Knowledge
-
to share
or not to
share
?
That is the question
Professor John Edwards
Overview
Collaboration and competition
Knowledge Management (KM) basics
Co
-
opetition
, strategy and KM strategy
Making and implementing decisions about sharing knowledge
Facing the future
Collaboration and competition
Types of collaboration
>
Strategic alliances
>
Joint ventures
>
Licensing
>
Standardisation
>
Trade associations, Chambers of Commerce (
KvK
) etc.
My view of collaborative competition (co
-
opetition
) is drawn
from the literature on learning and knowledge
People at Aston first wrote about this ten years ago (Edwards and Kidd,
2001), following the work of
Inkpen
(1996) and Larsson et al (1998)
–
we’ll
see if my views have changed since then!
Learning strategies in alliances (Larsson et al, 1998)
Avoidance
Accommodation
Compromise
Competition
Collaboration
Collaboration
Competition
Compromise
Accommodation
Avoidance
Learning strategies in alliances (Larsson et al, 1998)
Avoidance
Accommodation
Compromise
Competition
Collaboration
Collaboration
Competition
CO
-
OPETITION
Compromise
Accommodation
Avoidance
Knowledge Management Basics
>
Life cycle of knowledge
>
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer
>
Knowledge management strategy
The knowledge life cycle (organisation’s viewpoint)
STORE
FORGET
ACQUIRE
CREATE
REFINE
USE
The knowledge life cycle (showing sharing opportunities)
STORE
FORGET
ACQUIRE
CREATE
REFINE
USE
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer
Do these two terms have the same meaning?
For me, sharing should be reciprocal (two way); transfer is one
way
Others have different definitions
From here on I will treat knowledge transfer as a weak form of
knowledge sharing
Sharing is clearly the more relevant to collaboration
Knowledge sharing concepts
Sticky knowledge (Szulanski, 1996)
Some knowledge is by its very nature harder to share
Absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990)
Some organisations have a better climate for absorbing new knowledge
Boundary spanners (Daft, 1989)
A key role in any collaboration
–
someone who understands enough of two
knowledge domains to be able to act as the go
-
between or translator
This person does not have to be an expert in either domain
–
boundary
spanning expertise is not the same as domain expertise
Knowledge management strategy
The seminal work on KM strategy is by Hansen et al (1999)
Their paper introduced the two fundamental strategies for
managing knowledge
Personalisation
>
People
-
centred
>
Suits customised products or services
Codification
>
Technology
-
centred
>
Suits more standardised products or services
A new development?
De Toni et al (2011, to appear) see the personalisation and
codification strategies as specifically relating to knowledge
sharing
They actually regard them both as
policies
rather than
strategies, with there being three knowledge management
strategies, namely knowledge sharing, knowledge
development and knowledge exploitation
Co
-
opetition
,
strategy
and
KM
strategy
Strategy
Strategy for co
-
opetition
KM strategy
Generic strategies (Porter, 1980)
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
STRATEGIC TARGET
Uniqueness
Perceived by the
C
ustomer
Industrywide
Particular
Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Why collaborate?
May collaborate to:
>
Reduce cost
>
Develop new product/service
>
Jointly market
>
Obtain access to expertise your organisation does not
possess
>
Concentrate on “core business”
Fundamental strategies are still the same for a collaboration as
for a single organisation
–
differentiation, cost leadership,
focus/niche
Making and implementing decisions about sharing knowledge
Why are we doing this? (Strategic reasons/goals)
Why are
they
doing this?
Alignment of knowledge management strategies (do they need
to be the same, or just consistent with each other?)
Sharing knowledge, and using the shared knowledge
-
How do
we make it happen?
Making decisions: know your strategy
A joint venture (say in China) is very different from the Philips/Sony
agreement that brought us the CD (Compact Disk)
The business objectives must be understood by the organisation's leaders
This can be difficult for public sector or third sector organisations who may
not be able to see their strategy in Porter’s terms
Share what you need to achieve the strategic collaboration objective and no
more
If necessary, carry out a knowledge audit first on what your organisation
knows, and where that knowledge is located
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
STRATEGIC TARGET
Uniqueness
Perceived by the
C
ustomer
Industrywide
Particular
Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Overall
Cost Leadership
Differentiation
Focus
STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
STRATEGIC TARGET
Uniqueness
Perceived by the
C
ustomer
Industrywide
Particular
Segment Only
Low Cost Position
Implementing decisions: know your KM strategy
Standardisation
Distribution
Customisation
Assembly
Customisation
Fabrication
Customisation
Full
Customisation
(More)
Personalisation
(More)
Codification
No need to
share?
Product/service
e.g. Extranets
e.g.
Colocation
People, processes and technology in a KM system (Edwards, 2009)
TECHNOLOGY
PEOPLE
PROCESSES
Help design and
then operate
Define the roles of,
and knowledge
needed by
Determine the
need for
Help design
and then use
Provides
support for
Makes
possible new
kinds of
Facing the future
Hurdles
>
Silo mentality
>
Superficial commitment
>
Lack of boundary spanners
Conclusions
What to share (and what not to)
>
Depends on the nature of the collaboration and where it fits into your
organisation’s strategic aims
>
Share knowledge of your core processes with extreme caution, and only
if you need it to make them better!
How to share
>
Depends on the nature of your strategy (how your organisation
competes) and consequently your knowledge management strategy
>
ICT alone is never the answer, though it is often part of the answer
References
C
OHEN
WM and
L
EVINTHAL
D (1990) Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and
innovation.
Administrative Science Quarterly
35(1), 128
-
152.
D
AFT
RL (1989)
Organization Theory and Design.
West, New York:.
D
E
T
ONI
AF,
N
ONINO
F and
P
IVETTA
M (2011, to appear) A model for assessing the coherence of
companies’ knowledge strategy.
Knowledge Management Research & Practice
9(4).
E
DWARDS
JS (2009) Business processes and knowledge management. In
Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology
(
K
HOSROW
-
P
OUR
M, Ed), Second
ed
, pp 471
-
476. IGI
Global, Hershey, PA.
E
DWARDS
JS and K
IDD
JB (2001) Knowledge management when "the times they are a
-
changin
'". In
Proceedings of Second European Conference on Knowledge Management
(R
EMENYI
D, Ed),
pp 171
-
183
.
MCIL, Reading, UK, Bled, Slovenia.
H
ANSEN
MT,
N
OHRIA
N and T
IERNEY
T (1999) What's your strategy for managing knowledge?
Harvard Business Review
77(2), 106
-
116.
I
NKPEN
A (1996) Creating knowledge through collaboration.
California Management Review
39(1),
123
-
140.
I
NKPEN
AC and
D
INUR
A (1998) Knowledge management processes and international joint
ventures.
Organization Science
9(4), 454
-
468.
L
ARSSON
R,
B
ENGTSSON
L,
H
ENRICKSSON
K and S
PARKS
J (1998) The
interorganizational
learning
dilemma: Collective knowledge development in strategic alliances.
Organizational Science
9(3), 285
-
306.
P
ORTER
ME (1980)
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors.
Free Press, New York.
S
ZULANSKI
G (1996) Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice
within the firm.
Strategic Management Journal
17(Winter Special Issue), 27
-
43.
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