Knowledge management during radical change: Applying a process oriented approach

During periods of radical organisational change two elements - namely the organisation's strategy and its people - are affected profoundly. Strategic change involves refocusing the organisation in a direction that has little bearing on its past. People are affected by changes, as they are displaced to other parts of the organisation in different roles, or perhaps, are removed under the euphemism of de-layering, rightsizing and re-engineering. Hence, rather than enhance knowledge, senior managers inadvertently destroy knowledge during a radical organisational change. Yet pressures to change and the pace of change are unrelenting. Senior managers are forced to take an approach that can be summarised as ''change first - limit the damage to knowledge later''. Thus, this paper argues that organisations need a process to manage knowledge during periods of radical organisational change. The paper proposes such a process through case study evidence. It highlights actions managers take to ensure that they navigate the paradox of leading the organisation through radical change and nurture knowledge

Proposal for a process oriented knowledge management system (PKMS)

International audienceIn an increasingly competitive environment, manufacturing companies are more frequently looking to handle the knowledge referentials relating to their redesign processes. They are then able to implement this with less effort and balance out their work capacity for innovation activities, contributing to more significant improvements in their product offering. In this article we propose a conceptual model for the implementation of a process-oriented knowledge tool dedicated to the formalisation of this type of knowledge referential. The implementable nature of this model has been validated by a demonstrator tested on an application case provided by our industrial partner, Renault Powertrain Technology Department

A Web-Based Handbook of Innovative Teaching Practices - Creating New Opportunities for IS research

Process-oriented learning designs describe innovative teaching practices (processes) that consist of a set of inter-related learning tasks. These processes are generic rather than discipline specific. An example includes a problem-solving process widely used in problem-based learning. Most existing process-oriented learning designs are not analysed or documented in any systematic way. This is because they represent tacit knowledge gained through years of practical experience and reflective practice. Consequently they are hard to externalise and support by information technology. This paper investigates the dual role IT technology plays in relation to process-related learning designs. It argues that existing educational technologies, knowledge-management systems and process-oriented technologies cannot be used to support process-related learning designs. Furthermore, these existing technologies cannot be used to offer knowledge management support to teachers interested to share, store and reuse their innovative practices. The paper describes a new type of process- oriented, knowledge-management educational technology designed to fulfil this dual role. The paper also identifies various interesting IS challenges related to the design and implementation of this technology

The field-tested and grounded technological rule as product of mode 2 management research

The relevance problem of academic management research in organization and management is an old and thorny one. Recent discussions on this issue have resulted in proposals to use more Mode 2 knowledge production in our field. These discussions focused mainly on the process of research itself and less on the products produced by this process. Here the focus is on the so-called field-tested and grounded technological rule as a possible product of Mode 2 research with the potential to improve the relevance of academic research in management. Technological rules can be seen as solution-oriented knowledge. Such knowledge may be called Management Theory, while more description-oriented knowledge may be called Organization Theory. In this article the nature of technological rules in management is discussed, as well as their development, their use in actual management practice and the potential for cross-fertilization between Management Theory and Organization Theory

An Integrated View of Data: Application of Knowledge Modeling to Data Management

Data management has become an important challenge. Good data management requires an effective approach to collecting, storing, and accessing data across the enterprise. In this paper, a knowledge modeling approach to data management is introduced with an emphasis on data requirements analysis. A knowledge model can provide a high-level view of organizational data by specifying the structure and relationships of the knowledge contents used in business processes. The proposed knowledge modeling approach is business process oriented and decision oriented. The description of the knowledge contents in the model is based on ontological specification. The model is comprised of five elements: work product, work unit, producer, stage, and modeling language. The elements of the model and the modeling process are elaborated. The proposed modeling approach is applied to the vessel chartering process in a shipping company to demonstrate its application in real-world practices

Facilitating Work Based Learning Projects: A Business Process Oriented Knowledge Management Approach

The knowledge generated and acquired in workplaces differs from that generated and sustained within formal academic and disciplinary structures. It is interdisciplinary and situated, and cannot be organized and structured as a traditional discipline-based course. This paper proposes to use the business process as a framework to structure and organize work-based knowledge for facilitating the creation, transfer, and use of knowledge across work-based learning (WBL) projects within the networked learning community. This approach supports to represent and record externalized tacit and explicit knowledge and to find context-sensitive and task-relevant knowledge resources. We argue that IMS Learning Design (LD), with appropriate changes, can be used to represent WBL project plans and facilitate the creation and use of work-based knowledge through execution of the WBL project plan represented in LD