Originally published as The Learning Organization: An International Journal Volume 12 Number 6, 2005
ISBN: 1 84544 833 2
Guest edited by: Peter Smith, President of The Leadership Alliance.
This Special Issue examines the importance of knowledge sharing within organizations. It explores whether the organizational processes we follow in everyday life can be applied to organizational life.
As a classic example of what can go wrong, one of the articles mentions an international bank that tried to implement knowledge management but without champions at the top of the organization, without any clear strategy, and without any clear understanding of just how much they were going to have to change entrenched professional with often competing, cultures. Of course, all of these items were needed if anything close to genuine “knowledge-sharing” was to be achieved. The KM team did some good basic things, such as developing organizational “yellow-pages”, helping a small division or two do some basic audits about their information and knowledge resources and needs. But without the strength of senior management support the team became frustrated and the initiative simply fizzled out.
Find out how to avoid these pitfalls and become a knowledge champion with this guide to knowledge sharing.
Contents:
Collaborating to compete: achieving effective knowledge sharing in organizations
This paper aims to present a practitioner overview of the challenges and growing strategic importance of knowledge and knowledge sharing in organizations, considering roles of learning, and in particular networks, together with collaboration in the development of sustainable competitive edge through knowledge, knowledge management and the activities of knowledge workers.
Expanding the field of vision
The purpose of this article is to describe the emerging business discipline of organizational network analysis and its potential as a tool to guide efforts in creating awareness of where knowledge exists in an organization and how this expertise can be best tapped by an organization's workforce. Specific initiatives and activities that companies are using to promote the changes necessary to ensure that knowledge flows are discussed.
From atomism to networks in social systems
The purpose of this article is to focus on the role of networks in organizations as a critical aspect of knowledge management and learning processes.
Knowledge sharing and strategic capital: The importance and identification of opinion leaders
This article seeks to propose that the success of an organization's knowledge-sharing strategy and the magnitude of its strategic capital are critically dependent on its having the capability to visualize relationship-networks among its employees, and means to identify and leverage, as appropriate, patterns of positive or negative influence.
About The Learning Organization: An International Journal
Are you seeking to explore the concept of the learning organization in order to advance your understanding of what the learning organization is and does? And would you like to assess the different ways in which an organization can adopt learning strategies and find out how these theories can be successfully applied? You'll find the answers in The Learning Organization: An International Journal.
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