Toward designing a flexibility based

Knowledge Management model

Himanshu Dutt

Doctoral Research Scholar,

Centre for Management Studies,

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Presented in GLOGIFT 13 conference at IIT Delhi on Saturday, 14 December

Email: himanshudutt@gmail.com

Purpose

• Draw similarity between both the disciplines – flexibility & KM – for

integration with each other.

• Use ‘Systems Theory of Control’ to establish relationship between both.

• Conceptualize the flexibility based KM model design.

Flexibility & KM

• Strategic approach to achieve competitiveness

• Strategy, technology, structure – are commonality

• Goal is: ‘economic’ assets use to offset tendencies and improve

productivity.

• New phenomenon, ambiguity in definition due to variety, multi-

dimensional nature – defining them becomes hard.

• Both evolving with ‘newer taxonomies’ and ‘generations’

• No one single model – unstructured and inconsistent

• Born from hypercompetitiveness*

*Volberda, Henk W. (1996). Toward the flexible firm: how to remain vital in

hypercompetitive environments, Organization Science, 7(4), July-August, 359-374.

Application of Extraction Vs.

Application of Control

Difference lies in their application to the organisational assets.

While knowledge is extracted from intellectual assets; flexibility is applied to control

the behaviour of these assets. This way KM can be perceived as the application of

extraction while flexibility is the application of control.

KM-Flexibility: Integration

Their integration can be visualized as a process and a system wherein

KM as process, is related to the managing, creating and sharing of

organisation knowledge, and flexibility as system, keeps a check on the

tendencies that may cause organisation to drift from its KM process.

Systems theory of control will help its visualization.

Systems Theory of Control*

Case 1: Flexibility as ‘managerial capabilities to control’

Controls

Adapts

(Controlling organs) (Target system)

Target system interacts with controlling organs that constraints the functionality of the

system.

Flexibility forces organisation to adapt to its environment. This requires managerial

capabilities to control tendencies in organisation’s environment.

Environment Organisation

*Cook, Norman D. (1979). Systemic stability and flexibility. J. Social Biol. Struct., 2, 315-332.

Systems Theory of Control…2

Case 2: Flexibility as ‘controllability of the design’

Controls

Adapts

(Controlling organs) (Target system)

Flexibility forces environment to adapt to the requirements of the organisation. This

requires designing a pre-controlled model to control tendencies.

Organisation Environment

Cook, Norman D. (1979). Systemic stability and flexibility. J. Social Biol. Struct., 2, 315-332.

Define: Flexibility & KM Relationship

According to this approach, flexibility can be defined as ‘managerial

capabilities that control the changes in the KM model’ caused due to its

interaction with the environment and ‘controllability of the KM design’

that negates the impact of environment changes on it.

Premise: why flexibility will be required in KM

• All organisations demand some sort of control mechanism to respond to

tendencies and so requires the KM.

• Flexibility addresses volatility. KM suffers from volatility.

• It perceives the situation under which what all activities will be preferred

over others are determined to respond to the environment (Sushil,

2001). KM will require a control agent to react to its environment

profitably since 70% KM initiatives worldwide fail*.

• Flexibility premise is that for every competitive change there is

corresponding managerial capability and organisational ability to

control.

Chua, Alton & Lam, Wing (2005). Why KM projects fail: a multi case analysis.

Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(3), 6-17.

Integrating Flexibility into KM Design

Case 1: KM as Process and Flexibility as System

(Closed System) (Open System)

Here, KM is viewed as ‘closed system’ that requires flexibility in controlling the impact of

firm’s operating environment forces on KM process (of creating, managing and sharing

of knowledge). KM model will require managerial capabilities to control

tendencies.

KM as Process Flexibility as System

Create

Manage

Share

Technology

Strategy Structure

Constraints the

behaviour of the

KM Process

KM model

reconfigures itself

based on its

interaction with

flexibility system

Integrating Flexibility into KM Design…2

Case 2: KM as System and Flexibility as Process

(Open System) (Closed System)

Here, KM is viewed as ‘open system’ that is designed flexibility based to pre-control

the environment forces to make it automatically adapt to the operating environment.

KM as System Flexibility as Process

Technology

Strategy Structure

Anticipating Tendencies

Formulating Strategies

Accumulating Resources

Implementing Control

Constraints the

behaviour of the

flexibility process

Flexibility process

reconfigures itself

based on its

interaction with

KM requirements

KM Design

• KM is assumed as ‘network of controlling organs’ and its environment as ‘target system’.

• As network of controlling organs, the elements of KM system – technology, culture, structure, strategy and leadership – interact among themselves.

• In parallel, this system also interacts with the target system (environment forces).

• Flexibility can be applied in 2 ways: – Applied to each element of the ‘controlling organs’ to

control their tendency to change, and resisting it from causing any change further.

– Applied to interaction between ‘controlling organs’ and ‘target system’ (or the environment).

KM Design…2

• In this case, flexibility will come from ‘quality of management to control’.

• But when controlling organs and target system is interchanged for example KM becomes the target system and the environment forces becomes the controlling organs; flexibility will come from the ‘ability of the organisation to control’.

How flexibility can be applied

to design KM model?

4 combinations of flexibility: high and low quality of management control versus

high and low ability of management control

High Low

High Mgmt. Quality-

High Org. Ability

High Mgmt. Ability -

Low Org Quality

Low Mgmt. Quality –

High Org. Ability

Low Mgmt. Quality –

Low Org. Ability

Quality of management control results in control for product variety, procedures and

rapidity while ability of organisation to control results from technology, structure and

culture.

Quality of

Management

to Control

Ability of Organisation to Control

Low

High

Questions are welcome.