14. Knowledge Conversion

14. Knowledge ConversionRev: Feb, 2013

Euiho (David) Suh, Ph.D.

POSTECH Strategic Management of Information and Technology Laboratory(POSMIT: http://posmit.postech.ac.kr)

Dept. of Industrial & Management EngineeringPOSTECH

Contents1 Introduction of Knowledge Creating Company

2 Organizational Knowledge Creation Process

3 Five Conditions for Organizational Knowledge Creation

4 Five-phase Model of Organizational Knowledge Creation

5 Case Study

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Knowledge Creating Company

■ Management paradigm for the emerging knowledge society

■ Knowledge-creating company or learning organization– Consistently creates new business knowledge– Disseminates it throughout the company– Builds it into its products and services

1. Introduction of Knowledge Creating Company

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Two Kinds of Knowledge

■ Explicit Knowledge– Data, documents, and things written down or stored in computers– A meaningful set of information articulated in clear language including numbers or

diagrams• Textbooks• Manuals• Video lectures

■ Tacit Knowledge– The “how to” knowledge in workers’ minds– Represents some of the most important information within an organization

• Intuitions• Unarticulated mental models• Embodied technical skills

1. Introduction of Knowledge Creating Company

Tacit Knowledge

Knowledge available to others

Knowledge-Creating Company

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Process of Organizational Knowledge Creation

■ 4 modes of knowledge conversion– Socialization: individual tacit knowledge group tacit knowledge– Externalization: tacit knowledge explicit knowledge– Combination: separate explicit knowledge systemic explicit knowledge– Internalization: explicit knowledge tacit knowledge

Socialization Externalization

Internalization Combination

Tacit knowledge Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Explicitknowl-

edge

Explicit knowledge Explicit knowledge

Explicitknowl-

edge

2. Organizational Knowledge CreationProcess

6

Socialization

■ Socialization– A process of creating common tacit knowledge through shared experiences– Required to build a “field” of interaction

creating common unarticulated beliefs or embodied skills

■ Little Use of IT– Only face-to-face interaction can capture the full range of physical senses

and psychoemotional reactions– Other communication medium• Video conferences• Future: “virtual reality” or “virtual conferences”


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Externalization (1/2)

■ Externalization– A process of articulating tacit knowledge into such explicit knowledge as concepts

and/or diagrams, using metaphors, analogies, and/or sketches– Triggered by a dialogue intended to create concepts from tacit knowledge• e.g. Creating a new product concept

■ Efforts to develop groupware for computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW)

Current-generation groupwareConstruction of knowledge-bases & utilization of existing explicit

knowledge

Recent groupware development Support for the creation of

new knowledge

IBM Lotus Note


8

Externalization (2/2)

■ Colab– A computer-supported conference system

by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)1) “Bordnoter”: an electronic blackboard2) “Cognoter”: brainstorming, organizing, evaluating information3) “Argnoter”: presenting, arguing, and evaluating ideas

– Design principle: information sharing,“WYSIWIS” (What you see is what I see)

■ KJ method– Card-based knowledge-creation technique– Brainstorming, evaluating, organizing information– Computerization of the KJ method• Prototype example: workstation-based GrIPS by Fujitsu

Divergent thinking phase:pick up data such as key words, phrases, picturesfrom Keyword Associater/Picture Library put into “cards” on the “Shared Board”

Convergent thinking phase:Using “Card Editor”, organize the cards into pieces of information, related into a diagram using “D-ABDUCTOR”

Communicate through “Miniature meeting Room”KJ method

Colab


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Combination

■ Combination– A process of assembling new and existing explicit knowledge into a systemic knowl-

edge– A newly-created concept should be combined with existing explicit knowledge• Starting with linking different bodies of explicit knowledge• “Breakdown”: creating deductively a systemic, explicit knowledge• Mother concept

Thought-provoking and fertile concept Gives birth to “offspring concepts”

– Goal: building an archetype

■ Full play of IT– “outline processor”• Helps write a logical document• Divides a theme into several sub-topics and arranges them

– Groupware for collaborative document production• “ForComment”• “Quilt”

– Workflow management software– CALS (Commerce At Light Speed)• IT for combining explicit knowledge at the inter-organizational level

Think Tank

CALS


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Reducing Time & Cost

Internalization

■ Internalization– A process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit, operational knowledge– Triggered by “learning by doing or using”

■ Internalization facilitated by Explicit knowledge– Manuals, quintessential explicit knowledge– Engineering case studies from veteran engineers’ experiences

■ Change in Training workforce

– Japanese supermarket chain• CD-ROM: how to use a POS register, how to process cash/card payments, how to talk to cus-

tomers• “Just-in-Time Training”: new services, new products, new telemarketing techniques

OJT + reading manu-als Computer Simulation


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The Knowledge Spiral■ The Knowledge Spiral (epistemological dimension)

– Usually begins from socialization

LinkingExplicitKnowledge

FieldBuilding

Dialogue

Learning by doing

Socialization Externalization

Internalization Combination

Sympathized knowledge

Conceptual knowledge

Systemic knowledge

Operationalknowledge


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The Knowledge Spiral■ The Knowledge Spiral (Ontological dimension)

– Individuals, groups, an organization, collaborating organizations– Individuals’ tacit knowledge: basis of organizational knowledge creation– Organization: individual level tacit knowledge upper ontological level– At the same time, organizational knowledge is utilized and internalized at the lower levels


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Five Conditions For Organizational Knowledge Creation 3. Five Conditions ForOrganizational Knowledge Creation

Organizational Intention

Individual and Group Auton-

omy

Fluctuation / Creative Chaos

Informational Redundancy

Requisite Va-riety

Organizational Knowledge Creation

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Organizational Intention

■ Organizational Intention– An organization’s aspiration to its goals– A driving force of the knowledge spiral– “knowledge vision”, “knowledge domain”, corporate standards– The most important justification criterion

evaluating the truthfulness and relevance of a new piece of knowledge

■ E-mail– A convenient tool to share the organizational intention– Broadcasting function– Storage function– Important messages from the top should be never missed

“Information Lens”: categorizing e-mail messages and select only important ones– Multimedia-mail

3. Five Conditions ForOrganizational Knowledge Creation

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Individual and Group Autonomy

■ Individual and Group Autonomy– Autonomy increases the chances of• Finding valuable information• Motivating organizational members to create new knowledge

– An autonomous individual a part of an organization with a holographic structure where whole and each part share the same informationMore flexibility in acquiring, interpreting, and relating information

■ End-user and mobile computing– End-user computing: the norm for any business organization• User-friendly and low priced personal computers• Corporate-wide information systems including computer networks, large knowledge-bases,

and consulting systems• High rate of computer literacy

An autonomous individual is likethe core of Russian dolls

Enhancinggroup autonomy

Large scale of corporate-wide

knowledge-bases

Realinformation-shar-

ing Breaking functional departments’

information monopolies


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Fluctuation / Creative Chaos■ Fluctuation– Not a disorder but a change that is hard to predict• Changes in market needs, growth of competing companies, and challenges given by top management

■ Creative Chaos

■ Monitoring the environment & Communicating with outside organizations– Necessary to make intentional use of fluctuations from outside– Internet, commercial on-line information services,

specialized commercial databases– E-mail– Video conference system, in-house TV network connecting multiple sites,

big-screen & high-definition displays

Fluctuation BreakdownReconsideration

&Dialogues

New knowledge

• Routines,habits,cognitive frameworks

• Ensuingchaotic situa-tion

• Reconsider basic perspectives

• A sense of crisis urg-ing to have dia-logues with people within/outside ofthe organization

• Novel understand-ings of new circum-stances

• Revolutionary corpo-rate visions

CompuServe


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Informational Redundancy

■ Redundancy– Existence of information beyond the immediate operational requirements of members– Intentional overlapping of information– Promoting organizational knowledge creation in two ways:• Facilitating the sharing of tacit knowledge• Helping loosely-connected individuals understand their place in the organization

& Controlling their directions of thinking and action a self-control mechanism

■ Shortcomings– Increase of the amount of information to be processed problem of information over-

load– Increase of the cost of knowledge creation (at least in the short run)

■ Balance between creation and processing of information– Make clear where information can be located and knowledge is stored within the orga-

nization– Large knowledge-bases using a powerful super-parallel computer– E-mail


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Requisite Variety

■ Minimax internal diversity– Minimum for organizational integration &

maximum for effective adaptation to environmental changes– Ability to cope with many contingencies

■ Two approaches to realize requisite variety– Flattening organizational structure & Building corporate-wide information system• Fast and equal access to the broadest variety of information for organizational members• Relating information in different, flexible, and quick manners• Reducing internal diversity by homogenizing members’ viewpoints

– Frequent change of the organizational structure and/or frequent personnel rotation • Making employees acquire interdisciplinary knowledge

to cope with the complexity of environmental fluctuations and internal problems

■ Organizational knowledge accumulation and utilization problems– Solved by large-scale knowledge-bases– The daily building of companywide knowledge-bases groupware• Reducing the proprietary aspect of information and knowledge• Making it easier to take over others’ duties


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Five-phase Model Of Organizational Knowledge Creation

■ Five-phase Model of Organizational Knowledge Creation

Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype

Cross- leveling knowl-edge

Fromcollaborat-ing organi-zations

Internalization by usersfrom users

MarketExplicit knowledge as advertisements, patents, product and/or service

Tacit knowl-edge

Socialization Externaliza-tion

Combination

Enabling conditionsIntention

AutonomyFluctuation / Creative

chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

4. Five-phase Model ofOrganizational Knowledge Creation

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Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype





Tacit knowl-edge


Combination



chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

• Direct experience• Not inherently

conducive to IT• Video technology


21



Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype





Tacit knowl-edge


Combination



chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

• Metaphor, analo-gies, and/or sketches

• Groupware• IT plays key role


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Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype





Tacit knowl-edge


Combination



chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

• Justify trustfulness• Decide for

the further work• “knowledge vi-

sion”


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Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype





Tacit knowl-edge


Combination



chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

• Materialize con-cepts into “archetypes”

• “virtual prototyp-ing”

• “visual modeling”


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Sharing tacit

knowl-edge

Creating concepts

Justifying concepts

Building an

archetype





Tacit knowl-edge


Combination



chaosRedundancy

Requisite variety

Internalization

Tacit knowledgein

organization

Explicit knowl-edge

inorganization

• Iterative and spi-ral process of Or-ganizational knowledge cre-ation


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Reference

■ Ikujiro Nonaka, “From Information Processing to Knowledge Creation: A Paradigm Shift in Business Management”, Technology In Society, Vol 18, No.2, pp. 203-218

■ O’Brien & Marakas, “Introduction to Information Systems – Sixteenth Edition”, McGraw – Hill, Chapter 2

http://mis.postech.ac.kr/class/IMEN381_MIS/references/From%20information%20processing%20to%20knowledge%20creation%20-%20A%20Paradigm%20shift%20in%20business%20management.pdf






http://mis.postech.ac.kr/class/IMEN381_MIS/Textbook%20IIS%2016th/Chap002.ppt







14. Knowledge Conversion

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