Maximizing the impact of teamwork on management of knowledge in organizations.

• Author: Chau, S.L.
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   Organizations are never static in today's global economy and they are facing a lot of challenges from political, economic and competitive, socio-cultural, and technological arenas. This phenomenon implies that managers are compelled to develop strategies of gaining and maintaining competitive advantage in order to endure. In this regard, many organizations are focusing their attention on managing knowledge and realizing it as a key capability for competing successfully in a global environment (Kermally, 2001, Emelo 2009). Wang and Ahmed (2003, p. 56) also recognize the importance of knowledge as they elaborate that "as organizations enter the 1990s, knowledge becomes one of the most important strategic resources and that knowledge production is critical to sustaining competitive advantage and organizational success".

   Binney (2001) also shares the same view by stating that effectively implementing a sound knowledge management (KM) strategy and becoming a knowledge-based company is seen as a mandatory condition of success for organizations as they enter the era of the knowledge economy. In light of such a proposition, this paper attempts to examine how organizations can maximize the impact of teamwork within organizations and their management of knowledge with a closer look at KM as a start. The problems encountered in managing teamwork in respect of KM are also discussed.

2. UNDERSTANDING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

   In recent years, there has been no lack of literature discussing KM because modern economies are increasingly based on knowledge. Yet, there is no universal definition for this discipline since knowledge is an elusive concept that has been classified and defined in a variety of ways (Birkinshaw, Nobel and Ridderstrale, 2002). Nevertheless, there are still some commonalities found in various explanations of knowledge and KM.

   Most dictionaries define knowledge as "the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience association". Thus, knowledge involves cognition, which in turn incorporates perception and awareness (Kermally, 2001) and knowledge actually is information in context to produce an actionable understanding (Rumizen, 2002). Newell, Robertson, Scarbrough and Swan (2002, p. 3) echo this explanation by stating, "what an individual infers from information is related to their cognitive capacity and interpretative schema". Ali (2003) also explains knowledge as the act of knowing where a person analyzes information, evaluates the situation, and then creates knowledge.

   From the above definitions, it is apparent that knowledge is highly related to information. Yet, Ali (2003) reminds that knowledge is not information and information cannot substitute for knowledge. The relationship is made clearer by Rumizen's (2002) use of a hierarchy to describe data, information and knowledge in which data and information can be interpreted with the use of knowledge. Besides, Nonaka (1994, see Newell et al., 2002) claims that it is the semantic aspects of information that create knowledge. Additionally, it is the way in which information is conveyed and the meaning that the individual infers from the information that create knowledge. Consequently, it is generally assumed that the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) can facilitate information exchange and presumably knowledge sharing.

   Apart from the characteristic of an intimate relationship between information and knowledge, there is plenty of categorization of knowledge. However, a detailed discussion of the knowledge typology is beyond the scope of this paper. Just to name a few, knowledge can be broadly classified as tacit (implicit) and explicit (Nowell et al., 2002; Choo, 1998; Kermally, 2001; Ali, 2003; Rumizen, 2002). Choo (1998) adds one more type to this knowledge division, namely, the cultural knowledge. Besides, knowledge can be categorized as codified or uncodified and diffused or undiffused (Boisot, 1995, see Choo, 1998). According to such a classification, knowledge can then be termed as proprietary knowledge; public knowledge; personal knowledge and commonsense knowledge. In addition, Spender (1996, 1998, see Nowell et al., 2002) highlights 4 different types of knowledge: conscious knowledge; automatic knowledge; objectified knowledge and collective knowledge. Lastly, there are 5 types of knowledge suggested by Blackler (1995, see Nowell et al., 2002), they are embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded and encoded knowledge.

   No matter which typology is taken on, putting "knowledge" into the management context that bears a basic objective of helping organizations to do things more effectively and efficiently, KM can be described as "the systematic processes by which knowledge needed for an organization to succeed is created, captured, shared and leveraged" (Rumizen, 2002, p. 9). There is no shortage of KM definitions, among them, the following one quoted from Xerox Corporation (see Kermally, 2001, p. 16) can clearly present the underlying thought of KM:

   Knowledge management is responsible for creating a thriving work and learning environment that fosters the continuous creation, aggregation, use and re-use of both organizational and personal knowledge in the pursuit of new business or organizational value. Follow this frame of mind; organizations will be more able to cope with the driving forces for KM that continuously emerges from the dynamic global environment. A strive for good KM would bring organizations some benefits like enhancing employees' competencies, generating innovation, reducing costs and bringing about business transformation (Kermally, 2001).

3. KNOWEDGE MANAGEMENT AND TEAMWORK

   Understanding the meaning of knowledge and KM helps to lay a basis for discussion in this section. According to Nowell et al. (2002, p. 47), "knowledge creation or knowledge generation is typically an activity that is accomplished by a team of people rather than by individuals working alone". This can explain why many companies today tend to organize activities around self-contained, problem-solving and self-managing work teams. Basically, a team is a group of people who work together and share a common work objective (Dessler, 2001) by which organizations can improve the ways of developing, disseminating and applying knowledge. There is also evidence suggesting that teams typically outperform individuals when the tasks being done require multiple skills, judgment and experience (Robbins and De...