KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM  IN BUILDING-UP ORGANIZATION COMPETENCE

 

Hanna Lewandowska, PhD

(Szkoła Wyższa im. Pawła Włodkowica, Płock)

[Pawel Wlodkowic University College] Kilińskiego 12

 

Introduction

Economic crises, economic transformation, dynamic changes taking place in the environment of the organization require the contemporary organizations to become focused on learning highly-intelligent systems.  A crucial role in acquiring the market, sustaining the competitive advantage, and, its further development, belongs  most often to companies that "derive added value from knowledge and manufacturing potential, not from the strength of human muscles”[1].

Nevertheless, making the use of knowledge requires from each and every organization to possess quite a vast collection of information,constituting the basis for performance efficiency. If the organization treats the employees as most crucial resource, it significantly influences the process of building-up competitive advantage. 

This paper aims to present knowledge management as a factor that  highly affects the image of organization due to raising its competence.

 

Selected aspects of knowledge-management in the organization 

Knowledge management demands from the organization not only to take advantage of its tangible and non-tangible assets, but also to rationalize and improve work of the employees. Thus, knowledge-management comes as the one which requires the following to be implemented:

-         Provision of knowledge necessary for the enterprise (and employees);

-         Appropriate quality of knowledge, its scope and delivery time;

-         Extending knowledge by employees and managers; working out the right process that shall enable to use the information fully;

-         Synergic co-operationof the basic operation units, e.g. by applying new technologies;

-         Existence of a suitable strategy team.

Type of knowledge for processes within the organization in the perspective of its validity allows to distinguish:

-         basic knowledge, i.e. essential level of knowledge for day-to-day enterprise performance;

-         advanced knowledge, giving the opportunity for companies to compete with each other;

-         innovative knowledge that allows to take and uphold the first place among all other organizations of the same activity profile.

Constant increase of the intellectual factor in production and services value results in the intelligent organization being constructed on the basis of its abilities, undergoing constant improvement process, that distinguish it. In such an organization existence of intellectual capital correlates also with human resources (competence and development), organization capital (infrastructure and management), market capital (relations with clients, suppliers, image of the organization) and innovation capital (new processes and technologies). All the employees, consequently, aim at personal development, feel responsible for efficiency of organization and its development; they also initiate things and influence the performance[2]. 

Organization, however, as a whole performs on the basis of a consortium of small business entities, and creates, collects and applies new knowledge; it also upholds and develops its key competence being its distinctive mark for the environment[3].

The organization, which wants to acquire knowledge, and utilize it then must among others:

-         create and perform its strategy,

-         allow employees to prepare certain parts of production or services and decide about them,

-         enable the information and IT systems to  make assessment ofstrategic and operational assumptions of the company,

-         motivate the employees to develop intellectually and cooperate with each other; and focusthe company'auditing, accountancy and reporting systems on learning.

An organization succeeds also when it is able to take advantage of knowledge existing all around the company, and, in relation to its production or services. In that case, knowledge allows to establish its still stronger position on the market, and, keep up the advantageous position, in terms of competition, on the market.

Development methods and systems for any organization bound for acquiring knowledge are provided by knowledge management[4]. For the widely understood management, knowledge is the basis for managing changes, innovations and strategic management. That managementcan be then defined as processes giving the opportunity for creating, gathering  and utilizing knowledge that shall enable to achieve target set by the organization. 

Stages of this management include knowledge discovering, knowledge accessibility in decision and economic process, supporting the acquisition and analysis of the external knowledge, ensuring the flow of information within a company. 

Knowledge, creating intangible value of many companies, comes as one of the most important parts of it, as it is the data possessed by the employer or an employee that decides about performance and development of the organization.   It also results in raising productivity level[5]. In that perspective, knowledge may be divided into: applied, possessed, not-used, required, individual and team one;  knowledge may be characterized as methodical and technical, strategic and operational, overt or hiddenone[6].

Relating to the first instance, knowledge may be applied in various situations (e.g.when getting in touch with others or conducting negotiations). Such knowledge is needed and in high demand, although we are not always aware of the fact. Personal knowledge (individual one) is strictly related to knowledge of the whole organization (team knowledge), constituting at the same time an inclusive part of collective information. Similar refers to the methodical and technical knowledge;however, the former is related to managerial sphere (general knowledge on management, and, management-focused knowledge); whereas the latter one to essential sphere i.e. production or rendering services (knowledge on techniques and technologies of manufacturing corporeal and incorporeal property). The overt and hidden knowledge is connected with access to information, experience, and, intuition; still, division of knowledge into the strategic and operational one requires from an organization to learn on the basis of the double loop learningi.e. modifying the already accepted assumptions in result having the external and internal information  up-dated[7].

Nevertheless, the most crucial aspect of knowledge management is identifying recipients of knowledge (information) and their needs[8].  Thus, decision processes in organization demand systematization and ordering of the gathered and possessed information relating to organization and its environment.   Source of this information may be data collected from data banks, information banks, reports and publications. Not only the up-to-date acquired knowledge but also the already existing knowledge (conscious and unconscious one) revealed in powers of employees.

Powers of employees belong to intellectual capital of the organization, which constitute its strength and power (e.g. health care organizations). However, behaviour of the organization participants (the employed people), and, the organization’s utilization of their abilities and skills  (knowledge they’ve acquired) is dependent on: mission and strategy  (attitude to work), organizational structure and performance (communication among employees), organizational culture (mutual relations of the employees), leadership (passing knowledge over and initiating changes), measurement (indicators of intellectual capital), method of using cutting-edge technologies and motivating  (understanding how the managers and co-workers act).

Moreover, knowledge management in organization depends on operations such as identifying of knowledge resources within the organization, examination of how knowledge is applicable and useful, assessment of needs for knowledge, addressing knowledge, processing and utilizing knowledge[9].

 

      Identification                      Examination of usefulness

 

 

                                             assessment of needs                     acquisition

   addressing                                             processing

 

 

                                                utilization

Scheme 1-Interrelation of   knowledge management basic concepts

Source: Kotarba M., Kotarba W., Model zarządzania wiedzą [Knowledge Management Model][in:] Ekonomika i organizacja przedsiębiorstw [Economics and organization of enterprise], Instytut Organizacji i Zarządzania w Przemyśle „ORGMASZ”, August 2003, no 8 (643), p. 21.

 

Increase of information flow in the organization or between the organization and its environment results in more emphasis being placed on knowledge management, which is treated as a factor influencing work efficiency. 

However, research conducted indicates that many organizations do not properly use knowledge they have.  According to Senge[10], barriers of the learning process are come as: individual’s being too much attached to their function, lack of responsibility for results, focusing on single events (e.g. monthly sales) and inability to predict forthcoming dangers.

Other threats in terms of the organization's learning are problems related to low level of employees' knowledge application, and, information problems, being revealed in non-equal knowledge distributionamong the organization members. Decreasing this deficit may be reached through acquiring knowledge from the environment, development of individual research, basing on experience, acquisition of knowledge by raising employees’ qualifications, and, trainings, passing knowledge over i.e. application of information and telecommunication technologies.

Non-effective knowledge management may result in losses within the organization. The most often appearing problem is, in this case, lack of correlation between targets set by the organization, and the possessed and used knowledge; moreover, it is also baseless repetition of the same activities, loads of information, and, lowering of social norms. A significant problem connected with knowledge application seems to be not motivating the employees appropriately to get them identified with the organization. 

 

Development of knowledge-based organization competence

Using the resources of knowledge and skills of the employees, the organization may build up and strengthen competence, which leads to raising and strengthening its image in the environment. What plays an important role in that case, is formulating the scope of specialist knowledge existing in the company, and passing this knowledge over to the public in the right way; especially as „at present the trust exists in horizontal relationships as consumers trust in each other much more than the they do in enterprises”[11].

In organizations, e.g. the ones of health care system, it shall be among others, information  on qualified specializations, scope of rendered services, their complexity, equipment used for diagnostic examination. However, competence (knowledge) of the employees (senior and  medium-rank medical staff), shall be of major significance. They shall allow not only to meet the up-to-date needs, but also to build-up the image of the company basing on the so-called 3.0[12] marketing (consumer influence on rendered services type].

Another example of a practical development of organizational competence based on knowledge, and, using knowledge-based management system may be higher education facilities.  In that case, knowledge is acquired by employees, and, its right transfer builds up image of this organization among other organizations of the same type, and, allows upholding high position in the rating of higher education facilities of the same teaching profile.

In profit minded organizations, knowledge management allows to take advantage of cutting edge technologies, including production technologies, expanding offer of rendered services, provide their constant modification, and, meetingalmost all requirements of the clients.

The contemporary knowledge based organization assigns quite huge significance to the role of Chief  Knowledge Officer–CKO, who plays a great part in application and utilization of knowledge. It may be of assistance to the company in goods production, services or contacting the client through, e.g.: creating an efficient information system, changing employees' mentality, and, monitoring the inner and outer environment of the organization.

While knowledge based management supports the process of setting up and accomplishing company’s strategy, CKO is in charge of not only managing knowledge, but also acquiring knowledge on new communication strategies, methods/tools for data gathering, and integration processes of knowledge deriving from variety of sources[13].

 

Summary

One of the strategic resources of any organization is knowledge. It comes as a basis for company efficient intellectual potential and abilities management; moreover, it also stimulates innovative activity of the enterprise, creative thinking of the organization employees, and the last but not least – enables the organization to face and accomplish challenges typical for the contemporary company.

All in all, the organization should treat management as a factor to assist decision making process. Appropriate information flow affects positively not only results of undertaken activities, but it also makes the organization more and more attractive to potential partners and clients due to strengthened competence.

Organizations managed on the basis of knowledge should improve their abilities in  applying knowledge, as knowledge is of dynamic character, and efficient knowledge managementmay constitute the grounds for intensifying the activity and raising their assessment value.

Literature

M. Bratnicki M., , Transformacja przedsiębiorstwa, AE Katowice 1998,

Handy Ch. Wiek przezwyciężonego rozumu, Business Press Warszawa 1998,

Drucker P., Społeczeństwo prokapitalistyczne, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 1999,

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Kotarba M., Kotarba W., Model zarządzania wiedzą [w:] Ekonomika i organizacja przedsiębiorstw, Instytut Organizacji i Zarządzania w Przemyśle „ORGMASZ”, sierpień 2003, nr 8 (643),

Kotler Ph., Marketing 3.0, MTB 2010   

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J. Penc, Decyzje i zmiany w organizacji, Difin 2007,

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http://www.eknowledgecenter.com/certificationcourses