Dr. Bassabikova Margarita (Kazakh-British Technical University)

“Knowledge management: using the world scientific potential”

Introduction

Recently, the issue of the knowledge management has been discussed widely in the literature (Nonaka & Takeushi (1995), Desouza (2005), Muller-Prothmann (2006), etc.). According to the definition, “knowledge management is a range of practices used by organisation to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning” (www.wikipedia). There is more and more understanding that information and knowledge are very valuable intangible assets, that suffer from rapid obsolescence and, therefore, companies need strategies, policies, and tools for managing these assets. Moreover, these assets might bring a great deal of profit under the appropriate management.

This article is devoted to consideration of a possibility to use the world scientific potential via creation of a transient alliances fro successful project realization.

Theoretical background.

It is rather difficult to define notion of knowledge. Barklay and Murray (1997) state that knowledge is very often used interchangeably with information, therefore, they distinguish two basic definitions of knowledge. One is concerns with a body (i.e. facts, options, ideas, theories, principles, and models (or other frameworks), and another refers to a person’s state of being with respect to some body of information, that includes ignorance, awareness, familiarity, understanding, facility, etc. Knowledge is concern not only with stock of information (its constant replenishment), but also with its flows and usage (sharing or having a competitive edge), on a background of gaps or deficit connected with time–based estimates. It is necessary to distinguish tacit and explicit knowledge and the fact, that they approximately represent 80% and 20% of knowledge in a company, correspondently (Ìàðèíè÷åâà, 2007). In order to understand the variety of knowledge sharing ways, the Nonaka’s framework might be used (Table 1.)

Table 1. Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge

Tacit to Tacit (Socialization)

e.g., Team Meetings & Discussions

E-meetings Synchronous collaboration (chat)

Tacit to Explicit (Externalization)

e.g., Dialog within Team, Q&A

“Ask the Expert” Annotation

Explicit to Tacit

(Internalization)

e.g., Learning from Reports

Visualization Browsable video/audio of presentations

Explicit to Explicit

(Combination)

e.g., eMail a Report

                        Text search

Document categorization

Source: Kini et al. (2005:1)

         Recent development in technology, such as: phone, fax, internet, groupware, and knowledge management software, the process of sharing, pooling intangible assets enhance the process of knowledge management. The key questions in this process are:

·        Who has the knowledge?

·        Where are the experts?

·        Who wants to know?

·        Who brings what to the table and why?

In the focus of this process there is a firm. It has to analyze inbound logistics, based on the capabilities, capacities and constraints of suppliers, as well as outbound logistics, connected with customers. There are complex relationships with governmental organizations, banking and other financial institutions, academic and other research and development institutions. It is necessary to understand how knowledge is accumulated, who has it? For these purposes, one has to have proprietary insights into customers, competitors, products, production techniques, competition regulation, macroeconomic conditions, information collection and dissemination, etc.

Transient Alliances as a new form of knowledge management process.

In order to use the world scientific potential, in a context of a particular project realization, it seems interesting to create a transient alliance of experts, who posses knowledge, experience, expertise in various areas required for ringing of the project to a “turn-key” stage. In order to allocate people, who met requirement of the project specification, various tools might be used, such as: formation of the “think-tank”, exploiting “expertoogle”, using other sources and sites, where experts help to locate other experts.

One might ask: why go for a transient alliance? The answer would be clear, if to recall how much time, efforts and investment are required for building new businesses, establishing customer relationship, etc. Contrary, the creation of such alliance can allow speed and scale of operation. Besides, alliances enable partners to upside gains (exploit their own existing skills and quickly; access local customers, marketing and service networks of others at lower acquisition costs; flexibly access and leverage the tangible, “brick-and-mortar” assets & intangible capabilities; without re-inventing the wheel and without paying acquisition premium and enduring problems of post-merger integration) and downsize risks (mitigating risks while pursuing growth options in uncharted, unproven, “no-track-record” areas; faster and less capital-intensive way to gain access to products, customers, and business capabilities than building them from scratch; outsourcing and offshoring: to reduce investment in, and exposure to, noncore or commoditizing parts of the value chain). In addition to this, super–additivity should be taken into account (i.e. 1+1>2!). The value here comes from integrating complementary assets: on- and off-line capabilities, new approaches to marketing, and additional customers of some partners with assets of others (brands, products, distribution, supplier networks, customer relationships, and physical sites) and new supply chain relationships: some can shed noncore assets and others can increase scale.

The nature of relationship between alliance partners should have short term opportunistic features, be cooperative, synergetic, and be characterized by synchronous and symmetric interactions.

Example of a transient alliance.

For example, “Kazmunaigas” (National Oil Company of Kazakhstan) would like to realize some project on a ‘turn-key” basis. What has to be done, in order to go from an idea to a blueprint, to an executable project and finally, to delivery of an executed project to the customer? There are following required resources: capacities (plant and equipment); capabilities (labour, supervisory & managerial inputs during design and engineering, planning and execution), material inputs (cement, steel, etc.) and other possibly procured control system (hardware and software, etc.) The process includes several stages: collaboration (several partners come together to form a transient alliance to execute a program), equity arrangements (which is different for the three phases of each program: design & engineering; fulfillment & execution; and after-sale service); supply-chain wide matrix organization (pooling of supply-chain wide human resources during design & engineering and fulfillment & execution phases: multiple membership levels, at perpetual firm level, transient firm level, and across different programs); dynamic resource reassignment (based upon assessed potential for schedule slippage, “crashability,” need and availability); and liquidation of alliance on program completion (division of net gains).

Conclusion.

Modern technology allows to attract “right people” to the “right place” and to implement various knowledge management techniques on a way to successful project realization. The author suggests that a creation of a transient alliance across industries as well as countries might be viewed as one of the tools for efficient knowledge management. That would allow for active, mutual beneficial collaboration between supply-chain partners, and substitute the traditional “over the wall” approach, and accumulated scientific experts’ potential might be realized in outstanding figures of value added.

References

1.                 Barklay, R. and Murray, Ph. (1997), What is knowledge management?, Knowledge Praxis, (URL: http://www.media-access.com/whatis.html) (09.07.07)

2.                 Desouza, K.C. (2005), New Frontiers of Knowledge Management, Palgrave Macmillan.

3.                 Kini, R., Abdrakhmanov, B. Bassabikova M., Gimranova, D. (2005), Knowledge management in Kazakhstan: Locating and Leveraging Oil & Gas Industry Expertise, Proceedings of the Conference Human Resource management in Oil & Gas Industry of Kazakhstan, on  March 24th, 2005.

4.                 Muller-Prothmann, T. (2006), Leveraging Knowledge Communication for Innovation. Framework, Methods, and Applications of Social Network Analysis in Research and Development, Frankfurt a. M. et al.: Peter Lang.

5.                 Nonaka, I. Takeushi, H. (1995), The Knowledge-Creating Company, New York: Oxford University Press.

6.                 URL: www.wikipedia (08.06.07)

7.                 Ìàðèíè÷åâà, Ì. (2007), 10 îáùåïðèíÿòûõ çàáëóæäåíèé îá óïðàâëåíèè çíàíèÿìè (Knowledge management), (URL:http://www.iteam.ru/publications/human /section_55/article_3080/ (05.08.07)