How to Create a Knowledge based Organizational Culture

How to Create a Knowledge based Organizational Culture

Abstract

Organizational culture is essential in defining an organization. It defines many aspects ranging from employee per formance to organizational per formance. A suppor tive organizational culture benefits organizations by influencing employee performance. Many organizations have used employee motivation as a tool to enhance worker output. In order to ensure responsibilities are well handled, a good knowledge of employees is essential. This entails documented knowledge and social knowledge. Knowledge management (KM) ensures that information flows effectively within an organization. KM develops and circulates from the top management to the junior staf f. Motivation and the rewards based on information sharing and performance support knowledge management, and flow of information is encouraged. An organization may decide to change its culture in order to assemble its goals. Change of culture means a change of employee behavior. Human resource management has a big role to play in cultural change. As far as knowledge management is concerned, the management team, including the HR, is essential. It is through an open recruitment process of employees that openness is encouraged in information sharing. Moreover, selection of the most qualified personnel ensures that the management team and the rest of the staff is well equipped with knowledge essential for innovation, development and growth. However, knowledge management faces many challenges. There is a huge shor tage of personnel with exper tise able to meet the requirements put by many organizations. Those that meet such qualifications demand heavy compensation that some organizations are not willing to give.

How to Create a KM Organizational Culture

1.0 Introduction

Organizational culture is an important aspect of organizational success. It is the culture that an organization adopts that defines it and differentiates it from other organizations. Organizational culture may be influenced by the people an organization recruits or the employees may be influenced by it(Dai & Joseph, 2009). The behavior of employees in most companies depends on the concept of “how we do things here.” The way in which an organization conducts its business is also dependent on the management culture it adopts. In

many organizations, supportive organizational culture has been found to improve not only organizational performance but also employee performance. Management research shows that most of the successful managers are those working in an organization where employees are respected and motivated (Nongo & Ikyanyon, 2012). The relationship between the employer and employee and that connecting the business and its customers is entirely dependent on suppor tive organizational culture. Management decisions leading to organizational success results not only from the management team itself but also the junior workers in an organizations. If a decision has to be effective and respected by all members of a particular organization, it is important that its initiation involves them all. Organizations that respect employee input in decision making are themselves successful because employee output is high (Nongo & Ikyanyon, 2012). This paper will explore organizational culture and how this relates with knowledge management. The paper will particularly discuss the roles of the human resource department in knowledge management within an organization.

2.0 Importance of Creating Organizational Culture

The initial source of organizational culture is its founders. It all develops from the founder’s vision and goals which are expected to be implemented and attained through the help of the management team and the junior employees in the organization. In order to ensure that a strong culture is upheld, the founders of an organization ensure that they only recruit and retain employees with the same goal and reasoning that the organization aims to achieve (Essawi & Tilchin, 2013). The employees are made to reason the same way as the founders and the organizational way of work becomes uniform in all employees. Even if an employee has been recruited from another company of the same type-for instance, dealing with the same product, that particular employee is expected not to employ ways of work from outside. He or she is expected to learn all the activities and processes of the company like a beginner in order to ensure that the culture adopted by the organization is planted in them (Essawi & Tilchin, 2013).

Organizational success is dependent on the founders believes, vision and goals. The founding team acts as a role model for the employees. This means that an irresponsible management team will lead to an irresponsible junior team and a poor organizational culture. In order to ensure that the culture adopted is sustained, those who suppor t it are remunerated while those who do not are fined (Chmielewska-Muciek, 2013). Adoption of organizational culture by a new member of staff takes several stages. The pre-arrival stage involves the orientation made by the new organization and training of “how we do things here” which gives the new member an idea of what to expect and how they are expected to behave. The encounter stage involves the real experience of the work environment and the

principles involved. At this stage, an employee may develop two types of attitude to the organization: a positive or a negative attitude. A negative attitude may lead one to resign since their expectations are not met, while a positive attitude may encourage them to perform, especially if the organizational culture encourages personal development (Chmielewska-Muciek, 2013). The final stage of metamorphosis involves changes in the new member as the new culture is adopted. It involves a replacement of one’s culture with that of the organization, a process that may take time depending on how the newly adopted culture differs with the culture that was previously adopted in another organization or even the personal culture itself (Chmielewska-Muciek, 2013. For multinational companies, differences of individual, national and organizational culture newly adopted may conflict.

2.1 Knowledge management and organizational culture

Knowledge management (KM) is an emerging field of management that focuses on how effectively knowledge can be shared and generated within an organization. An organization can use KM to advance its innovative strategies and improve the organizational internal and external work environment and their effectiveness (Essawi & Tilchin, 2013). When used for innovative strategies, KM may conflict with organizational culture. Introducing a Knowledge management system that introduces new and complicated technology in the organization may face opposition from the employees based on the previously adopted culture, especially if the organization is less technology-based in its operations (Essawi & Tilchin, 2013).

Organizational development in the modern technology-based economy requires an operative knowledge management system of the employees in order to manage their conduct and increase output while ensuring organizational culture is upheld. Organizational performance is improved if the right knowledge of the employees is available to the management team. Employee management is essential in creation of knowledge management in an organization (Bettiol, Maria & Grandinetti, 2011). It is worth noting that competition among the employees may impede the knowledge management system adopted. Employee knowledge may be classified into two. Explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is what is documented about the employees in terms of qualifications, experience and other documentable factors (Bettiol, Maria & Grandinetti, 2011). On the other hand, tacit employee knowledge entails knowledge based on employee experience in the work environment grounded on their interaction with other employees and the management team. It involves employees’ culture, believes and values and how well a new employee is able to adopt to the organizational culture in the new work environment (Bettiol, Maria & Grandinetti, 2011). Knowledge management encourages organizational innovations and competitive advantage. With a good knowledge of the employees, responsibility sharing within an organization becomes easy. This encourages employee output and profit benefits for the organization.

2.2 Change of organizational culture

Change of organizational culture is essential if the organization is not meeting its set goals. This changes the way the employees think and act. Change of organizational culture star ts with a statement of the new results that an organization expects to attain. A determination of employee expectations with respect to the new goal is also stated. This also involves formation of new employee values and actions of performance (Gold, Malhotra & Segars, 2001). It is an effective change of organizational culture that will lead to an operative knowledge management in an organization. Moreover, experiences in the work environment and change of organizational goals lead to change of organizational culture. This in turn influences knowledge management of the employees (Gold, Malhotra & Segars, 2001). Knowledge management organizational culture should meet several values including recompensing of employees based on the attainment of the desired organizational result. Employees’ prior knowledge of the recompensing conditions is also essential. There should be an effective evaluation of the proposals of the new organizational results by supervisors and managers (Gold, Malhotra & Segars, 2001).

In order to sustain a competitive advantage in the market, knowledge of employees and organizational culture and principles is essential. Many researches have associated competitive advantage with knowledge management (King, 2009). Dissemination of knowledge within a firm adds to the organizational value of enabling the firm to deal with and handle situations in the work environment and act as a unifying factor for the employees. Knowledge management is important because it enables organizational practices, culture and technology to be used together for attainment of the competitive advantage and expansion of activities and processes in an organization (King, 2009). Proper information sharing will only be possible when employees are respected. Every employee should be guaranteed of benefits from any contribution made towards organizational development, especially in the field of innovation.

3.0 Factors that improve Organizational Culture

3.1 Human Resource (Employee selection, training, and evaluation)

Expert employees working in an organization comprise the knowledge asset of that particular organization. Knowledge assets have been considered to be the most prized asset in an organization. A firm’s competitive advantage depends on the quantity and quality of the knowledge assets it has (Malhotra, 2000). This enables proper decision-making and output. This then depends on the organization’s human resource management and how the recruitment of employees is done. In order to ensure open and enough knowledge assets, many organizations aim to select the most qualified and experienced individuals into their

workforce. A proper training of employees is also essential in securing an effective knowledge asset in an organization (Malhotra, 2000).

Knowledge sharing in organizations has taken different models and channels. However, information communication technology-based channels are the most common. These include data bases, portals and internet search engines. This ensures effective flow of information in the firm. For instance, customer data and market sales are stored in the organizations data bases and circulated in house in order to allow for development of future plans and decision making (Zeide & Liebowitz, 2012). In the process of information sharing and decision making, the organization is able to effectively evaluate its staff. A proper employee evaluation is important for sound responsibility sharing. It also ensures that those employees with ideas that can give the organization an innovative advantage are identified and well compensated to encourage innovation and development (Zeide & Liebowitz, 2012). As much as many organizations aim to recruit the most qualified for advancement of their knowledge assets, there are limited qualified and talented individuals thus posing a great challenge to knowledge management. Availability of expert personnel is also limited as they may demand higher compensation than the firm may be willing to give (Zeide & Liebowitz, 2012).

3.2 Successful leadership

Another factor that is important in the improvement of knowledge management and organizational cultural change is the presence of able and successful leadership. As is the norm of recruitment processes by many organizations, promotions into leadership positions is based on knowledge and expertise in a given field. It is therefore expected that the management team has a vast knowledge not only in management but also in work execution (Shariatmadari & Azadi, 2013). The junior staff in any organization expect a lot from their managers. As has been previously highlighted in this paper, organizational culture is enhanced by managers in the organization who adopt the goals and reasoning of the founding team. The managers are thus expected to provide a role model to the employees for organizational and employee performance to be realized (Shariatmadari & Azadi, 2013). Employees also expect the managers to be able to direct them and explain concepts that are not clear to them. Able leadership therefore guarantees trust of the employees and promotes teamwork within the organization. It would be embarrassing for a manager to be directed on the working procedures by his or her juniors. Once the employees in an organization develop trust in the management team, they will be willing to present any idea beneficial to the organization’s innovative strategies. Knowledgeable leaders and those willing to share their knowledge for the organization’s benefit will thus create an effective knowledge management where all members of the organization will work towards a common goal-innovation and development (Shariatmadari & Azadi, 2013).

3.3 Modeling (Creating a Model that will be used) 3.4 A Good Model is Sustained by:

A. Active participation of human resource in selection, performance evaluation and training

The human resource management should encourage the employees to work hard towards salary increment and promotions. Through the direct participation of HR in selection, performance, evaluation, and training, the confidence of employees in their organization is enhanced. A direct evaluation creates a direct link between the management team and the employees. The employees are able to interact freely with the HR and work practices are done as per the HR guidelines, which improves confidence in the employees that the procedures used are those that the organization supports (Bechina & Ndlela,2012). Innovations and development ideas in the organization will thus circulate within these guidelines.

Human resources has a great role to play in knowledge management. It develops an open culture in which decisions and knowledge are effectively shared. Human resources also encourages an environment of trust and commitment of the employees leading to increased work output in an organization (Daswani, 2010). The HR may conduct education, seminars and training aimed towards advancing knowledge sharing within an organization. The HR also advises on employee motivation and rewarding of those who share information with the firm for innovative purposes (Tan & Nasurdin,2011). When workers are guaranteed of an opportunity for personal growth through their contribution in information sharing, knowledge management becomes a simple task. The HR team should also be involved in performance management and development of forums for information sharing within the organization. This can be done by liaising with the IT department to ensure that ideas and information can be shared both in documented format and electronically.

B. Improving managerial leadership skills

Effective knowledge management depends on strong and able leadership. Organizations should take their managers through training and seminars to enhance their management capabilities. Such seminars should not only include members of a particular organization. Managers in different organizations can be allowed to freely interact and share experiences that can create ideas and improve information sharing and knowledge management within the organization.

C. Employee Empowerment through reward system

Recognition and rewarding have been used by many organizations to enhance knowledge management practices. In many companies, employees are rewarded based on the level of expertise. This guarantees job security to those with more expertise. The reward system is

very important as far as knowledge management is concerned. It encourages the employees to become more innovative. The employees develop a tendency of associating their own personal interests with those of the organization (Shariatmadari & Azadi, 2013). If compensation is not included in organizational culture, some employees may develop innovations and incentives that may benefit the firm in securing a more effective competitive advantage but keep the ideas to themselves since they are not guaranteed of any benefits after sharing their ideas with the organization. This calls for managers in organizations to encourage openness, transparency and compensation not only to actions but also innovative ideas by its employees. The HR department should also support managers and supervisors in realizing the potential of their employees for proper responsibility sharing which will encourage effective information sharing and knowledge management.

D. Strong top management support

The HR department should also support managers and supervisors in realizing the potential of their employees for proper responsibility sharing which will encourage effective information sharing and knowledge management. With this regard, a free work environment should be encouraged by ensuring that the top management is equipped with resources necessary for employee information sharing. The top management should also be strong in its knowledge management capabilities. This calls for organizations to hire highly qualified personnel into the top management. If ideas flow from the top management to the junior staff, this will be proof to the employees that able leadership is available, which motivates them to share knowledge and information as well.

4.0 Discussion

Effective knowledge management falls into two major categories. Internal knowledge management strategies, which are designed to capture, utilize and reuse knowledge within the organization, and external knowledge management strategies, which aim at developing proficiencies in knowledge management with other organizations (Ramanigopal, 2012). Knowledge management and information sharing seminars are now being conducted in many organizations in order to improve their competitive advantage in the market. Knowledge management hitches are conversed in such seminars and solutions proposed. For proper knowledge management to be attained, it is important that firms discuss management tools through conferences for the most effective knowledge management tools to be attained (Ramanigopal, 2012). Firms should also aim at hiring expert knowledge management consultants.

Conflicting organizational culture arises sometimes especially in multinational companies. It is worth noting that organizational culture and management principles work together. With

different human resource and management principles adopted in different countries, some managers may take to another country, in which a multinational company operates, the management principles adopted by their own country, a factor that has led to conflicting organizational culture (Ojo, 2012). For this reason, many multinational companies have chosen to adopt universal management principles to ensure that management and organizational culture do not conflict (Ojo, 2012).

The creation of an organizational culture that encourages transparency and openness both in the work environment and recruitment of employees guarantees success of an organization. In the work environment, openness guarantees employees that promotions are worked for but not gained through favor from the management team. This motivates them to work harder towards being promoted and having their salaries increased. On the other hand, transparency in employee recruitment benefits the organizational future management and output (Sinha, Singh, Gupta & Dutt, 2010). If recruitment is entirely based on qualifications required for the job, the most qualified will definitely be selected. This enables the organization to have a strong management team that will be able to make sound management decisions. The workers selected will also be experienced leading to quality output by the organization. However, if the organization encourages corruption in the recruitment process, that becomes its first point of failure. It will end up with a management team that is less qualified and one that will not effectively make decisions and workers whose output is low (Uddin, Luva & Hossian, 2013). This emphasizes how effective organizational culture can impact both management and junior staff.

A supportive organizational culture enables employees to attain their personal goals and advance their work experience and knowledge. Companies that have a suppor tive organizational culture have been found to shine in the market. A supportive organizational culture guarantees a competitive advantage that enables organizations to make huge profits and expand their premises. A competitive culture enables an organization to outdo other organizations in regional and global markets. A strong organizational culture is one that is held with high regard and shared across an organization. This is a culture that is widely accepted by employees and leads to commitment and worker loyalty (Uddin, Luva & Hossian, 2013). On the other hand, a weak organizational culture influences ver y little on the employees. This culture is not widely accepted and held. With this regard, most of the employees in an organization with a weak culture work with different motives. They work not for organizational development but for their own personal development (Shahzad, Luqman, Khan & Shabbir, 2012). A strong culture guarantees benefits.

5.0 Suggestions

Even as the most experienced employees retire, more experts in the field of knowledge management should be hired. However, many firms have suffered a challenge of shortage of expert personnel with the required knowledge in a given field (Rasula, Vuksic & Stemberger, 2012). This has caused some organizations to lag behind in innovations and information sharing, especially because little or no innovative ideas are generated within the organization. It is important that the human resource team brings the most qualified personnel into the work force in order to encourage more knowledge assets into the organization. Information sharing within an organization depends entirely on a healthy employer-employee relationship. It is therefore important that organizations respect the rights of their employees and create an inclusive model of decision making where all the members of an organization are part of all the decisions made within. If the knowledge management system works effectively through the support of the management team, organizations will be able to realize the full worth of their employees not only in the actual work output but also in decision making. Through the selection of the most qualified personnel, organizations will become a collection of innovative brains working together. However, the innovative capability of these brains will only be put into use when a unifying factor for innovation is included, which will definitely lead to the personal growth of the employees.

6.0 Conclusion

The creation of an organizational culture is important because employees are able to keep track of the company’s progress and know what to expect in the future. A proper understanding of the organization enables workers to be responsible in their work. Organizational expectations are also reflected in the organizational culture. This defines what the employer expects from the employees. All employees are able, through the organizational culture that unites them, to work to a common goal towards the organization’s vision. Organizational culture also enables the organizational image to be reflected to the customers, both current and future, through the organization’s employees. This advances the organizational customer contacts. Creation of an organizational culture that encourages compensation of employees based on performance improves the relationship between the employer, employee and the work environment. If the organizational culture is supportive and considers employees needs and performance, organizational success becomes obvious. Employees work hard towards attaining a better organization knowing that good performance is not only good for organizational development but also for their own personal development as well.

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