Essay: The role of trust in knowledge transfer

The Role of Trust in Knowledge Transfer

The role of trust is very much important in knowledge transfer. Trust is very much important for knowledge based company as marketplace swap of knowledge gives rise to elevated level of uncertainty and risk. This risk and uncertainty can be reduced by the presence of high level of trust (Joanne Roberts, 2000). This view is supported by Staples & Jane (2008) who used social exchange theory to develop model relating trust to knowledge sharing and knowledge sharing to team effectiveness. They used hypothesis method to show that knowledge sharing among the team is associated with interpersonal trust of others in the team. Also team’s effectiveness is associated with knowledge sharing. In knowledge sharing, interpersonal trust comes into play because requestors should allow themselves to be open to their colleagues, for instance, by accepting their lack of knowledge in a certain domain (Gray, 2001). The requestors should also trust that accurate and helpful information will be provided from his team members. Similarly, information provider should also trust that appropriate use of knowledge will take place. Sharing wont take place without trust as individual will not be actively socializing.

Depending on the strength of situational structure the task of trust vary. Due to the lack of other mechanisms trust enables the transfer of knowledge. Trust has vital affirmative effects in situation with low structure. In situations with stronger structures, trust plays a weaker role. So power of trust is affected by task interdependencies structural factor. Under high task interdependence, trust is higher among team members and has relatively strong structural condition. Therefore, dependability on trust will be fewer. As the reliance is lower in case of low task interdependence (weak structure) trust play important in knowledge transfer.

Virtual teams are often created to allow people with different backgrounds, expertise and perspectives to work on a problem. However D. Sandy Staples & Jane (2008) showed that being virtual does not appear to hurt the relations between trust and knowledge sharing.

ICT also plays important role in knowledge transfer. Joanne Roberts (2000) contradicts this statement by saying that ICT plays important role in transferring explicit knowledge, for tacit knowledge face to face communication is vital. So trust is important in transferring explicit knowledge via ICT.

Conclusion:

D. Sandy Staples & Jane (2008) showed using hypothesis method that task interdependence does affect the relation between trust and knowledge sharing, and team structure and balance both affect the relation between knowledge sharing and performance.
Joanne Roberts (2000) showed us that trust is important for explicit knowledge to transfer via ICT.

Obstacles to the implementation of KM

There are many obstacles in implementation of successful knowledge management (KM) like structure of organization, organization culture, management of organization etc. Talking about management of organisation as obstacle Chinho Lin and Shu-Mei(2005) has shown this as gap between knowledge required for organisation competitiveness as seen by senior managers and implementation plan for knowledge management. Chinho Lin and Shu-Mei(2005) says that due to failure of expressing requirements senior management are not capable of defining knowledge. This means that inability of managers to think of required knowledge into the implementation plan of knowledge management system, leads to gap amid senior management view and knowledge management’s implementation plan. To eliminate this obstacle, he says that firms need to make a full knowledge management plan which can amalgamate the knowledge capability of all departments to make value for the organization. There must be evenness between the organisation mission and knowledge strategy to successful implement knowledge management system (Holsapple and Singh, 2001).

Organisation culture is one of the most serious obstacles to the successful implementation of knowledge management. Microsoft has divided it into two parts knowledge sharing and the fear of innovation (Microsoft Corporation, 1999). This view is supported by (Ndlela and Toit, 2001) who says that “employees must be allowed to experiment in order to be knowledgeable. Employees should not be afraid of committing mistakes, and should be encouraged to share the lessons learned so that the same mistake will not be repeated”(Ndlela and Toit, 2001). They further say that information technology is just the instrument to help in implementation of knowledge management system, managing knowledge assets and integrating people from different departments. People alone are responsible for implementation of knowledge management (Ndlela and Toit, 2001). Problems are with peoples, people does not show their knowledge they keep it tacit. They also fear that sharing of knowledge may lose their job. This problem can be solved by giving incentives to employees. Furthermore, even if they are keen to share, there is an insufficient interaction among departments, poor knowledge management strategies, new situations are treated in old manners, and access to knowledge is difficult. Additionally, a sharing platform, learning focus, useful knowledge and general sharing are missing. Also reusability of knowledge is not concentrated. These were some of root cause of problems while implementation of knowledge management

Conclusion:

We have seen that Chinho Lin and Shu-Mei(2005) Tseng gave a management-oriented structure to explain the problems that may arise during implementation of knowledge management system. They also gave reason for these gaps and provided many basic approaches to solve these differences, organisations can use these approaches during implementation of knowledge management system. We have also seen Holsapple and Singh (2001) solution to the implementation gap and Ndlela and Toit (2001) views of problems with people of not sharing their knowledge.

References:

• Lin, C, Tseng, S 2005, ‘The implementation gaps for the
  Knowledge management system’, Industial Management and Data Systems, vol 105, no. 2, pp. 1-15.
• Singh, M, Shankar, R, Narain, R, Kumar. A 2006, ‘Survey of knowledge management practices in Indian manufacturing industries’, Journal of Knowledge Management, vol 10, no. 6, pp. 110-128.

Knowledge Capture

In today’s competitive world, knowledge is considered to be an asset that needs to be managed efficiently to remain in competition. It is important to capture knowledge to help solving future problems. John Stapleton (2005) explains this by taking construction project as an example. Each construction project has its won unique problem. Anticipatory measures can be applied by determining the probable problems at designing and planning stage. Often as time goes knowledge is exchanged among different generations (Modesitt, 1992) but due to temporary culture of contracts and mobile project teams knowledge is gone astray when employees move from one company to another (Kasvi et al., 2003). Hence the importance of knowledge capture.

While capturing knowledge there are different issues which are to be considered like different cultures, network, motivational, communication, individual’s issues, structure of enterprises etc. Often senior professionals don’t exchange knowledge as they see it as their supremacy. In medium or small organisation often via network knowledge is captured, network cannot probably be aware of whole knowledge if these organisations expand. Also the geographical separation of sites would have detrimental effect on capture of knowledge.
(John Stapleton, 2005). Also there are motivation issues for medium and small companies as knowledge capture process are to be rewarded in meaningful way that could encourage employees. Here training staff in use of current knowledge can be possible solution. Often technical and financial are also major problem for these organizations like lack of standardization of the system, practical difficulties in accessing intranet and explicit knowledge. For these small organisations knowledge capture can be costly, labour intensive and see it as liability rather then an asset.(Subhashi, Charles and Bimal, 2005).

There is menace of losing vital knowledge if these problems are not solved. The following approaches were demonstrated to be practical and successful by John and Tony (2005) i.e., while capturing knowledge every member should participate and process of capturing knowledge should be incorporated with overall process of project.

Conclusion:

Thus we have seen various problems and possible solution for small and medium organisations for capturing vital knowledge.

References:

• Hari, S, Egbu, C , Kumar, B 2005, ‘A knowledge capture awareness tool: An empirical study on small and medium enterprises in construction industry’, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol 12, no. 6, pp. 533-567.
• Stapleton, J, Matsumotu, I, Glass, J, Thorpe, T 2005, ‘A knowledge-capture report for multidisciplinary design environments ‘, Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 9 no. 3, pp. 83-92.
• Jensen, P, Webster, E, 2009,’Knowledge management: does capture impede creation?’, Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 18, Number 4, pp. 701-727.

Measurement of KM effectiveness

In this century, where organisations are driven by knowledge systems it is important that KM strategy are effectively implemented. The success of companies depends on successful implementation of knowledge management.(Davenport and Beck, 2002; Groves, 2002; Levett and Guenor, 2000). Therefore KM must show their significance. We should measure the outcomes at regular interval. Managers should measure KM effectiveness at regular interval so that they can see how companies KM system is performing, where problem lies and come with possible solution.

KM should be measured from financial and non financial point. These performances measurement should be done from multiple angles. (Ahmed et al., 1999). Therefore it is necessary to have KM performance metrics which are of general types because KM metrics in industry will differ from other industry.

There are three KM metrics for measurement of KM performance (Ranjit, 2004) –

1. Balance Scorecards

2. Economic Value Added

3. Scandia Navigator

Balance Scorecards (BSC):

BSC is an analysis method which measures organisations performance by reaching the achievable goals. BSC converts organisations business strategy and mission statement into these achievable goals. BSC not only measures tangible but also calculation of intangible success factors. i.e., three components of intellectual capital: human’s capital i.e., people’s skills and knowledge, relationship with customer (customers capital), knowledge intrinsic in process of organisation (structured capital).

Economic value added (EVA):

EVA emphasises on value of shareholders by increasing their wealth.. EVA is cash flow after tax minus principal cost to occur that cash flow. Thus it is profit on paper against profits in real. Managers get help for creating shareholder’s value. EVA also helps senior managers taking correct decision about investments such as technology investments and opportunity for improvement. If EVA value is increased then by time organisations value is increased, while if EVA value is negative then it decreases organisations value. (Ray, 2001)

Scandia Navigator:

Scandia navigator emphasizes on financial, customer, process, renewal and development, and human areas. Navigator shows managers path to follow in future by visualizing and building measures reflecting non tangible assets (Malone, 1997). In Scandia navigator each business unit has to create intellectual capital indices in accordance with future developments. Managers then have to emphasize on this indices jointly and in isolation (Ranjit, 2004).

Conclusion

Thus we have seen importance of measurement of knowledge management. We have also seen three metrics for measurement for the measurement of KM performance as given by (Ranjit, 2004).

References

• Oltra, v 2005, ‘Knowledge Management Effectiveness Factors: the Role of HRM’, Journal of Knowledge Management, vol 9, no. 4, pp. 70-86.
• Bose, R 2004, ‘Knowledge Management Metrics’, Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol 104, no. 6, pp. 457-468.
• Bishop, J, Bouchlaghem, D, Glass, J, Matsumoto, I 2008, ‘Ensuring Effects of Knowledge Management Initiative’, Journal of Knowledge Management, vol 12, no. 4, pp. 16-28.