15356 Project Performance Improvement

Individual Assignment

Fostering A Supportive Organizational Culture for Conversion of Tacit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge

Shuya Liu

Student Number: 12094138

University of Technology, Sydney

22 November 2015

Word Count: 2731

Table of Contents ABSTRACT:.....................................................................................................................................................31. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................42. THE PROJECT...........................................................................................................................................6

2.1 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT.................................................................................................................62.2 APPROACH, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES...............................................................................................................6

2.2.1 Approach – SECI Model...................................................................................................................................62.2.2 Tools and techniques..........................................................................................................................................7

3. LESSONS LEARNED THROUGH REFLECTION..........................................................................93.1 POSITIVE LESSONS....................................................................................................................................................93.2 NEGATIVE LESSONS.................................................................................................................................................9

4. PROPOSED APPROACHES.................................................................................................................104.1 REFLECTION PRACTICE IN THE ORGANIZATION............................................................................................10

4.1.1 Benefits of reflection........................................................................................................................................104.1.2 Concrete actions................................................................................................................................................10

4.2 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES.....................................................................................................114.3 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TRAINING................................................................................................114.4 FLEXIBLE LEADERSHIP SKILLS...........................................................................................................................11

5. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................11REFERENCES:.............................................................................................................................................12

Abstract: As businesses face more and more intense competition in today’s knowledge economy, the key factors to a sustainable and innovative organization lie in knowledge management. A challenging aspect of knowledge management is collection and conversion of the intangible, informal and indirect knowledge, i.e. tacit knowledge, into documented and easily accessible knowledge, viz. explicit knowledge. To foster a supportive organizational culture for such knowledge sharing and conversion is vital to the organizational growth. In this paper, the author takes a reflective approach to review a project that involved considerable knowledge creation and conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. The paper firstly introduces the importance of knowledge management within an organization and gives an explanation of tacit and explicit knowledge. Secondly the paper gives a brief description of the project, introduces the approach, tools and techniques used in the project for knowledge conversion. The paper draws both positive and negative lessons from the project based on reflection in terms of conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and a supportive organizational culture. Lastly supported from substantial literature review and the lessons-learned from the project, the paper proposes the approaches that could have been used in the project for a better project outcome and can be applied to future projects and to foster a supportive organizational culture for knowledge sharing and conversion. Keywords: Knowledge Economy, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, Supportive Organizational Culture, Reflective Practice

1. Introduction In an increasingly globalized economy one of the major challenges facing organizations is how to sustain their competitive advantage and economic competitiveness, especially in the “knowledge economy” which has been widely identified and acknowledged as the dominant economic structure and the theme of development in the current business environment and the emerging future (AIIC, n. d.; Djeflat, World Bank, 2009). The notion of the knowledge economy can be boiled down to the effective combination of information technology and talents by businesses to create wealth (Brinkley, I., 2006). To get a head start in the competition against the rivals, businesses have to enhance capability in knowledge management. A business survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) which had over 1500 executives participants from 100 countries in the world, finds that 43% of world’s executives consider knowledge management is the main driving factor for productivity gains in next decade (EIU 2006).

Figure 1 EIU survey (Source: EIU 2006) The key element of knowledge management is to facilitate flow of knowledge within an organization, which is crucial to the organization’s growth (Mason M. n.d.).

Nonaka categorizes knowledge into explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (Nonaka I., 2007). Explicit knowledge is codified and documented knowledge that can be easily shared and articulated. Tacit knowledge lies within people’s minds, it is intangible, informal, subjective, circulated mostly in informal channels and is hard to be captured and interpreted. Ignoring tacit knowledge can be costly as tacit knowledge constitutes a significant part of the business’s knowledge capital and are the “big data” and source of valuable insights and innovation (Kabir N., Carayannis E. 2013). Given the characteristic of tacit knowledge and the difficulties and constraints of knowledge capturing and sharing, the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge plays a significant part in an organization’s development and growth. A significant amount of research suggests the importance of fostering an organizational culture of knowledge sharing. Organizational culture is “a system of shared norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions which binds people together, thereby creating shared meanings” (Larson E., Gray C. 2011) It is the unique “personality” of an organization developed over time by practice and it governs how people behave in the organization and influences project performance (Mclaughlin J. n.d.). Therefore, a supportive organizational culture that encourages and facilitates knowledge sharing is vital to the development of an organization. By reflecting on a construction project the author worked on which involved the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, and based on a substantial literature review, this paper firstly presents the project, the approaches, tools and techniques taken, and secondly draws lessons-learned from the project in terms of the conversion of the two types of knowledge. Lastly the paper proposes some approaches that could have been used to improve the project outcome and can help fostering a supportive organizational culture for conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

2. The Project

2.1 Brief description of the project The project was a large construction project in an African country that was at the time a new market for the organization since it had not undertaken any project in that country before. As the organization was qualified in the bidding and was about to kick off the contract negotiation, the organization sent a project team to the country for supplementary investigation so as to verify the findings in the bidding documents provided and collect further details regarding the project and the market. This included factors such as site conditions, major constraints, infrastructure, utilities and transport, labour and materials, laws, policies, local communities, unions and government. Eventually the team had to submit a formal report to the management with the data collected. As can be seen this was a knowledge creation process that involved conversion of a substantial amount of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

2.2 Approach, tools and techniques

2.2.1 Approach – SECI Model This part of the paper presents the theoretical background and approach that have been taken for the project. In their publication The concept of “Ba”: Building a foundation for knowledge creation, Ikujiro Nonaka and Noboru Konno proposed a knowledge creation and interaction process between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge from individuals to groups and then to the organization. This process is known as SECI Model (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization (Nonaka, I., Konno, N., 1998). The four steps of the process are shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: SECI model process for conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge (Source: Nonaka, I., Konno, N., 1998, p43)

According to Nonaka and Konno, the main purposes of each of the four steps are as follows:

1) Socialization: to acquire tacit knowledge from customers by engaging in direct

interaction and contact with them;

2) Externalization: to convert and use individual’s ideas with the group’s;

3) Combination: to combine and integrate the new explicit knowledge generated from

socialization and externalization into the organizational knowledge;

4) Internalization: to take concrete actions and apply the new explicit knowledge into

practice and acquire new tacit knowledge by learning in practice.

2.2.2 Tools and techniques The conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge for this project took place inside and outside the organization, as discussed below. Both inside and outside conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge employ relevant tools and techniques that are appropriate for each step of the aforesaid SECI Model. (1) Inside the organization Prior to the supplementary investigation, internal experts in varying disciplines from different divisions of the organization were consulted. Some of the experts had worked in Africa or similar projects before, albeit without working experience in the country where the project is situated, they could offer insights and professional advice on the project, such as the imperative data required for different subject matters for the purpose of implementing the project. However, many experts at the time were engaged in other projects or were not in the home country and there was insufficient document knowledge (explicit knowledge) available that could be referenced. This required collection and conversion of tacit knowledge of these internal experts to explicit knowledge. The tools and techniques used for this conversion inside the organization included below:

- Digital communication in virtual project context: e-mails, telephone conversations, video conference etc.;

- Direct interaction: visit and collection of information from the experts who were in the home country and others who worked closely with other subject matter experts who were abroad at the time;

- Informal conversations: acquiring tacit knowledge from informal channels; - Deductive/inductive reasoning: appropriate reasoning of the acquired tacit knowledge

and interpret them into documented explicit knowledge based on professional knowledge and common practice.

(2) Outside the organization The majority of the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge happened outside the organization given the main task of the supplementary investigation was to collect data regarding the project and local market. This process involved a wide varying range of stakeholders, from highly educated to the ones with limited or very little education, from government bodies to local business of different sizes, from senior villagers to young people etc. Therefore diverse tools and techniques were employed in this process:

- Direct interaction: site visit and home visit to local businesses and local community, official visit to government bodies;

- Articulation and interpretation of tacit knowledge: oral interviews, dialogues, storytelling, verification with others present;

- Documenting the above-mentioned articulated knowledge; - Questionnaires; - Information communication channels; - Deductive/inductive reasoning; - Thorough analysis and selection of verified knowledge and integration in formal

documentation; - Case study of past and current projects undertaken by other organizations in the

country. To sum up, the knowledge creation and conversion inside and outside the organization employed the SECI Model and appropriate tools and techniques for each step. In particular, the inside conversion was strongly influenced by the individual’s personality and the organizational culture.

3. Lessons learned through reflection

3.1 Positive lessons By seeking substantive tacit knowledge and converting it into explicit knowledge, i.e., to document them into formal language, the team prepared and submitted a very professional and dependable report. To conclude, the positive lessons drawn from this project in terms of conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and organizational support include but are not limited to the following: (1) Knowledge sharing: the knowledge shared by the experts and external stakeholders

greatly helped the team’s performance and efficiency; (2) Relationship building: to obtain the knowledge, the team had to substantially interact

with the aforesaid people/parties that was also a process of connecting with others and building relationship;

(3) Risk management: by obtaining and document others’ knowledge and experience, i.e. converting tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, the team was able to identify and note down potential risks associated with the implementation of the project at an early stage;

(4) Substantive support for project implementation: by acquiring and conversion knowledge givers’ tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge in hard form, the project can be implemented with more mature and detailed technical design;

(5) Avoidance of knowledge champion: by extensive engagement and knowledge creation and conversion, much useful information was obtained and shared among the team and within the organization which avoided knowledge champion, i.e. centralized possession knowledge by few individuals.

3.2 Negative lessons The main negative lessons learned from this project with respect to conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and organizational culture could be as stated below: (1) Reluctance of respondents: some internal experts and external stakeholders were

reluctant to share their knowledge due to various reasons, such as fear of loss of status in the organization or lack of interest. Unfortunately no alternate solutions were reflected and studied to address this issue. Particular attention is drawn to internal reluctance of knowledge sharing; this is referred as knowledge hoarding culture by some researchers, which can suffocate the development and innovation of the organization (Patridge A. 2013);

(2) Inaccuracy of the obtained knowledge: the accuracy of the information obtained was crucial to the success of the project. Some of the tacit knowledge acquired was not accurate due to varying reasons, such as out-of-dateness and hearsay;

(3) Office politics: some team members insisted on the inclusion of some experts’ feedback in the formal report simply because they were in awe of the authority and seniority of the experts in spite of inaccuracy of the information. Fortunately this was rejected in the end by the team otherwise the quality and accountability of the report would be comprised;

(4) Insufficient awareness of national cultures: this can greatly influence the respondents’ attitude to knowledge sharing (Zhang X., 2011);

(5) Insufficient support from the organization: this includes lack of formal mechanisms within the organization to facilitate and encourage knowledge sharing.

4. Proposed approaches Based on reflection of the project and extensive literature review, this paper proposes the following approaches that could have been used to improve the project outcome and can help foster a supportive organizational culture for conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

4.1 Reflection practice in the organization

4.1.1 Benefits of reflection A considerable amount of research has studied the benefits of reflection. Reflective practice can be of benefit not only individuals but also groups and the entire organizations. These benefits include but are not limited to below:

- Avoidance of hidden traps; - Avoidance of social loafing (Dataware 2009); - Better communication; - Early detection and identification of potential risks and issues; - Healthier working relationship; - Higher sense of responsibilities; - Higher commitment from project team and the organization to products, projects and

clients; - Improved organizational productivity and efficiency; - On-going improvement of project teams and organizations.

4.1.2 Concrete actions Concrete actions that may be exercised to promote reflective practice in the organization may include establishing a formal mechanism of reflection such as reflective journal, regular meetings, reviewing lessons-learned and most importantly applying lessons-learned to future projects. Nonaka I. comments that multinational Japanese company SEJ holds weekly meetings systematically with more than 1000 people. The costs related to such meetings are quite significant but SEJ finds and recognizes that the most efficient way of sharing tacit knowledge through dialogue is physical interaction (Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., 2007). Had reflection been taken in the project, the project team would have worked more efficiently and collected more valuable information and knowledge. And had reflection been practiced in the organization before the project, the organization would have established a more helpful lessons-learned library and organizational morale and commitment would have been improved. There would have been fewer obstacles especially in collection and conversion of internal experts’ tacit knowledge of to explicit knowledge. Through reflection and knowledge sharing, the knowledge gaps between managers and employees and at different organizational levels can be bridged and the organization’s lessons-learned library can be regularly updated and guide future projects.

4.2 Knowledge management strategies “Organizational knowledge management strategy refers to planning and deployment of methods, processes, procedures and guidelines of knowledge acquisition, organization, utilization and distribution in order to achieve business goals.”

(Kabir N., Carayannis E. 2013, p56) The organizational management and decision-makers should have a holistic view of the organization and develop appropriate knowledge management strategies to foster an organizational culture that is conducive to knowledge sharing and conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Knowledge management is not just part of project manager’s role, it should be practiced in the entire organization. This is a necessary step to build a “knowledge-driven organization” and improve the organizational competitiveness (Buckman B. 2005) Yeong A. and Lim T. assert that embedding knowledge management in project management is fundamental to project success (Yeong A., Lim T. 2010). Antonova K. suggests that organizations in different industries should focus on knowledge management strategies.

4.3 Information technology and training Brinkley I. concludes that the core elements of knowledge economy are “powerful computers and well-educated minds” (Brinkley I. 2006). To create a supportive organizational culture for knowledge sharing and flow it is proposed that organizations should also embrace the latest information technology and establish up-to-date training, mentoring and coaching programs so as to update knowledge and facilitate conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

4.4 Flexible leadership skills In the increasingly competitive knowledge economy, more flexible leadership skills are required for knowledge management in a supportive organizational culture. It is proposed that project managers can take diverse management skills based on the team members’ learning styles, motivation and performance drivers.

5. Conclusion By reflecting on a construction project that involved substantial knowledge sharing and conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, the paper draws lessons from the project and discusses the organizational culture factors that have influenced the project. Based on literature review, the paper argues it is imperative for organizations to foster a supportive organizational culture for conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge so as to sustain their competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. In the end the paper proposes approaches that could have been applied to the project for better project outcome. These approaches are also conducive in fostering the aforesaid supportive organizational culture and applicable to future projects.

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