Prof.dr hab.  Kazimierz Wł. KRUPA    

       Wydział Ekonomii

Katedra Ekonomiki i Zarządzania

UNIWERSYTET RZESZOWSKI                                  

      35 601 Rzeszów

    ul. Ćwiklińskiej 2

           POLSKA

tel. 0 48 (17)  276 1347

kom. 694 519 013

mail: kkrupa@epf.pl

www.kkrupa.w.pl

 

Knowledge can use adapt and grow organizational structure.

SPIDER – WIN 

 

                  The trendline: quick-in 25 words or less, define modes of communication[1] (fig. 1) and knowledge management[2]. Can't do it? You're not alone. Anne Stuart[3] says many managers would be hard pressed to explain, precisely and concisely, what this evolving business trend means. What they probably do know is that knowledge management has been billed as a critical tool for the 21st-century corporation. They know it's the subject of a recent torrent of books, magazine articles, conferences, business-school classes, World Wide Web sites and even an emerging executive position (Chief Knowledge Officer - CKO). They know that leading companies such as Swedish insurance giant Skandia Insurance Co. Ltd. and Grand Rapids, Mich., office-furniture manufacturer Steelcase Inc. have launched major knowledge management initiatives. And they know it's something they just have to get too-even if they don't know exactly what it is.

                  The confusion's understandable. Even experts and practitioners disagree on something as fundamental as exactly what to call concerted efforts to capture, organize and share what employees know. With some semantic quibbling, you're as likely to hear such efforts referred to as managing "intellectual capital", "intellectual assets" or "knowledge resources" and spill overs (R. Beetsma, M. Giuliodori, F. Klassen, Trade Spill – Overs of Fiscal Policy in the European Union: a Panel Analysis.  Economic Policy, 2006, no. 48, pp. 641-650).  Whatever it's called, proponents generally agree about why it's important. Because of downsizing, frequent job jumping, constant change, globalization and the transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy, they say, companies feel more pressure than ever to maintain a well-informed workforce, boost productivity and gain competitive advantage. By creating an inclusive, comprehensive, easily accessible organizational memory, knowledge management helps meet all those goals[4]. But even the concept's champions acknowledge that questions continue to evolve along with the trend itself. Among them: Is it possible to manage something as intangible as knowledge? How do you determine its value? And how do the benefits fit into the balance sheet?


               How it works: Knowledge management projects vary as widely as the industries undertaking them. But generally, efforts are intended to retain, analyze and organize

 

Figure 1. Modes of communication

Source: Alistair A.R. Cockburn,  Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development. Humans and Technology. HaT Technical Report 1999.03, Oct 21, 1999, p.7.

 

employee expertise, making it easily available anywhere, any time-ideally and ultimately to improve the bottom line. Tools for preserving and sharing knowledge range from newsletters to Lotus Notes, World Wide Web sites to in-house workshops, books to best practices. Some real-life examples: Skandia publishes an annual report on its intellectual capital. Arthur Andersen & Co. maintains for its consultants a proprietary Global Knowledge Base CD-ROM providing a wealth of information on dozens of corporate best practices. Hughes Space & Communications Co.'s Knowledge Highway includes a lessons-learned database with hypertext links to directories of human expertise, published materials and other information.

                    What knowledge management promises: proponents say effective knowledge management pays off in fewer mistakes, less redundancy, quicker problem solving, better decision making, reduced research and development costs, increased worker independence, enhanced customer relations, and improved products and services-all adding up to keep the company at least a few steps ahead of its competitors. As Leif Edvinsson, Skandia's vice president and director of intellectual capital, puts it: "There is a need to build a bridge between the old ways of doing things and the new ways. Intellectual capital is that bridge." Some specific payoffs: Skandia says its knowledge management efforts reduced the startup time for opening a corporate office in Mexico from seven years to six months, and Steelcase cites an upswing in patent applications and a threefold increase in productivity.

 

              The pitfalls: perhaps the toughest part about knowledge management-besides defining it-is finding what you need when you need it (see Guiding Principles, CIO, July 1995 : 45-56). Your company's Boston team can't benefit from the comprehensive market study that the San Jose, Calif., group did in the same area two years ago if the Easterners don't know where their West Coast counterparts stashed their report-or even that it exists[5]. Organizations must create and maintain easy-to-use "knowledge maps" or navigational tools (fig. 2.):

 

  1. Sloppy attempts at knowledge management can quickly escalate into serious information overload. Companies that simply stockpile data with little organization and no analysis often find that, given strains on storage space and the time wasted looking for misplaced materials, too much information is worse than none at all.

 

  1. Effective knowledge management requires creating a supportive, collaborative culture and eliminating traditional rivalries. For some employees, that may mean painfully "unlearning" long-

 

standing lessons. Someone who interprets the old axiom "Knowledge is power" to mean "To stay strong, I've got to hide and protect what I know" isn't likely to embrace the concept of sharing resources.

 

  1. Successful efforts leave no room for inconsistency, inaccessibility or isolated islands of expertise. Knowledge management becomes a parody, a source of bitter internal conflict, if the resources aren't equally accessible enterprise wide, in every department and all remote locations, 24 hours a day.

 

  1. Knowledge does not live by IT alone. Even the most user-friendly tools won't help much with managing information unless they're strongly linked to people and processes, says Thomas H. Davenport, director of the Information Systems Management Program at the University of Texas at Austin and columnist for CIO. "Knowledge dies when it is disembodied." By way of example, A. Davenport describes an engineering and construction company's attempt to preserve its best-practices expertise. The effort failed largely because nobody edited the materials for consistency or relevancy, and those who contributed information didn't include their names, so nobody knew where to turn with questions.

 

  1.  Finally, it's tough to translate results to the bottom line. Of 80 corporations surveyed by Arthur Andersen during a 1995 knowledge conference (see Elusive Assets, CIO, nov. 15, 1995, pp. 32-34), more than three-quarters called knowledge management an essential or important part of their business strategy. But more than 90 percent admitted they hadn't yet developed reliable ways to link knowledge management to financial results.

 

"While companies may be starting to measure knowledge assets, the link to financial results remains fuzzy," researchers concluded. "The lack of progress in this area-and the uncertainty of whether it is even important-could ultimately torpedo knowledge management initiatives” (see Małgorzata Jakubiak, Wojciech Paczyński, Łukasz Rawdanowicz, Global Economy, 2003, no 2, pp. 5-20).

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Map model project

Source: www.corej2eepatterns.com

 

Many new technologies that fall under the purview of knowledge management have proved useful after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Portals, electronic medical records and supply chain solutions all can serve valuable roles in the recovery process[6]. One of the most pressing concerns of Katrina victims was to locate family and friends who had been separated during emergency evacuations. A number of organizations created links to missing person listings on their Web sites, but FirstGov (www.firstgov.gov) brought many of them into one portal. FirstGov is the U.S. government's official Web portal, and provides citizens with access to a full range of government organizations and resources.  In order to help reunite families after Hurricane Katrina, FirstGov identified and posted links to numerous organizations that were keeping track of missing persons. For example, on the KatrinaSafe (www.katrinasafe.com) site, sponsored by the American Red Cross (redcross.org), evacuees can register their location and family members can search for missing people. FirstGov also provided a link to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (missingkids.com), where information about children seeking parents as well as missing adults was posted.  In addition, FirstGov also included links to organizations dedicated to reuniting New Orleans employers and employees, as well as to organizations with databases of patients evacuated from hospitals and nursing homes. Links to lists of individuals in selected shelters were added, and a procedure for registering evacuees was explained for private individuals who were hosting displaced people.

                            Delphi Group calls behind the scenes, what made the hurricane-related content for this portal come together so efficiently was an ongoing community of practice that included Web content managers from agencies throughout the government.  "The trust factor was already present," says Bev Godwin, director of FirstGov. "We were able to assign a lead agency quickly to each of five major topics ranging from health to volunteer coordination”.  Every morning, a representative from the 1-800-FED-INFO call center (which was handling 6,000 to 14,000 calls per day) spoke with the key Web managers during a virtual meeting to indicate what questions callers were asking, so that new information could be incorporated into the government sites as needed. Yahoo added a search feature that operated across the missing persons lists, many of which were unstructured rather than being in database format. Through a combination of established personal relationships and technological expertise, FirstGov was able to alleviate at least some of the problems experienced by victims of the hurricanes says Mickey North Rizza, research director at AMR Research.

                     Online Medical Records -  Residents who fled areas threatened by Katrina and Rita left behind not only their homes and possessions, but also their medical records. Those who stayed fared no better, since medical facilities were largely unavailable. Within a short time, the lack of available medical records became a major problem. From elderly patients on regular medication to children being treated for cancer, the absence of medical information was a barrier to maintaining health.  Several efforts were launched to put together medical records for evacuees. One was a Web site (katrinahealth.org) that provided a central location through which healthcare providers could access prescription data. A large coalition of medical organizations cooperated to launch the site, which delivers data from both commercial and government sources and in some cases aggregates the data.  In addition, Medem (www.medem.com) has made its personal health record software, iHealthRecord, available to relief agencies so that evacuees can create online medical records.  "The data collected is similar to the form that a patient typically fills in during an initial visit to a physician," says Jason Best, VP of marketing at Medem. The software has pull-down menus for frequently used terms so that the patient can fill in the data easily. At the patient's discretion, the iHealthRecord can be shared with healthcare providers. Several thousand evacuees now have online records, Best estimates.  Allscripts (www.allscripts.com), which makes clinical software, has given its e-prescription software to doctors in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Tennessee for the coming year to assist in getting prescriptions filled rapidly.

SPIDER – WIN  Supply Chain Execution System Models[7] and  supply chain adaptability for rebuilding

Supply chain technology is another natural fit for post-disaster scenarios[8].  "Companies such as Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com) and Target (www.target.com) got their supply chains up and running very quickly after Katrina," says Col. Randall Larsen (ret.), founding director of the Institute for Homeland Security (tihls.org). "They could also apply this expertise to distributing emergency supplies. In terms of supply chain management, no one can compete with the likes of Joinet[9] (Bolonia-Italy), Wal-Mart and Target, not even the military.  R. Larsen suggests that companies such as FedEx (www.fedex.com) and UPS (www.ups.com) could be tapped to respond in situations where supplies such as vaccines had to be distributed quickly.

                Many private organizations have in place the technology for obtaining, tracking and delivering supplies, which are much-needed competencies in disaster situations.  Supply chains will also serve the region as the rebuilding begins (markus.rabe@ipk.fraunhpfer.de). For example, the construction industry will need to manage a large influx of materials resulting from the spike in demand. Companies that served the area using local supply sources will have to recast their strategies and find alternatives.  "Those organizations that had set up multiple suppliers will be in a much better position to adapt to new circumstances," says Mickey North Rizza, research director at AMR Research (www.amrresearch.com). Supply chain software that coordinates suppliers, inventory and transportation can expedite the process.  

            Shortages that result from increased demand may also be better dealt with through the use of supply chain solutions. "In the event of supply shortages," M. N. Rizza adds, "we do expect some price increases on construction supplies and equipment. But at the same time, resourceful companies will seek alternative materials, such as composites, as a substitute for plywood in cases where those substitutions can be made[10]". That type of flexibility, along with contingency planning, will allow suppliers to operate more smoothly and serve their customers better, even in times of disruption.

 

REFERENCES

1.      Baldry CH. (Author), Peter Bain (Author), Dirk Bunzel (Author), Gregor Gall (Author), Kay Gilbert (Author), Jeff Hyman (Author), Cliff Lockyer (Author), Abigail Marks (Author), Dora Scholarios A. (Author), Philip Taylor (Author), Aileen Watson (Author), The Meaning of Work in the New Economy (The Future of Work), Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

2.      Boehm, Barry, and Richard Turner. Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed. Addison-Wesley, 2004.

3.      Cockburn, Alistair. Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley, 2000.

4.      Highsmith, Jim. Agile Software  Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley, 2002.

5.      Highsmith, Jim. Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products. Addison-Wesley, 2004.

6.      Hoffman, Thomas. “Value of Project Management Offices Questioned.” Computerworld, 21 July 2003.

7.      Kazimierz Wł. Krupa a kolektív (2007), Ekonómia digitálnej éry. Problematika, Východiská, Aspekty. Poprad.

8.      Lisý J a kol. (2005), Ekonómia v novej ekonomike. Bratislava

9.      Little, Todd. “Adaptive Agility - Managing Complexity and  Uncertainty.” Paper presented to the Agile Development Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 22-26 June 2004.

10.  Masaaki Imai (1997), Gemba Kazein. A Common-sense. Low-cost Approach to Management, McGrow-Hil, Maidenhead.

11.  Wysocki, Robert K. et al. Effective Project Management : Traditional, Adaptive, Extreme. John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

12.  Young I.M., Global Challenges: War, Self Determination, And Responsibility for Justice, Polity Press, 2007.

 


[1] Alistair A.R. Cockburn,  Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development. Humans and Technology. HaT Technical Report 1999.03, Oct 21, 1999.

[2] See Anne Stuart,  Five Uneasy Pieces, Part 2, CIO, June 1, 1999 astuart@cio.com.

[3] Anne Stuart is a senior editor at CIO, pp. 17-23.

[4] See Fleck, James, Juliet Webster, and Robin Williams, (1990), Dynamics Of Information Technology Implementation - A Reassessment of Paradigms and Trajectories of Development,  Futures, vol 22, July/August, pp. 618-638.

[5] Dimaggio P. (1982), The Twenty-First-Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective, New York, pp. 43-54.

[6] See Judith Lamont, KM's Role in the Aftermath of Disaster, Posted Nov  no 1, pp. 1-3, 2005.

[7] See sisteplant.com.

[8] Judith Lamont is a research analyst with Zentek Corp., e-mail jlamont@sprintmail.com.

[9] Look  Joinet vertical e-business chanel.

[10] See IATE - International Automotive Task Force and QS 9000.