Knowledge and Organizational Learning

Knowledge and Organizational Learning

Introduction

Any organization consist of many parts that could be divided to what we can call assets, these assets are the main part of any organization which can lead to its success and we can measure its achievement by monitoring these assets. The assets can be classified into one of the following assets types “Tangible assets” or “Intangible assets” and each one of them consists of what we can call “capitals”

To be able to give a clear idea about that, we can have an example for a company participating in a tender, some documents are always required from the participated organization side to proof its capabilities and those documents are always related to the organization assets. The assets include the organization financial capabilities and relations with the vendors that they are used to deal with in such tenders and many other things that may be required in order to win the tender or even be short listed, also one of the most important assets is the “Humans” or “People” in the organization and how much knowledge they have, certificates they got, or any experiences could be required by the tenderer within the tender scope and that’s why the tenderer is always keen to know about the organization’s employees knowledge and abilities

Edvinsson (1997) talks about Hidden values of a company to refer to intellectual capital or intellectual assets for the company; Edvinsson's theory on hidden value originates from the focus whish organization give to financial and operation value while forgetting to mention intellectual capital which should also be included in the value of the company

Human Capital (HC) is a part of the intellectual capital of any organization. The intellectual capital is a part of the intangible asset, intellectual capital also consists of human capital, structural capital, customer capital and Intellectual Property Capital (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997). Intellectual Capital (IC) can be defined as the sum of everything that give the company its competitive edge and the Human capital and their knowledge is the most important part of it. According to P.N. Rastogi (2002, P229) “An enterprise is a creation of human knowledge. Whether it produces aircrafts or air conditioners, soft ware or semi conductors”. A good organization always focus on how to provide its candidates with the know how which is considered a part of the organization Knowledge as per Herman A. (2012, P166). And this know how keeps them always up to date by the use of knowledge management and organizational learning.

Structural capital is a part of Intellectual capital (IC) as it represents the culture of the organization overtime and also the creativity of the organization. Customer capital shows the relationship which the organization have with its customers and intellectual property capital which represent the company brands and rights. Our discussion within the essay will focus on the “Human Capital” part as it is related to the knowledge which is the main concept of this essay.

Within this essay our discussion will be focusing on how important is the knowledge to an organization and how knowledge management and organizational learning is important to help in the organization Intellectual Capital (IC). Using examples from real organizations will illustrate what is the knowledge management methodologies applied and how it affects the organization productivity and reputation in the market also it will show the relation between intellectual capital, knowledge, community of practice and soft system thinking which are the main pillars for the intangible assets of any organization.

Knowledge Management – Intellectual Capital

Knowledge management is the way of creating, sharing and managing the knowledge in the organization which is the most important part to enhance the human capital of the organization as per John and Joann Girard (2015). The knowledge is the sum of the information with the analysis and experience and the knowledge management is concerned with how to create, share and manage this knowledge within the organization.

In my organization the knowledge sharing is a part of the knowledge management, it is done by creating an intranet Wikipedia, where they can have all the experienced information they got by there people listed according to topics whenever it is needed by their people to go through. The organizations sometime may make it mandatory for a new employee to read this Wikipedia and gather all the knowledge related to the organization and its type of business within the first three months in order to get used as fast as possible to the organization way of working.

Meeta Dasgupta and R.K. Gupta (2009, P218) concluded that “organizational learning and knowledge management are extremely critical for an organization to be adaptive and to respond to changes in the environment”. This gives an indication that have a good knowledge management has the ability to learn and learning leads to success.

As a part of organization learning my organization on weekly basis held something called “Chalk Talk” the chalk talks simply is done every week by one employee who provide his knowledge and personal experience to the colleagues by presenting the topic and giving evidences by real examples in the real world. This method helps a lot in transferring the knowledge within the teams and keep them aligned with the knowledge needed in their field. This chalk talks also can be considered as “community of practice”

As stated that organization learning and Knowledge is a part of the Human Capital (HC) development of the organization which directly affect a part of the organization Intellectual Capital (IC) as per Kwee Keong Choong (2008, P631).

Community of Practice – Social Capital

As per Etienne Wenger (no date) “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This type of communities enhances the organization learning ability which increase the knowledge of the organization. As stated before that my organization do the chalk talks as a part of the community of practice but this is not the only method.

Another method is being used by my organization which is the “groups”, these groups are formed under the CEO direct supervision and management in which each group is formed with number of employees not less than 10 and not more than 20 participants. Each one of these groups is responsible for a knowledge sharing regarding a product and work facilitating methodology to be discussed between the group members and also to learn and invent new process, products or methods. In the beginning of each month the group leaders meet with each other with the presence of the CEO in a group called the “stakeholder group” in which each team leader gives an update about his team progress and share the knowledge and creativity done by his team with the other groups.