The output of the enactment process is the generation of raw information about environmental changes and work processes, which will subsequently be turned into meaning and action. At this phase, we try to identify the knowledge that exists, and the knowledge that is missing.
During the selection process, we should determine which of the previous situations can provide reasonable interpretation of what is the best working practice for the organization. The selection process reaches into the past to extract history and select a reasonable scheme for interpretation. The new scheme is validated against the accumulated knowledge, in order to identify any possible
be repeated until the new action scheme is viable with the knowledge that has been discovered within the organization.
The completion of this iterative process will feed retention process, where the products of successful sense making are modeled for future use. The outcome of the retention process is like a historical document, which will be stored as a map of relationships between events, actions and information that can be retrieved and superimposed on subsequent activities.
The resulting organisational intervention do not challenge the current context of work while it provides increased effectiveness in knowledge sharing and exploitation. Sense making constructs play a decisive role in the implementation of a KM system that would underpin the organization’s processes and eventually facilitate the creation of new knowledge.
3.
Research Methodology and Context
Our research approach follows the interpretivist paradigm [Walsham, 1993]. We seek to apply our theoretical constructs into organizational settings with the primary goal of eliciting a deeper understanding on the phenomena surrounding work practice enactment of knowledge and draw findings that could inform potential applications of knowledge management practices. Our unit of analysis is that of an organizational group and the nature of our research output comprises ultimately organizationally feasible and systemically desirable [Checkland, 1981] proposals for organizational knowledge support.
Empirical research presented below comprises a single site (organization), longitudinal case study. It is a 3-year long study in its second year of development. We work with multiple informants within this business organization all of whom have an expressed stake in encouraging and supporting knowledge enactment in their firm. Our involvement with this organizational setting is intense and multifaceted. More specifically:
#"We are responsible for the design and delivery of a knowledge management application within an organizational unit whose work brief is deemed as critical for the sustainable development
of the organization as a whole. The design of the system reflects the organization of work practices around business processes.
#"We have undertaken the commitment to engage in appropriate action to support this organization in the process of adopting in a meaningful manner the technological proposition (i.e. the system) that is being developed. The process of embedding this system into organizational work routines (in essence an organizational intervention) is framed as a sense making endeavor, drawing on Weick’s ideas.
#"We are complementing work done in (i) and (ii) with inquiry into knowledge and learning enactment and its relation to work practices within this organizational setting. In other words, we adopt a critical view on the Weick’s sense-making framework in terms of its contribution into knowledge enactment.
Evidence is being collected primarily through interviews, brainstorming and issue resolution meetings (concerning the knowledge management system and its adoption), and participant observation of organizational activity (pl. refer the to following section).
In brief, we study the evolution of an organizational intervention comprising knowledge management technology and its potential for supporting knowledge exploration and expoitation anchored on work practices. Technology in this research is viewed as (i) enabler for knowledge capabilities development and (ii) a new type of organizational capability in itself. The particulars of the technical system design are not being presented in this paper.
3.1 The Case Setting
The organization under study is a medium to small (by EU standards) retail bank. The bank is ranked fourth in size at a national level, it employs around 4000 people and has a network of 200 branches all deployed in a single EU country (Greece). The focal organizational unit for our study is the e-banking department, created in the January 2000. Preparatory work on the development and procurement of the necessary infrastructure to deliver electronic banking services had started in the bank approximately
one year before that date. The bank launched its first ‘bouquet’ of e-banking services to public in March 2000 with an extensive and intensive marketing campaign. It should be noted that at that time the bank was the first to offer such an extensive range of electronic banking services in the local market.
The bank’s “digital strategy” (their own term) comprised a number of banking services that its customers could access through “digital channels”. Under digital channels, the bank grouped all types of transactions that a customer could perform over ATMs, Internet, phone (call center), mobile phone (based on SMS and WAP), while it also plalns to develop services for interactive digital television.
At its inception, the e-banking department comprised groups responsible for marketing and sales, internet activities, electronic commerce, call center services, ATM operations, and mobile phone banking services. A few months’ later, call center operations were consolidated as a separate (subsidiary) business organization.
E-banking operations were supported within the bank by a network of people, identified as “e-banking agents”, located in each branch of the bank network. Initially, the role of the e-banking agent was assigned to the people that were responsible for the technical maintenance of the transaction systems in each branch (“the platform officers”). Very soon it was realized that these people lacked the necessary customer communications skills needed to promote the new services to the bank’s large, disparate and unaccustomed to technology customer base. Subsequently, e-banking agent responsibilities were redistributed among branch staff already experienced with customer service (e.g. loan & investments consultants). The assignment of the e-banking agent role to specific employees and the training of these people was undertaken by the Human Resource Development department.
The brief of the e-banking department was “the management of the banking products and services offered through digital channels” (their own words). Management refers to the design and support of the banking products and services. The e-banking agents are the human interfaces of e-banking department with bank’s customers. Their role, at least in the beginning, is to promote e-banking services and products to external and internal customers. To facilitate the promotion e-banking
services, agents were periodically subjected to face-to-face training regarding product and services characteristics, development of communication and marketing skills, and trouble-shooting.
At the time of the e-banking department establishment, a number of relevant initiatives were taking place in the bank. Of particular interest is the “competences mapping project” handled by the Human Resource Development department. The scope of this project, still currently under way, is to re-conceptualise the organization of work practices across all bank operations by placing emphasis of the skills required to meet the requirements in each operational front, rather than on job descriptions anchored on the detailed specification of tasks. This project, along with other re-organisation initiatives is the result of a top-level decision to reshape all major operations “from inward looking functional silos, to customer oriented service provision by all bank employees” (their own words). The competences mapping project is hailed by the bank as the groundwork required to inform human resource development strategy particularly in terms of re-deploying personnel around new and restructured operations, and in terms of managing training initiatives.
A second significant development was the provision of computer-based training services over the bank’s intranet. These services, also launched at the beginning of 2000 were meant as complementary to traditional classroom based training. Computer based training courses were delivered organization-wide over the bank’s intranet/extranet infrastructure packaged in what the Bank termed as “a first version of our learning portal”. Instructional content developed to date in this portal targets primarily sales and customer communications techniques.
Last but not least, at the time that our study set-off, the bank’s main transaction systems had undergone extensive revamping “to exhibit a more customer-centric philosophy” (own words). In essence, the revamping comprised the integration of separate systems into a singe platform, the redevelopment of all major user interfaces to operational systems, and the deployment of more management reporting tools. As a result, PC use penetration among the bank’s employees more than doubled within the course of a year. An extensive personnel training effort on new systems
The case of the bank for the research described in this paper is not simply an organizational context we draw data from. Our involvement with the case setting is much more active and includes the following:
#"The development of a knowledge management application tailored to the needs of the e-banking department both in terms of providing knowledge oriented support for their internal work arrangements, and in terms of providing learning opportunities both to them and to e-banking agents located in the branches particularly through knowledge sharing and collaboration.
#"Appropriate facilitation and support throughout the scooping, specification, and (most importantly) deployment of (i) with special emphasis given to work context-sensitive adoption guidance and on alignment of this effort with related projects such as the competences mapping project, and the development of the learning portal.
Our partners and informants in this study include major stakeholders in the evolution of the e-banking department and the related developments within its environment (the bank). In fact, the group of people we are working with share, among them, most of the decision making responsibility for the development and redefinition of the bank’s operations. The informant group includes one of the two Vice Presidents of the bank responsible for IT, organizational development and new products. We are also in contact with the Human Resource Development Director, who is responsible for the “competence mapping” project and the formulation of the training strategy. Regarding the e-banking department, the main stakeholders we work with are its director and the marketing manager. The former is responsible for e-banking strategy in terms of digital services and products offered, while the latter manages their promotion and the development of marketing skills to e-banking agents.
3.2 Stakeholder Perceptions: An Interpretation
At the executive level (according to the VP responsible) the move towards electronic banking services is regarded as a business imperative. Change in the Bank’s business environment is seen to call upon the redefinition of value propositions, highlighting the importance of knowledge and its exploitation
and the establishment of new organizational forms. At the moment, the Bank is in a transitional period, in which the above issues are being discussed within the general debate regarding the shape and form of the Bank’s future as a virtual financial services institution. The new requirements affect several work fronts, which are contributing to the strategic reconfiguration of the traditional Bank.
Special emphasis is given by our stakeholders to the exploitation of organizational and individual knowledge along with the establishment of a knowledge sharing and continuous learning culture that would set the groundwork of new strategic formulations. They perceive knowledge as the resource that would ensure the longevity and sustainable competitiveness of their organisation in the emergent digital business landscape and therefore our stakeholders believe that knowledge should be accumulated systematically and most importantly incorporated within the design of electronic banking services and products. Traditional and hence physical paradigms of conducting banking operations are not viewed as useless though; they are being valued for the cumulative experiences they convey from traditional work practices derived from the daily interaction of employees with customers. This knowledge, which is tacit most of the times, is believed that it should be exploited not only by the people who are still engaged in traditional functions but that it should also be supplied to those who are building and transforming traditional banking services and products to electronic artifacts.
An important observation here is that in our case setting work practices are increasingly being perceived throughout the bank from a business process perspective. This point is exemplified by the emphasis placed on the ‘customer orientation’ of all operations and the integration of systems supporting day-to-day work (with its significant ‘side-effect’ of creating of a central pool of information resources). Further to that, work practices in the newly established e-banking department have a definitive business process rather than functional orientation as the manner in which this department operates is crossing traditional functional hierarchies and creating virtual work teams (collaboration with the e-banking agents).
3.2.1 Setting Priorities for Knowledge Enactment
When confronted with the issue of developing and exploiting knowledge resources, our respondents have articulated three areas of concern: (i) capturing customer knowledge and responses and communicating them at top management (strategic learning implications), (ii) facilitating the design of new products and services (capability learning implications) and (iii) improving existing business processes related with the promotion and support of electronic banking (routinisation learning implications).
The customer and knowledge related to him are of primary concern to bank. The expressed requirements of our respondents (stakeholders) are the capturing and exploitation of this ‘knowledge’ “strategically” i.e. in terms that affect directly the enhancement and expansion of the spectrum of electronic services and products offered. To this end, they expect a supporting information system that will be deployed to facilitate the relevant ‘knowledge processes’ of the organization.
Our inquiry in the case setting thus far, but also our planned intervention through the system and the organizational support that we will provide, need to target the sources and carriers of knowledge. As explained in section 2.1, knowledge assets can be generally assigned to two categories. The first category is ‘knowledge of the customer’ and the other is individual and organizational knowledge. Both types of knowledge are closely interrelated. Through the technological and organizational support envisaged, we actually seek to develop within the e-banking processes the capability to ‘manage’ both types of knowledge and ultimately help to the organization to incorporate them in its organizational routines (i.e. knowledge enactment). Our intervention (system and organizational support) needs to involve the users in a process of personal knowledge exploration and exploitation anchored on work practices.
4.
Expected Results
The interpretation of the organizational situation described in this paper, is evolving in parallel with the actual deployment of the knowledge management initiative in which we are actively involved.
The outcome of this process will provide useful indications of how the firm can approach knowledge enactment and how it should evolve to cope with the knowledge requirements of its organizational work practices and vice versa. Knowledge as a resource is difficult to grasp; this research aims at revealing the methods that can deployed to best utilize this resource within the context of the work practices of the organization. It is in the intentions of the research to identify the relevance of ICT in the development of capabilities and define the terms under which this is happening. Moreover, we have to distinguish and discuss further the different types of learning enactment we encounter, and look into how they are induced by the introduction of a technology in the management of knowledge.
The contemporary knowledge environment of firms and the characteristics of its evolution comprise the drivers for describing the arrangements taking place in the work context. We propose a technological intervention, and we are primarily guided by this to explain the need and thereupon the phenomena, meaning the conditions and factors related to the organizational adoption of the knowledge-oriented ICT offerings. The research will approach the need of a work related knowledge management system from a social, organizational and certainly technological perspective.
Despite the research efforts made up to now, knowledge management remains an immature field lacking integrative initiatives. It is, certainly, still early to talk about an organizing vision, but its existence is indispensable. The fact that knowledge is the only corporate resource that is unique and therefore can provide competitive advantage, assures the future of knowledge management. Though its managerial character, knowledge management should be guided by appropriate technologies that would enable, at least, learning representations and mechanisms for knowledge enactment. Technology needs the assistance of research, otherwise it will take wrong direction. Therefore, it is essential to gradually close the gap between theory and practice, if we need real KM systems.
The current research goes through its exploratory phase, trying to investigate the organizational environment that will be the subject of an innovative technological intervention. The aforementioned theories will be used for the contextualization of this intervention in terms of the knowledge and
selective usage of constructs and the strengthening of the stream that is related to the social and organizational construction of technology. The final contribution of this research would probably be a framework describing the characteristics and processes that constitute the technological capability of knowledge-intensive organizations.
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