Regardless of what technology infrastructure is provided, unless cultural norms and practices support higher levels of interactivity over time, new communication channels will have relatively little impact on knowledge use. When cooling hoses on the production line at Chaparral Steel began to break up, a group of operators, a welder, a foreman, a buyer, and even someone from the training department spontaneously began working together to solve the problem. One senior operator said, "When something like that comes up and there seems to be no immediate solution, you dont say - Thats not my area - or - I dont know that much about it. You just show up." Texas Instruments recently created an annual "Not-Invented-Here-But-I-Did-It-Anyway" award to recognise those who borrow good ideas from both inside and outside the company.
Reaction to new knowledge
In the 1970s, Fords market research produced "overwhelming evidence" that the minivan would be a huge success as a new product in the automobile market. However, Fords finance department, refused to accept this new market knowledge, labeling the minivan concept as untested and risky. Chrysler went on to capture this major new market, with a product that essentially saved the floundering automaker. A firms culture heavily shapes how new organisational knowledge is captured, legitimated (or rejected), and distributed.
Concluding remarks
The ability to share knowledge and collaborate is often missing in organisations. This is a key challenge of Knowledge Management. Employees are reluctant to share their expertise. The likely reason for employees holding knowledge is their being competitive by nature. Therefore, cultural factors need to change so that people are rewarded for sharing information rather than holding on to it. Knowledge sharing must typically be incentivised for optimum success. One way to do this is to reflect it in the performance evaluation mechanism. Consulting organisations like Ernst & Young have followed this approach. Recognition is hence equally, or perhaps more effective than hard incentives. Organisational knowledge and culture are intimately linked, and those improvements in how a firm creates, transfers, and applies knowledge are rarely possible without simultaneously altering the culture to support new behaviours.
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