Knowledge management

Knowledge sharing and knowledge market

Conditions for knowledge transfer

Cyborg

We are borgs;Borg Queen ;

YouTube clip

Examples of online “knowledge market”

• Online Q&A services– Cha cha ; Yahoo answers!– Stackoverflow – Mancx

• Networking services – Acabiz

Platform at a “metaphor”

• some sort of hardware architecture or software framework that allows third party created software to run.

Cognition and sharing of knowledge

• Unrecognized potentials • Hidden knowledge• Know more than we can say• Say more than we know • Knowledge inaccessible• Tunnel vision

Sharing knowledge

• Ability to share• Opportunities to share• Willingness to share – Market – Community

Metaphor

• a statement that characterizes one thing in terms of another thing, juxtaposing concepts from separate domains of experience. Metaphor can be used to describe abstract or unfamiliar topics, and to express ideas difficult to convey with literal language.

“Market” metaphor

Quote from ScienceCo. Case study

• “It is a micro economy. It is a free market for expertise. Over the years it has been the subject of much controversy as it puts a lot of pressure on people, and it is in this way that we try to maintain a competitive (some would say combative) environment. It does create tension, but a the same time, it enhances innovation given by the rate at which new ideas come out of the organization. p.40”

• Knowledge fairs are face to face events in which participants set up displays to share their undertakings.

• Knowledge Fairs can be internal to an organization or open to partners and the public. They are "free-flowing, open, flexible, and non-hierarchical.... • People can interact with each other, and can see what others are doing, thus mix up all different levels and types

of people in a variety of interaction."

Market

• Tangible goods– Renting service website

• Intangible goods – Market signals/search and transaction costs • Yet see case study 2.1

– PRT– DRT (what sort of “capital” it is? )

– Public goods problem

Information good attributes• According to consumers’ ability to obtain product quality

information before purchase • Search good attributes

– The attributes most important to assessing product quality are generally discoverable without the consumer interacting with the product

– Objective, diagnostic, and easy to compare

• Experience good attributes– Inherently subjective, characterized by uncertainty and equivocality,

difficult to evaluate

• Credential good attributes– Users lack the expertise to appreciate the intricacy and nuances of a

work

Knowledge market inefficiencies

• Absence of a clear pricing system – Sellers hard to locate or hard to reach– Lack of signs for cognitive authority– Value hard to determine before transaction

• “Anybody who’s worked in a big company knows how hard it can be to find “the right someone” on short notice to help address a question that arises”

P. 73, the power of pull

Knowledge market signals

• Information about where knowledge actually resides in the organization and how to gain access to it

• Formal and informal signals • Accessibility, cost (time and efforts)

Knowledge market signals

• Position and education • Informal network – Dynamic and constantly updated (e.g. gossip)– Follow the branches of personal, undocumented

connections

• Community of practice – Self-organized groups – Initiated by employees who communicate with one

another because they share common work practices, interests, or aims. (e.g. book club)

Bounded rationality and search cost

• Perfect information? • Individuals rarely go to considerable lengths to get

the best possible knowledge • Human tendency to settle for the knowledge that is

“good enough” for their purpose, rather than best possible knowledge p. 21

Roles in a knowledge market

• Buyers– People trying to resole a complicated issue or

facing an uncertain situation • Sellers– People in an organization with an internal market

reputation for having substantial knowledge about a subject

• Brokers

Brokers

• Envision the benefits of the fusion of knowledge and connection of experts

• Gatekeeper, “boundary spanner”– a good understanding of what people do and who

knows what (e.g. corporate librarian, collaborative filtering or social matching devices…)

Structure capital

• Physicality and technology – Ba– Beckman institute (school of Art and Humanities, NTU)

• Rule and practice– Brown bag lunch

• Norms and culture

A place for knowledge exchange

• 'Ba' - a physical or virtual collaborative space, where participants feel safe and exchange insights.

“Talk room” “Water cooler”

Why exchange does/does not happen

• Economic cost and benefit (time, effort…)• Social cost and benefit – “Asking” a sign of incompetence?

• Political cost and benefit

Cost and effect

• The probability of seeking information of another person is a function of – 1. Knowing what that person knows– 2. Valuing what that person knows – 3. Being able to gain timely access to that person’s

thinking – 4. Perceiving that seeking information from that

person would not be too costly

Knowledge as a public good

• both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others

• If an entrepreneur stages a fireworks show, for example, people can watch the show from their windows or backyards. – Because the entrepreneur cannot charge a fee for

consumption, the fireworks show may go unproduced, even if DEMAND for the show is strong.

The price system

• What sort of reward can one receive for sharing his/her knowledge

Motives and rewards

• Altruism – Not so overtly driven by self-interest

• Reciprocity • Repute• Trust – “innovation requires the exchange of ideas, which

in turn depends on trust”– “mutual trust is the heart of knowledge exchange”

Knowledge market inefficiencies

• Incompleteness of information– Cue validity and accessibility

• Asymmetry of knowledge– Knowledge gap– The necessity of knowledge “redundancy”

• Localness of knowledge– “Stickiness”: difficult to transfer – High search cost for optimal knowledge causes people to

make do with what is readily available

Peripheral benefits of knowledge markets

• Higher workforce morals – Feel that one’s expertise is valued

• Greater corporate coherence– An atmosphere of openness and trust; group culture and

identity

• Richer knowledge stock – Knowledge begets knowledge

• Stronger meritocracy of ideas– Marketplace of ideas

Marketplace of ideas

• Which is more efficient (in creation and in dissemination of knowledge) – Centralized planning vs. free market

• “the best way for a community to discover the truth is to ensure that a wide range of diverse views vigorously compete with one another in the public arena through critical examination”

Building an marketplace infrastructure

• Ensure knowledge sharing is rewarded more than knowledge hoarding

• What can be done?

Participation in KM system• “What would best motivate you to contribute to the

knowledge management system?” – Make it a normal part of the job– Know that promotion is dependent on it– Receive thanks and recognition – Notify supervisors of the value– Be thanked by peers– Receive news of how others used the contribution – Know that it is an expected part of the culture of the

organization (Ives et al., 2002)

• “Practically every individual…process unique information that can be put to use only with his active cooperation”– Friedrich Hayek

Knowledge Sharing Effectiveness Inventory, KSEI)

Knowledge Sharing Effectiveness Inventory, KSEI)