The Impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Performance (A Case Study of Four Selected Firms in Lagos)
Research Project
By
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In today's highly competitive and demanding business world, an organization's competitive capability is a function of how effective and efficiently it deploys its corporate assets. This asset resides in the human capital and is knowledge. The practice of managing them is known as knowledge management.
Knowledge Management can be defined as any structured activity that improves an organization's capacity to acquire, share, and utilize knowledge for its survival and success. Every organization is made up of a crop of Intellectual Capital, which are divided into Human capital
(Knowledge that employees possess), Structural Capital (Knowledge embedded in systems and structures), Customer Capital (Value derived from satisfied customers, reliable suppliers and others) (Edvinson 1997).
Organizations are facing ever increasing challenges, brought on by market place pressures or the nature of the workplace. Many organizations are now looking to knowledge management (KM) to address these challenges. Such initiatives are often started with the development of a knowledge management strategy. Knowledge is the only sure source of competitive advantage. Successful firms consistently create new knowledge, spread it through out organization and manifest it into new technologies, products and service offerings. It is no doubt that successful organizations are learning organizations which allows Personal knowledge to pool into organizational knowledge; Such organization is skilled at creating, acquiring and transforming knowledge and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insight.
While most business leaders appreciate the strategic value of knowledge and the need to manage their knowledge assets, many of them seem unable to derive real benefits from their efforts. There are reasons for this, including their persistence in viewing knowledge management (KM) as a supply-side issue, namely their belief that the acquisition of the right knowledge automatically produces benefits.
Other reasons why benefits don't materialize include a lack of focus on KM initiatives; a staggering over reliance on technology to provide both the solution and the benefit; structures that are inappropriate for capitalizing on an organization's knowledge assets, and lastly a lack of proper ownership. (Murray 2002)
According to Mohammed (2000) .Knowledge management refers to the process of managing and leveraging the stores of knowledge that reside within an organization the objectives being to add value , improve efficiency , increase productivity and /or revenues. As a strategy that turns an organization's intellectual assets -both recorded information and the talents of its members into greater productivity, new value and increased competitiveness.
Knowledge management must add value to the bottom line. Organizations must map knowledge activities to define the following strategic goals:
• Innovations
• Responsiveness
• Productivity
• Competency
1.2 Background of the Study of Knowledge Management
There is increasing awareness and adaptation of Knowledge Management by organizations. This is on the realization of important benefits organizations can derive there from. Effective management of organizational resources are key to organizational success (Banjoko, 1996). Often times managers make key decisions without having access to information to make such decisions. Having adequate relevant information will improve the chances of successfully achieving organizational objectives.
The world we presently live in is a world of knowledge. Through Knowledge acquisition and use, organizations now experience product, innovation, process and technological innovation and improvement which have no doubt contributed to organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Knowledge has been defined in various ways. Some authors see Knowledge as valuable information from human mind that includes reflection, synthesis and context. Thomas Davenport and Prusak (2000) defines Knowledge as "what happens at the moment in time when Information becomes valuable to the individual seeking it" Effective use of Knowledge has been crucial to the organization's survival and success in competitive global markets and has a strong potential to problem solving, decision making, organizational performance enhancements and innovation. Effective use of Knowledge is Knowledge Management. Knowledge management is a conscious strategy of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that will strive to improve organizational performance. Knowledge management is a process that helps organizations find, select, organize, disseminate, and transfer important information and expertise necessary for activities.
1.3 Statement of Problem
The business environment we live in presently is constantly changing. The modern business manager operates in a dynamic environment. The change in the environment has been complex both in form and impact on business practices. Consumers and clients have been showing complex behaviors both in local and international markets. Competitors have been applying one strategy or the other to adapt to the dynamic and unpredictable business environment.
To achieve organizational success, organizations are now adopting various strategies to achieve organizational success. Knowledge Management is one of these approaches and strategies organizations are using to achieve organization success.
In Knowledge Management, organizations are faced with various problems which include the following:
- Lack of adequate knowledge about knowledge management and its process.
- Lack of resources to acquire the technology that support effective knowledge management.
- Reluctance among employees to share information in the organization.
- Poor working environment that inhibits knowledge transfer among employees.
- Industrial politics, competition and rivalry that inhibit knowledge transfer among organization's membership.
1.4 Purpose of the Study
To compete and become successful in their own market, organizations must define how to use their ultimate assets, which is 'Knowledge ' and this practice is generally known as Knowledge Management or Business Intelligence. The main objectives of the study are:
1. To critically examine the competitive advantage that knowledge management provide for organizations.
2 To assess the impact of knowledge management on organization's performance.
3 To find how Knowledge Management can improve on employees performance.
4. To find how if Support and Collaboration have any relationship with knowledge Management practice
No comments:
Post a Comment