General characteristics of the theory of knowledge management. Stages of knowledge management theory formation

In his book "The Eighth Habit" S. Covey gives an interesting cognitive case. “When someone asked Einstein what question he would ask God if given the opportunity, he replied: “I would ask where the universe began, because everything after is pure mathematics.” But then, after a little thought, he changed his mind: “No, I would rather ask why the Universe was created, because then I would understand the meaning of my life” (6, 83). So now, in order to understand the reasons for the increased interest in knowledge management today, we should ask ourselves a similar question: Why?

In the literature on knowledge management, one can find a great variety of arguments and points of view that explain the increased interest in the problem under study. Some call it causes, others - goals. If we talk about an organization or a company, then for them, according to B. Gates, “knowledge management is a means, not an end goal” (4). It is impossible not to agree with this. Indeed, knowledge management is one of the strategic directions in the activities of modern business.

This does not diverge from the fact that knowledge management, as a specific type of activity, may also have its own goals. Achieving these goals can serve the interests of not only business organizations, but it is also beneficial for each individual and society as a whole. Therefore, knowledge management can be viewed as in the broad sense of the word, meaning the entire chain of "individual - organization - society", and from the position of each of these links separately. In this article, we will be interested in knowledge management in business organizations. Although, one way or another, this implies the development of knowledge of both the individual and society as a whole.

With business in mind, CEO of PWC, a leader in the audit business, D. Shiro clearly states that “in modern business, knowledge and managing it to create competitive advantage is becoming a top corporate priority” (25). Along with this, “knowledge management provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the organization and management process” (3, 491). The author of many works in the field of knowledge management, K. Wiig, believes that “the goals of knowledge management are: to encourage an enterprise to act as reasonably as possible in order to ensure its viability and success and realize the value of its intellectual capital in the best way” (65).

Because of the complexity and ambiguity of knowledge management work, there is a real challenge in measuring the impact by which a business could determine not only importance, but also utility knowledge management in the organization. According to research by the IBM Institute for Business Value, the implementation of knowledge management systems can reduce costs by 25-30% (49). S. Covey points out that “80% of the added value of products and services today is created thanks to intellectual activity” (6). In addition, I. Nonaka names among the indicators that determine the value of new knowledge: efficiency growth, cost reduction, increase in return on investment (27). More than one statement can be cited on this topic. However, I would like to dwell on the most important circumstances or reasons that caused the rapid development of the phenomenon under consideration.

AT modern world in an increasingly complex environment, there are three fundamental prerequisites for the emergence and application of the concept of knowledge management in the organization. First, this is globalization, breaking the boundaries of not only markets, but also the boundaries of the knowledge space. As a result, there has been an explosive growth of new knowledge and the dynamics of its dissemination in organizations. P. Senge believes that it is “not knowing how to disseminate knowledge and experience in working groups and in an organization that explains the interest in knowledge management” (8).

The large-scale internalization of knowledge that followed all this gave rise to problems of intercultural understanding of the new information space and gave a powerful impetus to the creation of global knowledge networks. Today we can observe how the economy has begun to generously reward those who not only create, but also disseminate new knowledge. Examples of successful activities of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and other well-known players in this market clearly indicate a steady trend in the development of the knowledge business in this area.

The next premise is - computerization and everything related to information and computer technologies. Computerization has provided tools, both hard and soft, that have made it possible to tame the information explosion and channel it into a creative direction. As a result, humanity has entered the information society.

So, if in the pre-information society everyone knew a part of everything, and everyone together knew everything, then in the information society everyone should know everything and at the intersections of expanded individual knowledge new knowledge is created, the appearance of which in the first case is not possible (Fig. 1).

Rice. one.

And finally, this is herself organization or its synonym - people are both carriers, producers and consumers of knowledge. And here it is important to understand that their potential capabilities under the conditions of the first two prerequisites increase exponentially and these capabilities become a powerful impetus to the continuous development of the organization, based on the continuous training of people in new knowledge. When an organization embarks on a path of knowledge management, its boundaries are blurred and new ways of creating value emerge (3,496).

“While knowledge is often discussed in terms of management, it is rarely spoken of as a valuable asset that is required for specific knowledge management systems. Knowledge should be considered as an essential fundamental quality of an organization that needs to be managed and used. 200 Management: XXI century

to work effectively” (11). Like management, knowledge management, as part of management activities in general, can only exist in a particular organization, and in each individual case this work will have its own "algorithm" of creation and functioning. The authors will demonstrate this with numerous examples and the organization of such work at IBM.

Knowledge management is critical for organizational adaptation, survival and development of the qualities required by a radically changing external environment. Of particular importance in the acquisition and creation of new knowledge is the emergence in business practice of adhocracy (Toffler E.), as well as virtual and learning organizations (Warner M. and Witzel M.). First, “in organizations where better ways knowledge management, employees have the opportunity to learn from each other and through joint activities create new knowledge” (11). Second, in the future, the ability learn faster than competitors may be the only competitive advantage of a company worth supporting (46). K. Arjiris is sure that “success in the market increasingly depends on the ability to learn (2, p. 183).

noted above competitiveness represents a universal reason for the attention to a more active application of the concept of knowledge management in the practice of modern business. However, this versatility requires the company to have such economic and organizational characteristics as efficiency, learning, profitability, enterprise, dynamism, development and growth.

Many organizations today manage their knowledge, but those that do it consciously do it better (44). What underlies this characteristic? Experts offer several criteria for assessing the best knowledge management in an organization (31):

• creating a culture driven by knowledge in the company and developing values ​​based on knowledge management;
• creating a trusting working environment for the free and collaborative exchange of knowledge;
• development of intellectual capital and competencies of employees through knowledge management;
• the adoption by employees of the philosophy of continuous learning and the learning organization;
• creation of added value in the work with knowledge in the company.

It should be borne in mind that all these criteria are critical and are not subject to ranking, since their application is systemic.

The history of the development of the concept of knowledge management

The theory of the new society is developed in the works of E. Toffler, where the author indicates 1956 as a symbolic date for the beginning of a new civilization - the Third Wave, the main values ​​of which are knowledge and information. A number of works by D. Bell, M. McLuhan and Y. Masuda are also devoted to this problem. A little later, in the 1970s, the information foundations of knowledge management began to be developed in the works of V. M. Glushkov, Yu. In Sweden, the USA and Japan, almost simultaneously, three different approaches to the concept of "knowledge management" are emerging, which later received the corresponding names. Scandinavian, or European, American and Japanese. During this period, the first monographs and publications in the media on this issue appear, and in 1986 Carl Wiig introduces the concept of knowledge management. It is also impossible not to note the ever-increasing interest on the part of organizations in knowledge management and the fact of organizing the first, as yet few, conferences devoted to the problem under study.

In 1990, in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge introduced the concept of a learning organization, a company capable of continuous self-learning. Knowledge management reaches a practical level: in 1991, the Swedish insurance company Scandia officially approved the post of Chief Knowledge Officer. A great contribution to the development of the concept of knowledge management in 1995 is made by the work of I. Nonaki and H. Takeuchi "Knowledge Creator Company: The Origin and Development of Innovation in Japanese Firms".

All subsequent years up to the present day can be characterized as a period of widespread knowledge management concept in all areas of activity, including science and education. At this stage, there is a direct formation of "knowledge management technology" as a set certain methods, techniques and software and technological means to ensure the free circulation of knowledge and their generation.

In the 1990s, numerous publications about knowledge management appeared on the Internet, specialized websites and magazines were created. For the first time, specialization in knowledge management becomes possible in foreign universities (Harvard Business School, George Mason University, the University of California-Berkeley's School of Information Management Systems), and the Haas Business School of the University of California is establishing the first department of knowledge management, the first professor of which appointed by Ikujiro Nonaki. In 1998, the book by T. Davenport and L. Prusak "Working knowledge: How organizations manage what they know" is published. At the same time, a knowledge management project is being launched in the Swiss Parliament, the aim of which is to create a knowledge management system and its use at the level of government agencies.

In 1999, the Knowledge Management Institute, a for-profit research consortium, was formed with senior staff including the likes of Chris Newell, Lawrence Prusak, and David Smith, a knowledge management consultant at IBM Global Services. The number of conferences devoted to knowledge management is increasing everywhere. In Russia during this period, the collection “The New Post-Industrial Wave in the West” was published under the editorship of V. L. Inozemtsev, and a little later, in the journal “Economic Issues”, an article was published by the first deputy of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Economics B. Milner.

In 2001, the first Russian knowledge management portal was launched and A. L. Gaponenko's book "Knowledge Management" was published. The year 2003 was marked for Russia by the appearance of the monograph by I. Nonaki and H. Takeuchi in Russian, as well as the publication of the work of B. Z. Milner "Knowledge Management: Evolution and Revolution in the Organization".

Today in Russia and abroad there are quite a large number of different monographs, publications, Internet portals devoted in one form or another to the concept of knowledge management. Conferences are regularly held, forums are created to discuss the problems and prospects for introducing knowledge management technology in organizations. All this indicates that knowledge management, being at the junction of various disciplines, is a completely new direction, very relevant in modern conditions, the study of which is the subject of work of many researchers around the world.

Knowledge

Knowledge is not only an independent value, but also generates a multiplier effect in relation to other factors of production, affecting the level of efficiency of their application. Thus, in the modern economy, the source of competitive advantages is not a favorable market position, but difficult-to-replicate knowledge as assets and the way they are allocated. Moreover, the focus here is not on the creation of knowledge, but on its movement and use in the organization.

Information and knowledge, which form the basis of intellectual capital, have a number of specific characteristics, in contrast to the monetary, natural, labor and technical resources of an organization:

• the value of knowledge lies in its abundance, while other resources are valued based on the concept of rarity;

• in the structure of the cost of "materialized knowledge" (high-tech goods and services), there is a tendency to accumulate costs at the initial stage of production;

• there is no significant economic correspondence between input knowledge costs and output knowledge volume.

this is necessary information used according to certain rules and in accordance with certain procedures and taking into account the attitude (understanding, approval, ignoring, consent, denial, etc.) of the using subjects to this information. Today, organizational knowledge is considered both as an information stock and as a flow (the movement of this information) at the same time.

Types of knowledge

Davenport and Prusak note that “knowledge is a fluid mixture of formalized experiences, values, contextual information, and expert perspectives that provides a framework for evaluating and combining new experiences and information. In organizations, they often end up not only in documents or repositories, but also in organizational procedures, processes, practices and norms.

Ikujiro Nonaka has developed a knowledge spiral - a model that explains how, when creating new knowledge, explicit and implicit knowledge interact in an organization through four processes of their transformation:

• socialization (transformation of implicit knowledge into implicit);

• combinations (turning explicit knowledge into explicit);

In the process of socialization, there is a non-verbal transmission of hidden knowledge from one member of the organization to another, for example, by observing one person after another. Externalization is the process of turning hidden knowledge into explicit knowledge through unusual use of language, various metaphors and analogies. Combination is the transfer of explicit, codified knowledge from one person to another with the help of books, newspapers, lectures, computer technologies, and internalization is the transformation of explicit knowledge into hidden form for example, through the practical implementation of some activity.

The main attention is paid to non-formalized knowledge - premonition, understanding, conjectures, emotions, ideals. This type of knowledge allows the organization to solve many important problems, makes it possible to see the company as a living organism, and not as a machine for processing information. In this regard, the desire of many modern organizations to translate implicit knowledge into formalized ones will not have the same result as in the case of the existence of this knowledge in its original form.

Knowledge Model

Each company has its own model of knowledge management, taking into account the specifics of activities, the scale of production, organizational features, and the corporate culture of the company. However, regardless of the direction of movement of information flows, knowledge management should provide control over the implementation of the following processes in the organization:

The successive alternation of four processes - socialization, externalization, combination, internalization - creates a spiral of knowledge. The central task of managers, therefore, is to ensure that this spiral functions effectively. To do this, Nonaki and Takeuchi introduced the concept of an organization model in which management goes the way "from the center-up-down", where middle managers are at the center of events. It is they who are the conductors of ideas between top managers who are divorced from reality and sometimes put forward idealistic concepts and the mundane, routine activities of ordinary employees who must implement these concepts.

• creation of new knowledge;

• use of existing knowledge in decision-making;

• the embodiment of knowledge in products and services;

• transfer of existing knowledge from one part of the organization to another;

• providing access to the necessary knowledge, as well as the protection of knowledge.

Knowledge system

A knowledge management system is a set of management procedures that are repeated on a regular basis, designed to increase the efficiency of collecting, storing, disseminating and using valuable information from the company's point of view.

In his article "The concept of knowledge management in modern organizations" B. Z. Milner. identifies three main components that make up the knowledge management system, namely:

• human;

• technological;

• organizational.

Culture is the most important issue in the field of knowledge, since it is the human factor (values, the level of connections or isolation in the organization) that creates or destroys the knowledge management system. Human interactions and relationships are often referred to as "social capital", an element of a firm's total capital.

Technology alone cannot solve knowledge problems or create a knowledge sharing environment, although it is a very important element of a knowledge management system. The use of modern information technologies should in no case eliminate the necessary elements of ordinary interpersonal communication, because they make the processes of knowledge exchange in the organization more intense. In this regard, it is necessary to pay attention not only to the material and technical part, but also, mainly, to organizational issues.

The organizational knowledge framework consists of practical, theoretical, strategic, commercial and industrial knowledge. The organization extracts information, builds inferences and generates new knowledge in order to improve the quality of its products and services and, therefore, the competitive position of the firm. The management of each of the listed elements in the knowledge management system is based on the use of the processes already considered - the creation, storage, use and dissemination of knowledge within the organization.

Thus, from a knowledge management perspective, the essence of a firm lies in its capacity to create, transfer, assemble, integrate, and exploit knowledge as an asset. As a result, competencies are formed from knowledge, which, in turn, serve as the basis for creating products and services offered by the company on the market. In other words, knowledge management, integrating many different disciplines, such as personnel management, marketing, economics, psychology and computer science, is a 21st century technology that allows organizations to ensure their competitiveness in the market.

Key Concepts

knowledge spiral is a model proposed by Ikujio Nonaka to explain how explicit and implicit knowledge, when creating (generating new) knowledge, interact in an organization through four transformation processes or behaviors. Learning organization it is an organization that creates, acquires, transfers and preserves knowledge. It changes flexibly and adaptively in response to new knowledge and the context of the situation. In it, people are constantly expanding their ability to create the results they really want, in it new broad-based ways of thinking are nurtured, in it people are constantly learning how to learn together. Learning Community it is an informal group of people, without being tied to an organizational structure, that discusses together best practices, various issues or skills that the group wants to learn more about. Knowledge Map it is the process of identifying the knowledge and skills necessary to sell or develop a solution.

see also

Notes

Literature

• Blunt, R. Knowledge Management in the New economy. - iUniverse, 2001. - ISBN 9780595167241

Links

• Knowledge management in a manufacturing enterprise (English)
• Knowledge Management section of the Management Publications Archive - a large selection of articles on various aspects of knowledge management theory and practice

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Yaroslav Pavlov, Senior Lecturer and Program Director distance learning IBDA RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation

For some leaders knowledge management concept is nothing more than an abstract term, far from business. Others understand knowledge management too literally, for example, as an IT system for storing information or as a document management system. However, such a narrow approach may not be beneficial for business. Knowledge and information management should be understood as the philosophy of managing an organization. In practice, it is expressed in how and what kind of knowledge the organization retains and develops, how it exchanges it with the external environment, how it encourages employees to share information with each other.

The concept of knowledge management: 2 main principles

Principle 1. Consistency, that is, coverage of all organizational levels and functions. Knowledge and information management cannot be viewed as a function of a separate department (for example, IT or human resources), it must permeate all areas of the organization. This can be achieved in practice, for example, by assembling cross-functional teams to solve certain problems. In addition, data management should affect all management levels, from top management to ordinary employees. That is, efforts must be made both in developing a strategy, and in organizing processes, and in the course of performing routine operations.

Principle 2. Compliance of the new rules with the existing culture. Some concept of knowledge management (exchange) has spontaneously formed in your company. It is imperative to understand what kind of system it is before proceeding with its optimization, otherwise you will encounter strong resistance from the staff.

• Personnel knowledge management: how to turn skills into value

The first thing you need to do is determine the prevailing type of knowledge in the organization. There are four of them in total (see picture). They differ in two parameters: systematization and distribution. Systematization shows the degree of formalization of knowledge, distribution - the level of their distribution in the organization. The four types of knowledge correspond to the four types of so-called "knowledge culture" in the organization, which were described in 1995 by Max Boysot.

1. Markets. In such cultures, public knowledge, which is considered as a commodity, prevails. The exchange of knowledge is organized on the principle of contractual relations. In other words, a material reward is provided for the exchange. At the same time, practice shows that in knowledge management it is much more profitable to use non-material incentives. Money also works here, but the effect will be short-term. In addition, there is a risk of fraud on the part of employees. Too strict control is contrary to the principles of knowledge sharing.

2. Bureaucracy. In these structures, private knowledge owned by individual employees is most common. Any exchange of knowledge takes place in accordance with the rules and regulations. The owner of knowledge shares it only when he is told that he must do it. As a result, the bearers of knowledge turn into their guardians. They believe that knowledge is their strength, and they do not want to part with it.

• Corporate culture of the organization: examples and formation

3. Estates. Such organizations are led by a strong leader, and any exchange of knowledge takes place at his behest. Personal knowledge prevails here, and there is no systematization. Knowledge is viewed by employees as a source of strength and proximity to the leader. As a consequence, guardians of knowledge also appear here.

4. Clans. In such companies, informal knowledge sharing is well established, and without additional efforts. prevails common sense; even if knowledge is not systematized, it is still distributed throughout the company. Employees share common values, which is good for informal knowledge sharing. It is natural for workers to share knowledge.

The material is more likely to present conceptual points that are significant in the process of knowledge transfer than to model another system of sequence of actions in knowledge transfer. In my opinion, understanding and keeping in mind the fundamental concepts in the transfer of knowledge (novice adaptation) is more important and allows them to do the right thing.

The knowledge transfer system has already become part of the onboarding process and is essential to reduce the time it usually takes for a new employee to settle into a new location and work to their full potential.

When using a well-built adaptation system, a person feels more comfortable in a new place, and the management gets the most out of it in their work. Moreover, the adaptation of personnel is, first of all, people who directly help the employee to get in the know; who organize and control this process; daily surrounding the new employee.

KEY PRINCIPLES OF THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER SYSTEM

Knowledge transfer is based on the following key principles.

1. The transfer of knowledge is purely voluntary. Learning cannot be forced, and experts cannot be forced to share knowledge.
2. People strive for real contact, so relationships and contact are of primary importance in the transfer of knowledge.
3. The recipient must show an interest in gaining knowledge, only then will he want to ask the right questions and have deeper knowledge. It has been established that in a lifetime, 80% of knowledge people receive through asking questions.
4. Experts should be interested and motivated in quality transfer of knowledge.
5. The transfer and assimilation of knowledge is more effective when a beginner uses the acquired knowledge in practice.

PROBLEMS IN THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER?

Problems can be both organizational and caused by broken communications, personal fears.

1. Organizational problems most often lie in and in cases where mentoring is not prescribed as a business process. As a result, an experienced employee, at the personal will of the management, is given, in addition to the usual duties, mentoring, which is not supported by remuneration. This state of affairs does not cause anything but discontent, tk. I don't have the time or desire for it.
2. The personal fears of an expert mentor may be related to the fear of losing their place and position: “if I tell them everything I know, why would they need me?” Personal fears of a beginner may be associated with the fear of asking "stupid" questions, so as not to look like a laughingstock in the eyes of others.
3. Communication problems are more extensive and can basically be associated with both the personal characteristics of the participants in the process and their violation of the principles of supporting communications. Typical situations might look like this:

• the mentor conducts training (transfer of knowledge) in a frankly humiliating, peremptory, categorical style of behavior, or a novice (recipient of knowledge) behaves disinterestedly, pretentiously and thereby causes irritation and hostility;
• the beginner does not know what questions to ask, and expects an experienced employee to solve this problem for him. The expert, on the other hand, waits for questions from the beginner and, when he does not receive them, regards the behavior as disinterest. Often, a showdown does not occur, and the contact itself is curtailed or limited to the dacha. general information;
• communications are episodic and short-term in nature and are considered by the recipient of knowledge as insufficient, which leads to the emergence of prejudices and conjectures: “the mentor does not want to share knowledge so as not to produce competitors for himself”, “he does not want to just give away the knowledge that he himself got at the cost of hard labor." At the same time, on the part of the mentor, the reasons for curtailing communications can be explained by the fact that the beginner simply does not show interest in this, or no one appreciates the knowledge transferred, or the mentor simply does not like the beginner due to some individual characteristics.

WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE BE GUIDED TO MAKE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER MORE EFFECTIVE?

An alarming symptom that says that knowledge in the company is not accumulated and, moreover, is not transferred to other employees is the search for the same information by different people working together. To avoid this, you must adhere to the following rules.

1. Formalized knowledge is not enough for knowledge transfer.

Knowledge within the organization must also be transferred personally. Formalized knowledge is only 20-30% of all available information necessary for work. The rest of it is informal, intuitive knowledge.

Not all knowledge and competencies can be learned through regulations, guidelines and codes. Formalized knowledge, as a rule, is an information squeeze, the result of collective experience. Many examples on the basis of which conclusions were drawn disappear without a trace. It is difficult for a beginner to immediately understand what would seem obvious to everyone, it is difficult to understand the intricacies of procedures and regulations. Some skills are best transferred through a supportive and personal approach.

Forms of personal transfer of knowledge include:

• mentoring: a less trained employee is attached to a more experienced one so that he professionally grows and develops;
• cross-training: an employee who has passed the training transfers his experience to colleagues;
• lectures, discussions on a given topic: employees have the opportunity to exchange information and come to a common solution to the tasks. The advantage of seminars, cross-training is that the specialists who conduct them structure the information and convey it to colleagues in a convenient form.

2. Take care of communications in the process of transferring knowledge.

The transfer of knowledge is a contact process and requires a respectful attitude to each other and taking responsibility by the parties for the quality of communications.

From a beginner in such communications, attentiveness, inquisitiveness, interest in the topic under study, respect for the experience and personality of the mentor as a whole are required. The beginner's attitude in the process of transferring knowledge is to absorb the maximum of knowledge and skills.

And the reverse picture. When the process of transferring knowledge from learning itself turns into a competition of ambitions “who among us is cooler!?”

The beginner boasts of his past skills, often interrupts the mentor, tries to impose the game “And with us ... and with you”, emphasize his own and belittle the mentor's importance. What experience and knowledge will he gain in the end? Most likely, everything will be limited to the satisfaction of one's vanity and ambition, nothing more.

The mentor tries to impose his superiority, dismisses the beginner's past experience, demonstrates complacency; not so much teaches as boasts of his merits. When a beginner makes a mistake, he may be ironically surprised: “how can you not know such obvious things!”.

3. The willingness of the mentor to openly discuss his successes and shortcomings with the novice being trained.

The personality of an expert is not perfect. It is formed on the basis of experience of successes and failures. The ability to share your successes helps the beginner shape the required behavior, and the ability to talk about your failures and mistakes helps you see the consequences of wrong strategies and learn to avoid them.

4. Encourage and reward those who share their experience and knowledge with others.

Specialists are not always ready to transfer their knowledge and experience for several reasons:

• expert knowledge gives an advantage - the ability to be ahead (to receive better and higher-paid orders, to be always "in sight", among the first to be promoted to higher positions, etc.);
• a sense of indispensability and the associated ability to influence others, to have power based on authority, sole possession of information. Employees are more willing to share their accumulated knowledge when they are interested in: and in the success of teamwork; and in increasing prestige among colleagues; and financial reward.

In order for experts to be interested in transferring knowledge, it is necessary to pay attention to their motivation:

• bonuses, accrue interest from the salary for mentoring;
• raise prestige. The very process of transferring knowledge automatically implies that the mentor is superior in some matters to others - and this, in fact, is public recognition of him as an expert in this field;
• form a bonus system for team results. In this case, the transfer of knowledge will become a necessary component for more effective work.

Voluntary transfer of knowledge is possible where employees feel they are part of a team, where respect is key moment that creates trust among its members. Then there is no reason to fear that you will turn out to be unnecessary, as soon as everything that is possible is pulled out of you.

5. Apply the shadowing technique.

The technique, which implies that a newcomer becomes a constant companion of a successful employee for a short period, observes his actions.

Many experts have been in their fields for decades, so they act almost instinctively. The newbie's task is to reflect on their actions and decisions, i.e., how do they know when to do something; this indicates that something is wrong, etc. Working hand in hand with experts, the newcomer has a unique opportunity to absorb much of their knowledge.

6. As soon as possible, involve the newcomer in projects, set practical tasks and discuss the observed behavior, decisions made.

The value of the approach lies in the fact that the beginner learns by acting. For him, this is a kind of training in combat conditions, where active training takes place in the skills necessary for work. And the uncertainty into which the mentor plunges the beginner teaches him to ask topical issues and more deeply comprehend the observed processes.

As a valuable teaching approach, a mentor may deliberately provoke a newcomer into making mistakes and wrong actions, only to have an opportunity to discuss important aspects that will save him from negative consequences in the future. For example, in dealing with a client, promising more than required and then discussing the consequences of such decisions.

7. Support what has been said (provisions/principles) with real examples.

A living example, a story told from personal experience, is more likely to affect the imagination and be more deeply fixed in the mind of a beginner than a dry presentation of academic information.

8. Do not overload with information.

No need to overwhelm people with information - it is better to captivate them. This is especially true during the adaptation period. A beginner faces everything new and uncertain, experiences stress and anxiety. This does not contribute to the full assimilation of information, and it disappears without a trace (it concerns information that is not supported by practical examples and is not tied to the work being done). In this period, it should be taken as a rule that information for a beginner should be dosed, be relevant and relate to what he needs to know and do right now.

9. Keep in touch with your retirees. You may need their help.

WHOM TO ADAPT: THE BEGINNER TO THE TEAM OR THE TEAM TO THE BEGINNER?

High-quality transfer of knowledge, especially in the case of a new employee entering the company/division, will not take place if the environment in which he enters is not prepared, i.e. team.

Traditionally, there has been confusion on this issue. And many human resource specialists (HRs), when asked who needs to be adapted: a newcomer to the team in which he will work, or a team to a newcomer who upsets the balance in the group, usually tend to say that the newcomer to the team. This is partly true, but only partly. A team/team is always stronger than one person. The team carries the corporate culture, established norms of relationships, behavior in the organization. And when a newcomer enters the team, then no matter what socio-psychological information the HR “pumped” him before, the newcomer will perceive the real culture that exists in the team. Or otherwise (if he doesn’t accept) he will quit. And then any system of knowledge transfer, which is called "down the drain."

Therefore, in order for the knowledge transfer system to work well and for the beginner to effectively assimilate the experience and knowledge transferred by mentors and the team, HR managers need to take care of preparing the team for the entry of the newcomer.

First of all, to ensure the safety of the entry of a newcomer into the team in order to neutralize the group effect of the confrontation "I - they."

This effect often comes from the uncertainty of what a new rookie will bring to an established team, or how the team will treat the rookie. Both sides are concerned, and this disrupts the work in the unit for some time, and prevents the newcomer from perceiving the transferred knowledge in a qualitative way. It is no secret that often the arrival of a newcomer significantly changes the balance of power in the unit due to the redistribution of power and functional duties. This is especially important when an employee from among the management staff comes to the company.

The sooner the HR realizes the importance of this concept and gets involved in the process of establishing productive relationships, the better the process of mastering knowledge will be for the beginner.

Which ones should be used in this case is a topic for another article.

Academy of Social Management

LECTURE

By discipline:"Sociology of Management"

Topic 22. Knowledge management

Doctor of Sociological Sciences,

Professor Grigoriev A.A.

Moscow - 2011

Topic 22. Knowledge management

Topic questions:

1. Formation of the concept of "knowledge management"

2. Knowledge as the main resource of the organization and the object of management

3. Knowledge management as a function and as a type of management activity

4. Main approaches, strategies and directions for implementing the concept of knowledge management

5. Organizational issues of knowledge management

The formation of the concept of "knowledge management"

In the previous lecture, we already noted that the most important component in the structure of human resource management is knowledge management. The emergence of the concept of "knowledge management" is associated with a number of circumstances. In the 21st century, with the transition of society to the post-industrial stage, knowledge becomes the dominant means of achieving high socio-economic results. Traditional factors (land, labor and capital) in the modern economy operate only under the condition of effective use of knowledge. Knowledge in this context includes approaches and ideas about how production should be organized, how a product should be made, for which products there is hidden demand, etc. This knowledge is manifested in the skills and abilities of people and is fixed in the form of patents, licenses, organizational structures, methods of interaction between enterprises and institutions.

Previously, the main wealth of countries, peoples, territories and organizations was considered to be physical capital, including fertile lands, minerals, plants, factories, equipment, etc. In the information society, knowledge becomes the basis of wealth . They largely determine the competitiveness of organizations, countries and regions, and act as a key resource for development. Intangible values ​​(assets) in terms of value increasingly dominate over material ones.

XIX century XX century XXI century

Rice. 1. The trend of changing the capital structure of companies

The intellectualization of production is closely related to another trend called "avoidance of the masses" or "customization". “Customization” refers to the tendency to increasingly and comprehensively embody the requirements of a particular consumer in a product or service.

The word "customization" itself comes from English word customer ¾ consumer. "Customization" means rethinking the values ​​of mass production and moving towards the production of a large range of products, but in small batches, designed for different target groups of consumers and market segments. "Customization" implies a modular approach to the production and promotion of products, the production of goods and services that exactly meet the requirements of specific (and not abstract, average) customers and consumers. If mass production focused on the production of large volumes of monotonous products, then "customization" focuses on the production of small volumes of diverse products, highly adapted to the needs and expectations of specific customers.

Today, even traditional goods are saturated and even oversaturated with an intellectual component. So, about 70% of the cost of a new car falls on its intangible part. Microsoft doesn't have many offices, warehouses, or machines. All work of the company is built on the intelligence of its employees. The power of the mind dominates modern corporations. P. Drucker called the current situation “a world in which people work with their brains, not their hands". It is “a world where innovation is more important than mass products. A world in which rapid change is constantly taking place. A world as different from the industrial age as it was from the agricultural. Most products become "smart things", contain complex, "smart" technology that allows you to complicate and expand functionality goods. In this regard, management tasks are changing not only in firms and corporations, but also in state and municipal administration.

In a message to the Federal Assembly Russian Federation On November 12, 2009, President of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev focused on the tasks associated with the use of the mind and intellect: “Instead of a primitive raw material economy, we we will create a smart economy that produces unique knowledge , new things and technologies, things and technologies, useful to people. Instead of an archaic society in which leaders think and decide for everyone, we will become a society of smart, free and responsible people. Instead of chaotic actions dictated by nostalgia and prejudice, We will pursue a smart foreign and domestic policy, subordinated to purely pragmatic goals.

In the context of the general intellectualization of our life, the processes of not only the creation of new knowledge, but also their transfer, replication, transformation and use are important. Under the new conditions, commercial enterprises, state and public institutions and organizations, i.e. all participants in the process of creating, transforming and using knowledge, begin to act in a new way. Concerning knowledge management becomes a decisive factor in socio-economic development .

One of the first books on knowledge management was published in 1987. Carl Wiig, a well-known American specialist in artificial intelligence, laid the foundation for scientific publications on knowledge management with his trilogy. This was followed by dozens and hundreds of works - books, articles, reports, presenting the results of scientific research on this issue and a variety of practical recommendations. In 1996, about 40 international conferences were held on the topic of knowledge management. In large campaigns, positions of director of knowledge management, vice president of intellectual capital management, manager of intellectual assets, director of training are introduced, cross-functional project teams are being formed in the field of knowledge management. According to research, more than 75% of the 2000 largest companies in the world already use knowledge management methods and technologies.

An important role in the development of the concept of "Knowledge Management" was played by the work of Japanese researchers Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi The company is the creator of knowledge. The origin and development of innovations in Japanese firms”:

The authors of the book are convinced that the reason for the success and leadership of modern companies is their ability to create new knowledge, and in their book they reveal in detail the features of the knowledge creation process. Nonaka and Takeuchi stand out two kinds of knowledge : formalized (explicit) and informal (tacit) and describe four types of interaction informal and formalized knowledge ( socialization, externalization, combination and internalization), as well as five conditions conducive to the creation of knowledge ( intention, autonomy, upheaval and creative chaos, redundancy, diversity).

Socialization- the process of disseminating knowledge and thereby creating informal knowledge, such as disseminated intellectual models and technical skills.

Externalization- the process of formalizing non-formalized knowledge into formalized concepts. This is the quintessence of the knowledge creation process, as a result of which non-formalized knowledge becomes formalized in the form of metaphors, analogies, concepts, hypotheses and models.

Combination- the process of incorporating concepts into a knowledge system. This method of knowledge transformation implies a combination of various provisions of formalized knowledge.

Internalization- the process of translating formalized knowledge into non-formalized knowledge. It is closely related to the "learning by doing" methodology.

When experience is internalized through socialization, externalization, and combination into the individual's informal knowledge in the form of a shared intellectual model or technological know-how, it acquires value.

The noted provisions of the authors served as the basis for the theory of the creation of organizational knowledge. The main thing in the creation of knowledge is the transition of two types of knowledge (unwritten and fixed) into each other through the processes of socialization (unwritten to unwritten), externalization (unwritten to fixed), internalization (fixed to unwritten) and combination (fixed to fixed).

As Blake (1998) wrote, purpose of knowledge management consists of mastering the collective experience of the organization and disseminating it "everywhere where it can bring the greatest return." This is consistent with an approach that views the firm from a human resource perspective and assumes that the source of competitive advantage lies within the firm (in its employees and their knowledge), and not in how it positions itself in the market. Trassler (1998) explains that "the ability to effectively capture and use knowledge will be a major source of competitive advantage in many organizations in the next few years." A successful company is a company that creates knowledge. Knowledge management refers to the transfer of knowledge from those who have it to those who need it in order to improve the efficiency of an organization.

So, in the information age, knowledge, not material assets or financial resources, is the key to competitiveness. In essence, as Mecklenberg et al. (1999) pointed out: “Knowledge management enables organizations to capture, apply and create value from the creativity and experience of their employees.”

Basic terms in the concept of "Knowledge Management"

Knowledge are actionable information that actively guides the process of completing tasks, solving problems, and making decisions.

Explicit Knowledge encompass all the knowledge that we know we can record, communicate to others, and enter into a database.

Implicit knowledge it's something we don't know we know. It includes various know-how, secrets of mastery, experience, insight and intuition.

Manage knowledge - means to systematically, accurately and thoughtfully form, update and apply them in order to maximize the effectiveness of the organization.