AbstractOne of the most important concerns of contemporary organizations is the effective use of current knowledge within an organization. The knowledge which is produced in organization or enters it through different channels should make a kind of value or so called "value creation". There have been many efforts in this regard from content management to the implementation of web-based technologies all lead to value creation, but the essence of most of them and the essential requirement for the realization of making value is competent management. Knowledge leadership is an appreciable and undeniable requirement for organizations and without a capable manager who is enough capable in directing knowledge creating efforts and activities; we may not receive real and sensible results. This article has discussed the requirements and kinds of knowledge manager with a scientific-promotional perspective while describing knowledge management and its value creative role in organizations.
Keywords:
Knowledge Leadership, Knowledge Leader, Value Creation, Organization
1. Introduction
If knowledge management was a remarkable issue for discussion in think tanks for some time ago, now knowledge leadership is a notable story and has attracted thinkers who work on management and information services fields. Of course, these issues are not separated from each other and in many aspects overlap each other. Knowledge leadership indicates significant challenges which have been dealt with by managers in recent years. Today it is completely probable that no other factor may have great impact and initiate fundamental changes more than value creation. The convincing evidence for this claim is the increasing interest of organizations in finding new ways to achieve more values and benefits for their organizations.
Nowadays knowledge has become the key economic resource of organizations while material assets, human and natural resources are regarded as secondary resources. This new approach is completely visible in knowledge-based organizations.
Besides, communication media developments have made valuable knowledge accessible not only to a handful number of senior managers within an organization, but also to many executives in numerous companies. In the past time, highly ranked managers of organizations concentrated their attention on long term scope and main decisions, while today impressive knowledge is being produced and distributed more and more by a knowledge system which is comprised of knowledge workers in every company. So, a new generation of knowledge-based organizations is emerging which may be called value creator organizations [1].
2. What are value creator organizations?
A value creator organization provides unparallel knowledge leadership for its clients to deal with unpredicted challenges. We mean maintaining a competitive situation among competitor organizations for producing and achieving commercial knowledge by "unparallel knowledge leadership". This is the cause of superiority for an organization in producing goods or making services especially in critical and challenging times.
Enhancing clients' comprehension of enterprise and economical conditions in post-industry era needs human-dependant knowledge work and integrated service operations require all of the efforts of a value creator organization. This leads to clients' loyalty with the organization in long time. Constant flaw of challenges makes the organization's authorities busy with study and research to find new ways for dealing with clients' changing needs. In this way, value creator organizations empower their knowledge potential unintentionally and this makes their reliability more than before in their client's eye-view.
Improving performance, productivity and increasing production capacity and workers' satisfaction all are other objectives pursued by a value creator organization. Therefore value creator organizations more than everyone can be attractive for industrial and productive companies, because these organizations pay attention exactly to those priorities which are important for industrial bodies. The considerable point is that value creator organizations can offer the required frameworks for industrial companies in the form of software packages. So, formal knowledge changes into practical knowledge for these companies. This is that the question usually asked by knowledge economists as: "can knowledge be sold as a good?" has a positive response through a practical methodology.
The real meaning of value creator organizations reveals when these kinds of organizations take the responsibility of instruction in industrial companies and teach active human resources in these companies based on flexible marketing strategies. Value creator organizations usually pursue three main objectives in the aspect of instruction: A) Offering new commercial perspectives to learners so that their business intelligence may increase; B) Deepening organizational thought and business management and C) Encouraging collogues and teammates to share their knowledge with each other [1].
3. Who is a knowledge manager?
Doubtlessly knowledge managers are new form of organization managers. These managers are not included exactly within traditional organization charts. These managers often are found in internal nodes of organizations and just on common borders between units and subunits of organizations. Command and control positions are not usually without these kinds of managers.
Offering a definition for knowledge manager requires an acceptance and a realistic comprehension of this title. It also requires that an intellectual remind the responsibilities of a knowledge manager based on the development of functions and knowledge management solutions when he or she hears this term. The question which arises here is that "do we really need knowledge leadership?" or "what kind of knowledge leadership do we need?" Through knowing knowledge leaders types, we may be able to present an accurate definition for each kind of managers based on their roles and according to our organization need.
In a multi-aspect study conducted by Delphi Group, it was revealed that knowledge leader may cover a vast domain of organization posts and embrace similar functions and attributes [1]. The most remarkable attribute is a mixed experience of business and information technology, something that needs an experience of at least ten years in each field. Organizational thinking and interest in a level of enterprise that development is one of its inevitable consequences, is another necessary requirement. These leaders should consider current relations in organization hierarchical levels and meanwhile strengthen informal networks for building and maintaining informal and hidden organizations. Through these channels knowledge leaders may be able to introduce new methods and systems for the encouragement of researchers to compete with knowledge providers.
Why do organizations need knowledge leaders? The need is completely obvious because they should overcome natural barriers over knowledge sharing in big enterprise environments. This is in fact the essence of knowledge management. Organizations in every size and expertise believe that experience sharing and not only the application of technology is in the heart of knowledge management abilities for realizing commercial objectives and meeting clients and users' needs. This is usually done in open cultures through empowering communication channels. Knowledge leadership is needed to accelerate the establishment of required environment for knowledge sharing.
To prove this claim, it should be noted that knowledge leaders who were emerged more distinguishing than others showed special characteristics such as: knowledge gathering skills, organizing, classification and organizational relationship building. Meanwhile, they were equipped with other advanced skills such as information technology for succeeding in their business [2]. Although it is impossible for organizations today to make their knowledge influential without using information and communication technologies, it is always expected for managers to be capable of essential management skills and bring web-based communications along with face to face negotiations.
4. Types of knowledge leaders
Many organizations have taken the step of appointing a highly visible figure, the chief knowledge officer (CKO), to leverage the collective mind of an enterprise. This approach is the subject of many knowledge leadership discussions. Although there are a number of organizations with a CKO in place, this phenomenon is only one of several approaches in practice today to instill knowledge leadership. Many organizations have embraced knowledge leaders, but they have such titles as knowledge analyst, knowledge manager and knowledge steward. These individuals function very differently than the CKO and often express strong opinions against a central point of knowledge ownership.
The knowledge analyst is responsible for collecting, organizing and disseminating knowledge, usually on demand. Knowledge analysts provide knowledge leadership by becoming walking repositories of best practices - a library of how knowledge is shared and should be shared across the organization. The liability, of course, is that knowledge analysts can easily take all of the best practices with them if they leave the organization. There is also a risk that these individuals become so valuable to the immediate constituency that they are not able to move laterally to other parts of the organization where their skills are equally needed
The knowledge manager is responsible for coordinating the efforts of engineers, architects and analysts. The knowledge manager is most often required in large organizations where the large number of discrete knowledge-sharing processes risk fragmentation and isolation. The knowledge manager provides coordination across processes within a business unit. The risk in having knowledge managers is that fiefdoms (albeit large ones) may form around the success of each manager's domain. Regardless of this pitfall, the knowledge manager may successfully fill the niche of knowledge leader in an organization that realizes the lack of coordination in each of its business units is a primary deterrent to the sharing of knowledge among employees.
However, this single business unit approach can present its own problems in the form of fragmentation of knowledge. In these cases, the organization often relies on a central, command- and-control knowledge leader to provide continuity across multiple, discontinuous groups of knowledge workers.
The chief knowledge officer is responsible for enterprise-wide coordination of all knowledge leadership. The CKO typically reports to or is chartered by the CEO. Although it would seem reasonable that the CKO be part of IT (perhaps reporting to the CIO), this is not often the case. The CKO is not tasked with ownership of the technology infrastructure but rather the methods, practices and content comprising knowledge management solutions. At present, this role is almost always a solo performer with little, if any, staff and no immediate line-of-business responsibility. The CKO role requires advanced knowledge of the collective repositories, skills and expertise that can, if properly matched to the needs of the organization, increase responsiveness to customers (internal and external) and suppliers, which ultimately provides competitive distinction.
Putting a CKO in place is a potential point of sub-optimization. You may end up with someone whose vision of knowledge management dilutes the effectiveness of managing knowledge in each of the particular business units, projects or teams. Instead, these groups need to find the best way to manage knowledge within their area. By its nature, knowledge management is driven by lines of business (LOBs) and people at the extremities of the organization. Therefore, the best you can hope to do is coordinating the knowledge management process, but not truly control it. Because of this, a single knowledge leader, across all lines of business, is tough for LOB managers to support.
The knowledge steward is responsible for providing minimal, but ongoing, support to knowledge users in the form of expertise in the tools, practices and methods of knowledge management. The steward is in the most precarious and most opportunistic of positions. Usually, he or she is an individual who has fallen into the role of helping others to better understand and leverage the power of new technologies and practices in managing knowledge. The term "steward" best resonated in the interviews with the study participants; it conveys responsibility and a willingness to guide others, yet it is also non-intrusive and the near antithesis of ownership [2].
5. Conclusion: What is Your Organization's Need?
Knowledge leaders are educators of best practices and stewards of the frameworks that facilitate knowledge creation and sharing. But they are not owners. Knowledge leadership builds the bridges. Organizational leadership builds the culture. It is the knowledge workers themselves who build the reasons to use knowledge management.
CKO, knowledge manager, architect or steward - how does an organization identify the optimal style of knowledge leadership for its needs? Your vice president of customer care or manager of systems and applications may be your unsung knowledge leader. It may be there is no one. Look at the state of your organization's knowledge sharing, the level of sponsorship for knowledge leadership and the receptivity of its culture today. Then act accordingly. For instance, it would be a mistake to put a CKO into an organization that has little executive interest in knowledge management and where LOB managers exhibit a fundamental mistrust of one other. A CKO cannot make up for pathology of poor communication and mistrust.
There is little doubt that knowledge leadership is an essential ingredient of competition in the next millennium. Begin now to nurture these roles in your organization. Chances are, whatever their titles, you already have knowledge leaders at work that, with a bit of sponsorship, would be ready, able and very willing to step into the role.
References:
1. Knowledge Leadership: Leveraging Knowledge That Creates Value. Last time visited at: http://www.pepitone.com/content/know.asp
2. Stacie Capshaw and Thomas M. Koulopoulos, "Knowledge Leadership", DM Review Magazine, Last time visited at: http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=20
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