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There is an increasing recognition that the competitive advantage of organizations depends on their "ability to create, transfer, utilize, and protect difficult-to-intimate knowledge assets" (Teece 2001: 125). Indeed, according to Bertels and Savage (1998), the dominant logic of the industrial era requires an understanding of how to break the learning barrier of comprehending the information era. While we have developed powerful solutions to change internal processes and organizational structures, most organizations have failed to address the cultural dimensions of the information era.
Organizational knowledge creation is a result of organizational learning through strategic processes. Nonaka defines organizational knowledge as "the capability of a company as a whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization, and embody it in products, services, and systems." Nonaka used the steps shown in figure 1.1 to assess the value and chain of events surrounding the valuation of organization knowledge.
If we view the figure 1.1 processes as leading to competitive advantage, we may ask how technology affects the chain of actions Nonaka identifies. Without violating the model, we may insert technology and observe the effects it has on each step as shown in figure 1.2.
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According to Nonaka, to create new knowledge means to recreate the company and everyone in it in an ongoing process that requires personal and organizational self-renewal. That is to say, knowledge creation is the responsibility of everyone in the organization. The viability of this definition, however, must be questioned. Can organizations create personnel that will adhere to such parameters, and under what conditions will senior management support such an endeavor?
Once again technology has a remarkable roll to play in substantiating the need for knowledge management. First, executives are still challenged to understand how they need to deal with emerging technologies as they relates to whether their organizations are capable of using them effectively and efficiently. Knowledge management provides a way for the organization to learn how technology will be used to support innovation and competitive advantage. Second, IT departments need to understand how they can best operate within the larger scope of the organization, and that they are often searching for a true mission that contains measurable outcomes as defined by the entire organization, including senior management. Third, both executives and IT staff agree that understanding the uses of technology is a continuous process that should not be utilized solely in a reactionary and event-driven way. Finally, most employees accept the fact that technology is a major component of their lives at work and at home: they accept the fact that technology signifies change and that participating in knowledge creation is an important role for them.
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Once again, we can see that technology provides the initiator for understanding how organizational learning is important for competitive advantage. The combination of IT and other organizational departments, when operating within the processes outlined in Responsive Organizational Dynamism (defined by Langer 2005 as the ability of an organization to respond to changes brought on by emerging technologies) can significantly enhance learning and competitive advantage.
In order to expand on this point I will now focus on the literature specifically relating to tacit knowledge and its important role in knowledge management. Scholars theorize knowledge management as an ability to transfer individual tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Kulkki and Kosonen (2001) define tacit knowledge as an experience-based type of knowledge and skill, and as the individual capacity to give intuitive forms to new things, that is, to anticipate and pre-conceptualize the future.
Technology, by its very definition and form of being requires this anticipation and pre-conceptualization. Indeed, it provides the perfect educational opportunity in which to practice the transformation of tacit into explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is an asset, and having individual dynamic abilities to work with such knowledge commands a "higher premium when rapid organic growth is enabled by technology" (Teece 2001: 140). Thus, knowledge management is likely to be greater when technological opportunity is richer.
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Because evaluating emerging technologies requires the ability to look into the future, it also that individuals have to translate valuable tacit knowledge and to see creatively how these opportunities are to be judged if implemented. Examples of applicable tacit knowledge in this process are here extracted from Kulkki and Kosonen (1998):
- Cultural and social history
- Problem-solving modes
- Orientation to risks and uncertainties
- Worldview organizing principles
- Horizons of expectations
I approach each of these forms of tacit knowledge from the perspective of the components of Responsive Organizational Dynamism as shown in Table 1.1.
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