Knowledge - to share

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.
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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
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(R
EMENYI

D, Ed),
pp 171
-
183
.

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MT,
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OHRIA

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IERNEY

T (1999) What's your strategy for managing knowledge?
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NKPEN

A (1996) Creating knowledge through collaboration.
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39(1),
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-
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NKPEN

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D
INUR

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ARSSON

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ENGTSSON

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ENRICKSSON

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PARKS

J (1998) The
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learning
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ORTER

ME (1980)
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S
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