3.1 The ability to learn as knowledge
The focus on knowledge sources has raised the issue about the role learning plays in not only creating knowledge, but also transferring knowledge. At the societal, organisation or even individual level, the management of knowledge can determine success. But how does KM relate to learning?
Characteristics of KM have raised some important rethinking. In brief, this includes:
- How useful are those management theories that embrace a more 'scientific' and rational view of processes and individual skills and knowledge required to meet current and future service and product delivery needs;
- Business opportunities are often missed not only because a company takes too long to respond, but also because employees (especially management) fail to possess the skills and commitment to identify the opportunity in the first instance;
- Learning can take many forms and appreciating learning styles of the individual and capacity to learn (individually and as part of a group) can dictate the ability of training and development activities to add value to the business;
- The ability to absorb learning and rapidly transfer this learning into productive outcomes is a knowledge asset that once acquired by a company can further accelerate and expand learning and performance;
- Harnessing collective knowledge of individuals, teams or groups, corporate levels and external strategic partners is a learning process;
- Knowledge and learning has long been ignored as a corporate asset that can be valued and add real value to the net worth of a company;
- Societies need to recognise their ability to development learning that enhances both employable skills and knowledge and the overall capacity of the individual and society to cooperate and promote lifelong learning;
- Knowledge, intelligence, data and information are related but distinct;
- Change management and competitiveness involves knowledge management;
- Human resources are valuable not only for what they can do, but also as an investment and realisable capital asset.
- Boundaries of knowledge and learning in an enterprise are integrated with the external environment; and
- It makes poor business sense to introduce new management philosophies such as quality improvement and organisational change without getting to the heart of the issue that centres on individual and team's capacity to learn and build commitment to the transfer of learning into action.
Reading 1
Jurisica, I (2000), ‘Systematic knowledge management and knowledge discovery’, Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science , Vol. 27[1], pp. 9-12. Source September 2004, at http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Oct-00/jurisica.html
Activity 1
Complete Reading 1 by Igor Jurisica. Now answer the following.
- Reflect on the complex statement that learning generates not only knowledge related to performance, but also the ability for individual in an organisation to discover knowledge and learn.
- In the reading the statement ‘ Abstraction mechanisms support organization of knowledge and its effective use’ is made. What does this mean?
- Why is knowledge discovery a competitive advantage for any organisation? List some examples for a transport and logisctics company with which you are familiar.
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