Knowledge Transfer and Sharing

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND SHARING

1 Transfer Methods

2 Role of the Internet

3 Knowledge Transfer in e-world

4 KM System Tools

5 Neural Network

6 Association Rules

7 Classification Trees

8 Data Mining and Business Intelligence

9 Decision Making Architecture

10 Data Management

11 Managing Knowledge Workers

1 Transfer Methods

Fundamentals

^ü   Prerequisites for Transfer

^ü   Building an Atmosphere of Trust in the Organization

^ü   Creating the Culture to Accommodate Change

^ü   Reasoning Before Processing

^ü   Doing is Better than Talking

^ü   Knowing how the Organization handles Mistakes

^ü   Collaboration/Cooperation are not Rivalry/Competition

^ü   Identifying Key Issues

^ü   How Managers view Knowledge Transfer

^ü   Determining Employee Job Satisfaction

Methods of Knowledge Transfer

Types of Problems

Transfer Strategies

Inhibitors of Knowledge Transfer

1.1 Fundamentals

Knowledge transfer is an integral part of organizational life.

It represents the transmission of knowledge (conveying the knowledge of one source to another source) and the appropriate use of the transmitted knowledge.

The goal is to promote/facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking.

It can involve accessing valuable/scarce resources, new expertise, new insight, cross fertilization of knowledge and can create an organizational environment of excellence.

Collaboration implies the ability to connect diverse assets into unique capabilities in pursuit of new opportunities mainly for organizational growth.

Knowledge transfer can be done by working together, communicating, learning by doing, using face-to-facediscussions, or embedding knowledge through procedures, mentoring, or documents exchange.

Knowledge can be transferred from repositories to people, from team(s) to individual(s), and between individuals.

Factors:

From where the knowledge is transferred: data warehouses, knowledge bases, experts etc. The media used: LAN, wireless transmission, secure/insecure lines, encrypted/plain text etc.

To where the knowledge is transferred: Another computer system, a manager, a customer

etc.

Some organizations know what to do, but for various reasons ignore the available information and perform differently (creating the knowing-doing gap). This problem should be recognized to help organizations making corrections and setting up a knowledge transfer environment for the benefit of all the employees.

1.2 Prerequisites for Transfer

Knowing can be considered as very personal.

The terms knowledge transfer and knowledge share are interrelated.

Knowledge transfer refers to a mechanistic term meaning providing knowledge for someone else.

Knowledge sharing refers to exchange of knowledge between individuals, between individuals and knowledge bases etc.

Knowledge transfer can involve political, interpersonal, leadership and organizational issues to consider.

Building an Atmosphere of Trust in the Organization Creating the Culture to Accommodate Change Reasoning Before Processing

Doing is Better than Talking

Knowing how the Organization handles Mistakes Collaboration/Cooperation are not Rivalry/Competition Identifying Key Issues

How Managers view Knowledge Transfer Determining Employee Job Satisfaction

1.3 Building an Atmosphere of Trust in the Organization

Trust is the foundation for knowledge transfer and it can be considered as a psychological state wherepeople feel confident about sharing ideas, experiences, and relationships with others.

1.4 Creating the Culture to Accommodate Change

Usually culture is embedded in the organizations mission, core values, policies, and tradition.

Positive cultural values include:

^ü   Leadership

^ü   Culturally driven forces

^ü   Culturally internalized operational practices.

^ü   Culturally internalized management practices

1.5Reasoning Before Processing

Sometimes employees undergoing training exhibits greater interest in the process itself (how to do) than the reasoning behind the process (why to do).

When new people are hired into an organization, then the first thing the supervisors/managers should do (before the newcomers are shown how to do the job) is to introduce themselves, and present the newcomers with a brief idea about the organizational philosophy, and what the organization expects them to achieve.

1.6 Doing is Better than Talking

Actions speak louder than words and are found to be more effective than concepts/theory not tested by experience.

The philosophy here is Once you do it, you will know what is involved. Being involved in the actual process is the best way to learn it.

1.7 Knowing how the Organization handles Mistakes

Mistakes are bound to be made and there can be cost associated with it. Tolerance for mistakes usually allows room for learning to take place.

Some of the best learnings in business can take place by the method of trial and error. Organizations that are successful in turning knowledge into action are usually found to

inspire respect and admiration, rather than fear or intimidation.

1.8 Collaboration/Cooperation are not Rivalry/Competition

Often, as a result of internal rivalry, the employees become knowledge hoarders rather than knowledge sharers.

In fact, the success of each employee depends on mutual cooperation and knowledge sharing among the group members.

So, the aim should be to turn away from internal rivalry and move towards collaboration and cooperation which can help to reach the organizational goal.

Usually there is no prioritization of what should be acted on or what changes should be made in order to improve the situation.

Sometimes, organizations spend more resources on outcome than on process itself. For successful knowledge management, we should focus on the gathered knowledge, processes and process improvement criteria.

1.9 How Managers view Knowledge Transfer

Under the framework of knowledge management practices, the managers are usually expected to create an organizational culture that can set the work norms and can value the transfer of knowledge for giving rise to value-added products and services.

This represents a successful way of bridging the knowledge-action gap.

Determining Employee Job Satisfaction

The success of knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing relies on employee job satisfaction and the stability of the workplace. Job satisfaction can be derived from the degree of match between an employees vocational needs and the requirements of the job.

Some key vocational needs:

^ü   Level of Achievement

^ü   Ability utilization

^ü   Advancement

^ü   Level of Activity

^ü   Authority

^ü   Level of Creativity

^ü   Compensation

^ü   Independence

^ü   Moral Values

^ü   Level of responsibility

^ü   Recognition

^ü   Status

^ü   Job Security

^ü   Supervision (human relations)

^ü   Supervision (technical)

^ü   Variety

^ü   Conditions of Work

1.10 Methods of Knowledge Transfer

After the knowledge is captured and codified, it has to be transferred so that the organizational members can use it.

The recipients can be individuals, groups or teams.

Knowledge transfer makes it possible to convert experience into knowledge.

Types of Problems

Transfer Strategies

Inhibitors of Knowledge Transfer

Types of Problems

^ü   Routine Problems

^ü   Non-routine Problems

^ü   Complex and critical Problems

^ü   Basic Problems

^ü   Problems with combination of constraints.

Transfer Strategies

Knowledge can be transferred via:

^ü   documents

^ü   internet/intranet

^ü   groupware

^ü   databases

^ü   knowledge bases

^ü   face to face communication

The best way to absorb tacit knowledge is to be present in the domain where tacit knowledge is practiced. This can be done through job rotation, job training, and on-site learning. This involves on- site decision making, absorbing the mechanics, and the heuristics as they occur, and finally coming up with a new knowledge base that emulates the domain in a unique way. However, the main limitation of such strategy is time.

Inhibitors of Knowledge Transfer

There exists a number of organizational and cultural factors that inhibit reliable knowledge transfer.

Key areas where friction may occur:

^ü   Lack of trust

^ü   Lack of time

^ü   Knower's status

^ü   Speed/Quality of transfer

Types of Knowledge Transfer

Collective Sequential Transfer

Explicit Interteam Transfer

Tacit Knowledge Transfer

Collective Sequential Transfer

One ongoing team specialized in specific task(s) moves to other locations and performs the same task(s).

There happens knowledge transfer from one site to another by the same team. The focus is on collaboration and is on collective knowledge.

Issues

How does one member's task affect others in the team?

How does one member's way of performing a task contribute to the performance of other team members?

Which factors affect a member's performance?

How does one member's task impact the overall performance of the team?

Explicit Interteam Transfer

Allows a team, which has done a job on a site, to share its experience with another team working on a similar job on another site.

Most of the knowledge transferred associates to routine work and the procedures are usually precise (explicit knowledge).

Factors like human relations, organizational subculture (of the receiving team) can make the explicit interteam transfer difficult at times.

Tacit Knowledge Transfer

This kind of knowledge transfer can be found to be unique in case of complex, nonalgorithmic projects.

The team receiving the tacit knowledge can be different in location, in experience, in technology and in cultural norms.

Often the knowledge that is to be transferred is required to be modified in language, content etc in order to be usable by the receiving team.

There can exist difficulty in case of tapping tacit knowledge.

2 Role of the Internet

With the use of internet, it is possible to transmit/receive information containing images, graphics, sound and videos. ISP industry can offer services as:

Linking consumers and businesses via internet. Monitoring/maintaining customer's Web sites. Network management/systems integration.

Backbone access services for other ISP's. Managing online purchase and payment systems.

The internet is designed to be indefinitely extendible and the reliability of internet primarily depends on the quality of the service providers' equipments.

Benefits of Internet:

^ü   Doing fast business.

^ü   Trying out new ideas.

^ü   Gathering opinions.

^ü   Allowing the business to appear alongside other established businesses.

^ü   Improving the standards of customer service/support resource.

^ü   Supporting managerial functions.

^ü   Limitations:

^ü   Security

^ü   Privacy

3 Knowledge Transfer in e-world

^ü   E-World

^ü   Intranet

^ü   Extranet

^ü   Groupware

^ü   E-Business

^ü   Value Chain

^ü   Supply Chain Management (SCM)

^ü   Custome Relationship Management (CRM)

E-World

Intranet

Extranet

Groupware

Intranet

Links knowledge workers and managers around the clock and automates intraorganizational

traffic.

An organization needs intranet if:

^ü   A large pool of information is to be shared among large numbe of employees.

^ü   Knowledge transfe needs to be done in hurry.

Extranet

Links limited and controlled trading partners and allows them to interact fo different kinds of knowledge sharing.

Intranets, extranets, and e-commerce do share common features.

Internet protocols are used to connect business users; on the intranet administrators prescribe access and policy fo a specific group of users; on a Business-to-Business (B2B) extranet, system designers at each participating company collaborates to make sure there is a common interface with the company they are dealing with.

Extranets can be considered as the backbone of e-business.

The benefits are faste time to market, increased partne interaction, custome loyalty, and improved processes.

Security varies with type of user, the sensitivity type of the transferred knowledge and the type of communication lines used.

Access control deals with what the users can and what they can not access. The issue of the level of authentication fo each use should be considered.

Extranet helps the organization in ensuring accountability in the way it does business and exchanges knowledge with its partners.

It promotes collaboration with partners and improves the potential fo increased revenue.

Groupware

A software helping people to collaborate (especially fo geographically distributed organizations). Supports to communicate ideas, cooperate in problem solving, coordinate work flow and negotiate solutions.

Categorized according to:

Users working in the same place o in different locations. Users working togethe at the same time o different times.

Session control determines who can ente and exit the session, when they can ente and how. Some rules used in case of session

control:

Identifying conversational group members before allowing them into a session. Controlling unnecessary interruptions o simultaneous transmissions (that might result in chaos/confusion).

Allowing group members to ente and exit at any time.

Determining the maximum numbe of participants and the length of the session(s). Making sure that users do not impose a session on others.

Ensuring accountability, anonymity and privacy during the session(s).

Applications:

E-mail/Knowledge transfer

Newsgroups/Work-Flow Systems

Chat Rooms

Video Communication

Group Calendaring/Sche

E-Business

Brings the worldwide access of the internet to the core business process of exchanging information between businesses, between people within a businesses, and between a business and its clients.

The focus is on knowledge transfer/sharing.

It connects critical business systems to critical constituencies (customers, suppliers, vendors etc) via the internet, intranets, and extranets.

E-Business helps to attain the following goals: Developing new products/services

Gaining recent market knowledge Building custome loyalty

Enriching human capital by direct and instant knowledge transfer Making use of existing technologies fo research and development Gaining competitive edge and market leadership.

Value Chain

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Custome Relationship Management (CRM)

Value Chain

It is a way of organizing the primary and secondary activities of a business in a way that each activity provides productivity to the total business operation.

Competitive advantage is gained when the organization links the activities in its value chain more cheaply/effectively than its competitors do.

The knowledge-based value chain provides away of looking at the knowledge activities of the organization and how various knowledge exchange adds value to adjacent activities and to the organization in general.

Everywhere value is added is where knowledge is created, shared o transferred.

By the process of examining the elements of the value chain, executives can find the ways to incorporate IT and telecommunications to improve the overall productivity of the firm.

In case of E-Business, we integrate the KM life cycle from knowledge creation to knowledge distribution via

^ü   Business to Consumer

^ü   Business to Business

^ü   Business within Business

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Incorporates the idea of having the right product in the right place, at the right time, in the right condition and at the right price.

This is an integral part of Business to Business framework.

This employs tools that allows the organization to exchange and update information in order to reduce cycle times, to have

Custome Relationship Management (CRM)

Helps the organization to improve the quality of its relationship management with customers.

It is a business strategy used to learn more about custome needs and custome bevaviour patterns in orde to develop bette and stronge relationship with them.

It can improve/change an organization's business processes fo supporting new custome focus and apply emerging technologies to automate these new processes.

The technologies can allow multiple channels of communication with customers (and supply chain partners) and ca n use custome information stored in corporate databases and knowledge-bases to construct predictive models fo custome purchase behaviour.

Benefits:

Enhancing efficiency of call centres.

Cross selling products efficiently.

Simplifying sales processes.

Simplifying marketing processes.

Helping sales staff to close deals faster.

Increased custome satisfaction.

Finding new customers

Critical elements of CRM software: Operational technology:

Uses portals that facilitate communication between customers, employees, and supply chain partners. Basic features included in portal products:

Personalization services

Secure services

Publishing services

Subscription services

Analytical technology:

Uses data-mining technologies to predict custome purchase patterns.

Architechtural imperative fo CRM is to do:

Allowing the capture of a very large volume of data and transforming it into analysis formats to support enterprise-wide analytical requirements.

Deploying knowledge.

Calculating metrics by the deployed business rules.

4 KM System Tools

^ü   Portals

^ü   Evolution

^ü   Business Challenge

^ü   Portals and Business Transformation

^ü   Market Potential

^ü   Knowledge Portal Technologies

^ü   Functionality

^ü   Collaboration

^ü   Content Management

^ü   Intelligent Agents

Portals

Portals are Web-based applications which provide a single point of access to online information.

These can be regarded as virtual workplaces which promotes knowledge sharing among end-users (e.g., customers, employees etc). provides access to data (structured) stored in databases, data warehouses etc. Helps to organize unstructured data.

Evolution

Initially portals were merely search engines.

In the next phase they were transformed to navigation sites.

In orde to facilitate access to large amount of information, portals have evolved to include advanced search capabilities and taxonomies.

They are also called Information portals because they deal with information.

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities obtained by using and adding value to the information lying dormant in scattered information systems.

Portals can integrate applications by the way of combining, analyzing, and standardizing relevant information.

Knowledge portals provides information about all business activities and they are capable of supplying metadata to support decision making.

In case of knowledge portal, we do not focus on the content of the information, but we focus on how it will be used by the knowledge workers.

Knowledge portals have two kinds of interface:

Knowledge consume interface Knowledge produce interface

Enterprise Knowledge Portals (EKP) can distinguish knowledge from information and can produce knowledge from raw data and information.

Business Challenge

In case of most of the businesses, usually there exists an inherent pressure to optimize the performance of operational processes in orde to reduce cost and enhance quality.

Customer-oriented systems allow organizations to understand the custome behaviou pattern s) and helps them to offe the right product at the right time.

Often, organizations need to commercialize thei products at the lowest possible price.

Portals and Business Transformation

Usually problems arise from the following two fundamental aspects underlying the present computing technology:

The explosion in the quantity of business information already captured in electronic documents leads many organizations to lose thei grip on the information as they

upgrade thei processes and transform to new systems.

The fast speed with which the quantity (and kinds) of information content is growing, indicates that what is needed to meet the challenges is a strict internal discipline which

can help to expose and integrate the sources of enterprise knowledge.

Types of pressures faced by most organizations:

^ü   Shorte time to market

^ü   More demanding investors/customers

^ü   Knowledge worke turnover

Market Potential

Knowledge portals are emerging as key tools fo supporting the knowledge workplace. The infrastructure components of the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) market: Business intelligence

Content management Data management

Data warehouses/data marts

Knowledge Portal Technologies

^ü   Functionality

^ü   Collaboration

^ü   Content Management

^ü   Intelligent Agents

Functionality

^ü   Gathering

^ü   Categorization

^ü   Collaboration

^ü   Distribution

^ü   Personalization

^ü   Publishing

^ü   Searching/Navigation

Collaboration

The aim fo using the collaboration tools is to create a collaborative KM system which supports sharing and reusing information.

In the cntext of KM, collaboration implies the ability fo more than one people to work togethe in a coordinated fashion ove time (and space) using electronic devices.

Types of collaboration:

Asynchronous collaboration: Human-to-human interactions via compute systems having no time/space constraints.

Synchronous collaboration: Human-to-human interactions (via compute systems) that occurs instantly.

Push Technology:

Places information in a place where is it easily visible.

Pull Technology:

Requires to take specific actions in orde to retrieve information.

Content Management

Requires directory/indexing capabilities to automatically mange the eve growing warehouses of enterprise data.

Addresses the problem of searching fo knowledge in all information sources of the enterprise.

This knowledge can include structured as well as unstructured internal information objects like office documents, collaborative data, MIS, experts, and also external information.

Metadata is required to define the types of information.

Content management component needs to publish information in the knowledge-base. Content management can handle the way the documents are analyzed, categorized, and stored.

Categorizing:

As the volume of documents (unde management) grows, it becomes rather important to organize simila documents into smalle groups and to name the groups.

Since document collections are not static, hence portals must provide some form of taxonomy maintenance. As new documents are added, they must be added to the taxonomy at proper places (using a classification technology). As the clustures grow and as the conceptual content of the new documents change ove time, it can become necessary to subdivide clustures o to move documents from one clusture to another.

Intelligent Agents

Agents are softwares which are able to execute a wide range of functional tasks (e.g, comparing, learning, searching etc).

Intelligent agents are tools that can be applied in the context of EKP's.

They are still in thei infancy, most applications are yet experimental and have not reached the actual commercial stage.

As the relationships between the organizations and thei customers become more complex, the organization needs more information regarding what these relationships mean and the way to exploit them.

Intelligent agent technology can help to address these needs.

Customers usually set certain priorities while purchasing products (o using services).

Intelligent agents can maste the individual customers' demand priorities by learning from experience with them, and most of all they can qualitatively and quantitatively analyze these priorities.

Some of the custome services that can be benefitted by intelligent agents:

^ü   Custome assistance (customized) with online services.

^ü   Custome profiling and integrating profiles of customers into a group of marketing

^ü   activities.

^ü   Forecasting custome requirements.

^ü   Executing transactions (financial) on the behalf of customers.

^ü   Negotiating prices/payment schedules.

5 Neural Network

Neural networks (NN) are modelled after the human brain's network.

This technology tries to simulate biological information processing via networks of neurons (electronically interconnected basic processing elements).

Neural networks are analog and parallel.

They learn by example.

They help decision making in case of knowledge automation systems. They can be viewed as self-programming systems based on their inputs/outputs.

Each neuron has got a transfer function that computes the output signal from the input signal. The neuron evaluates the inputs, determine their weights (strengths), sums, the combined

inputs, and compares the total to a threshold (transfer function) level.

If the sum is greater than the threshold, the neuron fires (sends outputs). Otherwise it does not generate a signal.

Interconnecting neurons with each other forms a layer of nodes (or a neural network).

6 Association Rules

Association Rules

It is a knowledge-based tool which generates a set of rules to help understanding the relationships that might exist in data.

Types:

Boolean rule:

Examines the presence or absence of items.

Quantitative rule:

The quantitative measures (values) are considered.

Multi-dimensional rule:

Refers to a multitude of dimensions.

Multilevel association rule:

A transaction can refer to items with different levels of abstraction.

7 Classification Trees

Classification Trees

These are popular tools used for classification. A tree represents a network of nodes.

There exists a root node which represents the starting node of the tree. The ending nodes are called leaf nodes.

The root node and the leaf nodes are usually separated by a number of intermediate node organizations in

layers (called levels).

At each level, nodes split data into groups until they reach the leaf node.

9 Decision Making Architecture

Relative Fit with KM

^ü   Some characteristics of NN that fits in KM system framework:

^ü   Neural networks exhibit high accuracy and speed in response.

^ü   A lot of input preprocessed data is usually required to build a neural network.

^ü   A neural network starts all over with every new application.

10 Data Management

Supervised/Unsupervised Learning

The learning of the NN can be Supervised.

The NN needs a teacher with a training set of examples of input and output. Usually each element in a training set is paired with an acceptable response.

The network makes successive passes through the examples, and the weights adjust toward the goal state.

When the weights represent the passes without error, then it means that the network has learned to associate a set of input patterns with a particular output. Unsupervised (Self-Supervised):

No external factors can influence the adjustment of the input's weights.

The NN does not happen to have advanced indication of correct or incorrect answers.

It adjusts through direct confrontation with new experiences. This process is called self organization.

Applications in Business

^ü   Risk Management

^ü   Fidelity Investment

^ü   Mortgage Appraisals

11 Managing Knowledge Workers.

Managing Knowledge Workers

^ü   Knowledge Workers

^ü   Personality/Professional Attributes

^ü   Business Roles in Learning Organization

^ü   Management and Leadership

^ü   Work Management Tasks

^ü   Work adjustment

^ü   Introduction

^ü   Smart Leadership Requirements

^ü   Technology and Knowledge Worker

^ü   Ergonomics

^ü   Managerial Considerations

^ü   Managing Knowledge Projects

Knowledge Workers

A knowledge worke is a person who transforms business and personal experience into knowledge.

Usually a knowledge worke is found to be innovative, creative and he/she is fully aware of the organizational culture.

A knowledge worke can be thought of as a product of values, experiences, processes, education, and training.

Personality/Professional Attributes

Understands and adopts the organizational culture.

Aligns personal/professional growth with corporate vision. Possesses the attitude of collaboration/sharing.

Possesses innovative capacity/creative mind.

Has got the clea understanding of the business (in which he/she is involved. Always willing to learn, and willing to adopt new methodologies. Possesses self-control and can learn by himself/herself.

Willing to accomodate uncertainties Core competencies:

Thinking skills

Innovative teams/teamwork

Continuous learning

Innovation/Creativity

Risk taking/Potential success

A culture of responsibility towards knowledge

Decisive action taking

Business Roles in Learning Organization

A Learning organization is an organization of people with total commitment to improve their capacity, to create and to produce. It can respond to uncertainty, to challenges, and to the change in general.

The rate of learning of an organization can turn out to be the most critical source of competitive advantage.

Management and Leadership Work Management Tasks

Management and Leadership

In KM, we distinguish between managers and leaders.

Traditional managers usually focus on the present. They are usually action-oriented and spends most of the time supervising, delegating, controlling, and ensuring compliance with set procedures.

Traditional managers were once workers and were promoted to managers. When they manage subordinates, they are aware of each aspect of the business since they were once there.

Smart managers usually focus on organizational learning in orde to ensure operational excellence.

Smart managers can not be expected to have mastered the work of the subordinates. They can take on the role of leaders where change is the primary goal.

The challenge is to get the organization moving towards achieving goals (in line with the rate of change).

The leader's role in a learning organization is more of a facilitato than a supervisor. He acts more like a teache than like an orde giver.

In case of teaching, the focus is on the transfe of knowledge from the instructo to the learner. The instructo is supposed to be the expert and his/he role is to delive quality content and to communicate the content with potential.

Learning should essentially promote a way of thinking, not just convey facts.

In a learning organization, the smart manage can play the role of the instructor, and the knowledge workers can play the role of learners.

The smart manage provides opportunities fo knowledge workers to brainstorm ideas, exchange knowledge, and come up with new and bette ways of doing business.

Work Management Tasks

^ü   Work management tasks include the following:

^ü   Retrieving, creating, sharing, and using knowledge in everyday activities.

^ü   Managing knowledge workers and nurturing thei knowledge-oriented activities.

^ü   Ensuring readiness to work.

^ü   Maintaining work motivation among knowledge workers.

^ü   Allocating effort and switching control among tasks.

^ü   Managing collaboration and concurrent activities among knowledge workers.

^ü   Sharing information and integrating work among knowledge workers.

^ü   Recruiting knowledge-seeking and bright individuals.

^ü   factors to be considered by the managers:

^ü   Time constraint.

^ü   Knowledge workers doing work that the organization did not hire them to do.

^ü   Working smarter/harder.

^ü   Work Schedule.

^ü   Knowledge worke productivity.

Work adjustment

^ü   Subsections

^ü   Introduction

^ü   Smart Leadership Requirements

Introduction

Smart managers should ensure the right match between the vocational needs of their knowledge workers and the requirements of thei jobs.

The aim is to assure the stability of the workforce and continuity on the job.

Achieving and maintaining correspondence with the work environment can be viewed as basic motives of human work behaviour.

Correspondence starts when an individual brings certain skills that enables him/he to respond to the requirements of the job o the work environment.

On the othe hand, the work environment provides certain rewards in response to the individual's requirements.

When both the individual's and the work environment's minimal requirements are mutually fulfilled, the correspondence exists.

When an individual achieves minimal correspondence, he/she is allowed to stay on the job and have an opportunity to work toward a more optimal correspondence.

Smart Leadership Requirements

The knowledge chain represents a series of steps which determines the potential of a learning organization. One approach involves the following steps:

Assessment of the core competency of the organization. Response to organization's shortcomings (internal).

Excellent knowledge of the external market and the nature of competition in the market. Online response to company's external environment.

Measuring the return on time.

Technology and Knowledge Worker

The primary activities of knowledge work:

^ü   Monitoring

^ü   Decision Making

^ü   Assessment

^ü   Scheduling

A knowledge worke can act as a manager, a supervisor, o a clerk who is actively engaged in thinking, information processing, analyzing, creating, o recommending procedures based on experience and cumulative knowledge.

IT plays a key role in the learning organization in the following processes: Information distribution

Knowledge capture

Information interpretation

There exists a multitude of equipment and software supporting knowledge worker's tasks. They include:

LAN

E-mail

Intelligent Workstations

Intelligent workstations automates repitative, and tedious tasks. They should perform the following functions:

Administrative support functions Technology and Knowledge Worker Personal computing functions Managing intelligent databases

Ergonomics

List of factors affecting the ergonomics of knowledge workers:

Environmental issues: prope lighting, layout etc.

Hardware issues: furnitures, workstations etc.

Knowledge worker-system interface: software, use training etc.

Knowledge worker-system interface emphasizes features like:

Minimum worke effort and memory.

Best and effective use of human patterns.

Prompt problem notification.

Maximum task support.

Managerial Considerations

^ü   Considerations fo a change leader:

^ü   Focusing less on problems, and more on opportunities and successes.

^ü   Adopting an attitude which views challenges as opportunities.

^ü   Working on future business rathe than considering past problems.

Managing Knowledge Projects

^ü   A knowledge manage is expected to possess psychological, technical and business skills. Managerial

^ü   functions include:

^ü   Drafting knowledge teams

^ü   Deciding on custome requirements

^ü   Identifying project problems

^ü   Ensuring successful results

^ü   The knowledge manage is expected to focus on:

^ü   Encouraging team members to create new knowledge.

^ü   Helping knowledge workers do thei jobs.

^ü   Allowing knowledge workers to participate in majo organizational decisions.

^ü   Encouraging knowledge workers and employees to learn as they earn a living on a day-to-day basis.