The Discipline of Knowledge Management: Lessons from the KM Strategies of Professional Services Firms A doctoral dissertation by
Dr Ken Grant
Submitted to the faculty of Henley Business School, University of Reading as partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Business Administration
ISBN: 978-1-909507-45-6 CopyrightŠ Ken Grant Licence to publish granted to Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited, 2013 For more information see www.academic-conferences.org
THE DISCIPLINE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: Lessons from the KM Strategies of Professional Services Firms A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Business Administration Henley Business School
by Kenneth A. Grant
October 2012
ABSTRACT A key role for senior management is making decisions about new strategies and other initiatives intended to improve the performance and profitability of their businesses. While the widely held rationalist perspective suggests that these new ideas are tried and, if they demonstrate benefit, are adopted more fully, alternate perspectives, such as those of Institutional Theory, suggest the situation is more complex and that other factors than rational decision-making are at play. Management Fashion Theory considers the role of powerful agents presenting innovative solutions for managers to consider in meeting a continued demand for new ideas. Some of these solutions become enduring fashions, embedded in organizational behavior. Others, after a brief period of interest, are not widely adopted and might be considered to be short-lived fads. This study addresses the strategic importance of Knowledge Management (KM) in knowledgeintensive organizations. It has its roots in the rapid rise to management attention of KM as a strategic tool in the 1990s and responds to a range of criticisms of KM, including the argument that KM, just like many other heavily hyped innovations in the past, is simply a management fad that, after a period of attention, fades away in management interest. Evidence is collected from a bibliometric discourse analysis of 20 years of publications in the KM field and through multiple case studies, carried out in five professional services firms, using qualitative techniques, including semi-structured interviews, text coding and computer-assisted text analysis, further supported by secondary case studies and expert interviews. KM is examined through the lens of Management Fashion Theory. Consistent with that theory, it demonstrates that the discourse in KM follows the first three stages of a management fashion: First, a period of latency is observed, where basic concepts are first expressed by fashion-setting gurus (from 1988 to 1995); next, a rapid explosion of interest appears (from 1996 to about 2000); third, it reaches a plateau of interest in about 2001. However, unlike many such management innovations that have been studied over the last 20 years, the research findings show that KM has not yet experienced the often-expected fourth stage -- a significant decline in interest. The study does, however, identify a significant difference in interests and focus between practitioners and researchers, a significant challenge in an applied field, such as KM. The actual diffusion of KM within professional firms is examined. Strong support is evident for the diffusion of some aspects of KM in the field, demonstrating the importance of specific strategies, processes and IT systems to achieve strategic advantage through the use of KM. Much more limited support is present for the diffusion of a number of other concepts proposed by the KM research community. The study also identifies an increasing divide between the KM-related actions of management practitioners and the work of researchers, along with continued definitional challenges that raise some concerns for the future success of KM. This research makes a practical contribution by providing guidance to both researchers and practitioners on strategic approaches to KM and proposes a more focused definition of KM to assist executives in making KM strategic and investment decisions. It also suggests that future work in developing governance and maturity models for KM might prove valuable to both communities. The study’s theoretical contributions include an assessment of the limitations of Management Fashion Theory, with improvements being proposed for the future application of the Theory, as well as the identification of some challenges of relevance to the future of the KM research community.
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Acknowledgments I undertook this research journey as part of my transition from industry to the academic world. During this journey I have developed new relationships and made new friendships. Many individuals have made contributions to this work and I owe them all a great debt. My greatest thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Dan Remenyi. His contribution to my academic development goes far beyond providing guidance and critique to this work. His assistance to me as I entered the wider academic community has been invaluable in so many ways. I must also thank Professor Arthur Money for his insightful contributions as I worked on the final writeup of this project. In addition, I thank the other members of the Henley community who have helped me at critical stages of this work, in particular, Professor Pat Joynt and Professor David Price. My fieldwork would not have been possible without the support of the partners and staff in the five professional services firms that formed the basis of my case studies. Their willingness to give me access and to share their knowledge is the foundation of this research. Throughout the journey I have had the continual support of Candy, my wife and career partner. She has accepted significant disruption in our lives and provided insightful comments at critical times.
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Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: AN INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2
DEFINING THE FIELD .............................................................................................................................. 2
1.2.1
Key Themes in the Evolution of the KM Field ................................................................................... 2
1.2.2
KM as a Strategic Issue.................................................................................................................... 3
1.2.3
Concerns and Criticisms of the Early KM Experiences..................................................................... 4
1.3
MANAGEMENT FADS AND FASHIONS .................................................................................................. 5
1.4
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM .................................................................................................................... 7
1.4.1
The Current Situation ....................................................................................................................... 7
1.4.2
The Research Objectives and Approach .......................................................................................... 7
1.4.3
Choosing the Subjects for Field Research ....................................................................................... 9
1.5
THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS...................................................... 9
1.5.1
The Research Methodology ............................................................................................................. 9
1.5.2
The Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 10
1.5.3
The Target Firms and the Interview Analysis ................................................................................. 11
1.6
THE IMPORTANCE AND RELEVANCE OF THIS RESEARCH ............................................................. 12
1.7
A GUIDE TO THE REMAINDER OF THIS THESIS ................................................................................ 13
CHAPTER 2 THE CONTRIBUTION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TO BUSINESS SUCCESS ................. 15 2.1 THE EMERGENCE OF A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND CLAIMS FOR THE NEED FOR MANAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE .................................................................................................................. 15 2.2
A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM....................................................................................................... 18
2.3
EXAMINING THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS ................................................................................ 20
2.3.1
The Theory of Diffusion of Innovations ........................................................................................... 20
2.3.2
Examining Innovation Diffusion as Management Fashion .............................................................. 23
2.3.3
A Technique to Study Management Fashion .................................................................................. 27
2.4
A TIMELINE FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................ 28
2.5 THE LATENCY PERIOD FROM 1948-1994: THEORETICAL & PRACTICAL BRIDGES TO THE EMERGENCE OF KNOWLEDGE AS A MANAGEMENT TOPIC .................................................................... 29 2.5.1
“Personal Knowledge” .................................................................................................................... 29
2.5.2
Information Theory & Information Technology ................................................................................ 30
2.5.3
Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence ............................................................................................. 31
2.5.4
The Appearance of the First Knowledge Management “Gurus” ..................................................... 32
2.6 A WAVE OF RAPID ADOPTION FROM 1995-2001: THE EMERGENCE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................................................ 33 2.6.1
Theme 1: The Management and Exploitation of “Intellectual Capital” ............................................ 33
2.6.2
Theme 2: Social Views of Knowledge ............................................................................................ 36
2.6.3
Theme 3: Knowledge Work and Knowledge Models and Knowledge Processes ........................... 38
2.6.4
Theme 4: The Widespread Use of IT to Capture, Codify and Share Knowledge ............................ 41
2.6.5
Theme 5: The Need to Manage Knowledge Activities at both the Strategic and Operational Levels . ....................................................................................................................................................... 42
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2.7
A PERIOD OF REFLECTION, CRITICISM AND RE-INVENTION: 2001-2004 ....................................... 44
2.7.1
Emergence of Criticisms of the Growth Phase of KM ..................................................................... 44
2.7.2
A Call for Re-Invention – A “Next Generation of KM” ..................................................................... 50
2.8
A CONTINUED DIVISION IN THE DISCOURSE: 2004-2012 ................................................................ 59
2.8.1
Continued Definitional Challenges.................................................................................................. 59
2.8.2
A Critical Appraisal of the Usefulness of the field and a Quest for Relevance ................................ 60
2.8.3
Processes versus Assets ............................................................................................................... 64
2.8.4
The Usefulness of Models .............................................................................................................. 64
2.8.5
Limited Adoption of the “Guru’s” Proposals for NGKM and Their Own Personal Reinvention ........ 64
2.8.6
The Need for a KM Strategy ........................................................................................................... 65
2.8.7
The KM Discipline........................................................................................................................... 67
2.9
A BIBLIOMETRIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF KM AND ITS THEMES............................................... 67
2.9.1
The Bibliographic Analysis ............................................................................................................. 67
2.9.2
Content Analysis of the Most Significant KM Journals.................................................................... 77
2.10 THE CURRENT SITUATION ................................................................................................................... 82 2.10.1
Summing Up the Current Discourse on KM ............................................................................... 82
2.10.2
The Continued Strategic Challenge ........................................................................................... 85
2.11 DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...................................................................................... 86 2.12 STUDYING KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS ................................. 88 2.12.1
The Prominent Role of the Consultant in Management Fashion Theory ................................... 88
2.12.2
Consultancies, Professional Services Firms and Knowledge-Intensive Organizations .............. 91
2.12.3
The Role of Knowledge within the Professional Services Firm .................................................. 93
2.12.4
The Discourse on and Diffusion of Knowledge Management in PSFs ....................................... 97
2.12.5
PSFs as a Subject of Study for Management Fashions............................................................. 99
2.13 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................ 101 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................... 103 3.1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 103
3.2
PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 104
3.2.1
Adopting a Philosophical Approach .............................................................................................. 104
3.2.2
The Use of Theory ........................................................................................................................ 108
3.2.3
The Decision to Use Case Studies ............................................................................................... 110
3.2.4
The Research Methodology ......................................................................................................... 111
3.3
THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND FRAMEWORKS ......................................................................... 114
3.3.1
The Research Questions .............................................................................................................. 114
3.3.2
The Study Propositions – Common Themes for the “Next” Generation of KM ............................. 114
3.3.3
Case Selection – The Target Firms (Primary Units of Analysis) ................................................... 115
3.4
LINKING DATA TO PROPOSITIONS ................................................................................................... 120
3.5
SAMPLE SIZE & SATURATION ........................................................................................................... 124
3.5.1
Determining the Sample Size ....................................................................................................... 124
3.5.2
Determining Saturation ................................................................................................................. 126
3.5.3
Follow-up Activities ....................................................................................................................... 127
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3.6
RISKS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY APPROACH ................................................................... 127
3.6.1
Challenges to Generalisation of the Findings ............................................................................... 127
3.6.2
Other Challenges in Quantitative Data Analysis ........................................................................... 128
3.7
THE RESEARCH WORKPLAN ............................................................................................................. 129
CHAPTER 4 CASE ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 131 4.1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 131
4.1.1
Introducing the Firms .................................................................................................................... 131
4.1.2
The Individuals Who Participated ................................................................................................. 132
4.1.3
The Approach Taken to Describe Participants and Attribute Quotations ...................................... 133
4.1.4
The Structure of the Individual Case Analyses ............................................................................. 133
4.2
CONTRASTING THE FIRMS ................................................................................................................ 135
4.2.1
Characteristics of the Firms Studied ............................................................................................. 135
4.2.2
Profiles of the Interview Participants............................................................................................. 136
4.3
CROSS-FIRM ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION BY THEME .................................................................. 137
4.3.1
Strategic Focus............................................................................................................................. 138
4.3.2
The Role of IT ............................................................................................................................... 141
4.3.3
The Usefulness of KM Models ...................................................................................................... 145
4.3.4
Processes for Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge .......................... 148
4.3.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ................................................................................ 153
4.3.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ................................................................................... 155
4.3.7
Intellectual Asset Management .................................................................................................... 160
4.4
ADDITIONAL VALIDATION INTERVIEWS ........................................................................................... 164
4.4.1
Strategic Focus............................................................................................................................. 165
4.4.2
The Role of IT ............................................................................................................................... 167
4.4.3
Knowledge Models and Complexity.............................................................................................. 168
4.4.4
Knowledge Processes .................................................................................................................. 169
4.4.5
The Social and Personal Nature of Knowledge ............................................................................ 170
4.4.6
Intellectual Asset Management .................................................................................................... 171
4.4.7
Other Issues Discussed ................................................................................................................ 171
4.4.8
In Summary .................................................................................................................................. 172
4.5
COMBINING THE FINDINGS FROM ALL SOURCES .......................................................................... 172
4.6
GENERAL DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 175
4.6.1
Considering the Primary Research Questions .............................................................................. 175
4.6.2
Considering the Subsidiary Research Questions ......................................................................... 185
CHAPTER 5 THEORIES, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................... 190 5.1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 190
5.2
RELEVANT HISTORY ........................................................................................................................... 190
5.3
EXAMINATION OF KM AS MANAGEMENT FASHION ....................................................................... 191
5.3.1
KM and Strategy ........................................................................................................................... 193
5.3.2
KM and IT ..................................................................................................................................... 193
5.3.3
KM and Processes ....................................................................................................................... 194
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5.3.4
Use of KM Models ........................................................................................................................ 195
5.3.5
KM and Theories of Complexity Chaos ........................................................................................ 195
5.3.6
Personal and Social Knowledge ................................................................................................... 196
5.3.7
The Role of Intellectual Assets/Capital ......................................................................................... 196
5.4
DOES NEXT GENERATION KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT REALLY EXIST? ................................. 197
5.4.1
What is a “Generation”? ............................................................................................................... 197
5.4.2
Is Generation Support Evident for a Next Generation of KM? ...................................................... 198
5.5
SOME ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS FROM INSTITUTIONAL THEORY .................................................... 203
5.5.1
Rational Choice or Isomorphic Behaviour? .................................................................................. 203
5.5.2
Institutional Adoption, Resistance and Change ............................................................................ 205
5.5.3
The Relevance of Institutional Theory to this Study...................................................................... 206
5.6
THE CHALLENGES FACING AN EMERGING DISCIPLINE ................................................................ 208
5.6.1
What is a Discipline? .................................................................................................................... 208
5.6.2
The KM Challenge ........................................................................................................................ 209
5.6.3
Evaluating KM as a Field/Concept................................................................................................ 211
5.6.4
Perhaps Less is More? ................................................................................................................. 211
5.7
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS .................................................................................................................... 212
CHAPTER 6 REFLECTIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS & LIMITATIONS ................................................................... 213 6.1
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ............................................................................................................ 213
6.1.1
Reflections on the Research Findings .......................................................................................... 213
6.1.2
Implications of the Study Conclusions .......................................................................................... 215
6.2
A RECOMMENDED APPROACH TO DEVELOPING KM STRATEGY ................................................ 216
6.3
THE POTENTIAL USEFULNESS OF MATURITY MODELS AND ALIGNMENT APPROACHES ....... 219
6.4
CHALLENGE FOR THE KM ACADEMIC COMMUNITY ...................................................................... 221
6.5
THE VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, GENERALISABILITY AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH ..... 222
6.5.1
Validity .......................................................................................................................................... 222
6.5.2
Reliability ...................................................................................................................................... 225
6.5.3
Generalisability ............................................................................................................................. 227
6.6
RESEARCH AUDIT TRAIL ................................................................................................................... 228
6.7
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THIS RESEARCH ....................................................................................... 229
6.8
A FINAL PERSONAL REFLECTION .................................................................................................... 230
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 233 APPENDIX A – USING CRAWDAD FOR KM JOURNAL VISUALISATIONS .................................................... 252 APPENDIX B – EXAMPLE CONSENT FORMS .................................................................................................. 254 APPENDIX C – INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................................................. 259 APPENDIX D – STUDY THEMES AND SUPPORTING CODES USED FOR DATA ANALYSIS ....................... 263 APPENDIX E – DETAILED THEME ANALYSIS BY CODE AND SUB-CODE FOR EACH CASE ..................... 266 APPENDIX F – STRATFIRM CASE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................. 272 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM .................................................................................................................... 272
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ................................................................................... 272 2.1
Strategic Focus ................................................................................................................................. 273
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2.2
The Role of IT ................................................................................................................................... 276
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models .......................................................................................................... 278
2.4
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ..................................................................................... 286
2.5
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ........................................................................................ 288
2.6
Intellectual Asset Management ......................................................................................................... 293
APPENDIX G – GENFIRM1 CASE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 298 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM .................................................................................................................... 298
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ................................................................................... 298 2.1
Strategic Focus ................................................................................................................................. 299
2.2
The Role of IT ................................................................................................................................... 301
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models .......................................................................................................... 303
2.4
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ..................................................................................... 309
2.5
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ........................................................................................ 311
2.6
Intellectual Asset Management ......................................................................................................... 314
APPENDIX H – GENFIRM2 CASE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 317 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM .................................................................................................................... 317
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ................................................................................... 317 2.1
Strategic Focus ............................................................................................................................... 317
2.2
The Role of IT .................................................................................................................................. 320
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models ....................................................................................................... 323
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge ............... 324
2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ................................................................................ 328
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ................................................................................... 328
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management ...................................................................................................... 331
APPENDIX I – ITFIRM CASE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................... 335 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM .................................................................................................................... 335
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ................................................................................... 335 2.1
Strategic Focus ................................................................................................................................. 335
2.2
The Role of IT ................................................................................................................................... 338
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models .......................................................................................................... 341
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge ......................... 343
2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ..................................................................................... 348
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ........................................................................................ 349
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management ......................................................................................................... 353
APPENDIX J – LAWFIRM CASE ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 357 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM .................................................................................................................... 357
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ................................................................................... 357 2.1
Strategic Focus ................................................................................................................................. 358
2.2
The Role of IT ................................................................................................................................... 361
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models .......................................................................................................... 365
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge ......................... 367
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2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management ..................................................................................... 370
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge ........................................................................................ 372
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management ......................................................................................................... 376
APPENDIX K – A REVIEW OF CASE STUDIES OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS ................................ 381 1.
THE EARLY STUDIES .......................................................................................................................... 381
2.
MORE RECENT STUDIES .................................................................................................................... 382
3.
KM IN LAW FIRMS................................................................................................................................ 383
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List of Figures Figure 2-1: The S-Curve Concept ......................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 2-2: Categories of Innovation Adoption ...................................................................................................... 21 Figure 2-3: A Successful Innovation Adoption ....................................................................................................... 22 Figure 2-4: The Management Fashion Cycle (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999) ................................................. 24 Figure 2-5: Three Possible Management Fashion Outcomes (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999) ........................ 25 Figure 2-6: Waves of Management Fashion in IS (Baskerville and Myers, 2009) ................................................. 27 Figure 2-7: A Knowledge Management Timeline................................................................................................... 28 Figure 2-8: Bridges to KM 1948-1990 ................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 2-9: The Data/Information/Knowledge/Wisdom Hierarchy (from Ackoff, 1989) .......................................... 31 Figure 2-10: Common Themes in the KM Literature ............................................................................................. 33 Figure 2-11: Total Number of Articles by "Profession" (1990-2000), from Swan & Scarborough, (2002) .............. 46 Figure 2-12: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "Knowledge Management" ................................ 69 Figure 2-13: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "'Intellectual Capital' or 'Intellectual Asset'"........ 70 Figure 2-14: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Organisational Learning' or 'Organizational Learning'" ............................................................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 2-15: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "Communities of Practice" ................................. 72 Figure 2-16: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Knowledge Work' or 'Knowledge Workers'� .............................................................................................................................. 73 Figure 2-17: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Knowledge Models'" .................................................................................................................................................................. 74 Figure 2-18: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Process'� ....... 75 Figure 2-19: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Information Technology' or 'System'" ........................................................................................................................................ 76 Figure 2-20: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Strategy'" ...... 77 Figure 2-21: The Most Influential Words in the Five Highest-Rated Knowledge Management Journals 1992-2010 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 79 Figure 2-22: The Discourse on KM and Consulting ............................................................................................... 99 Figure 3-1: Management Fashion Study Approach ............................................................................................. 104 Figure 3-2: Permeable Barriers Between Research Paradigms, according to Giola & Pitre (1990) .................... 105 Figure 3-3: Four Choices of Case Design (Yin, 2003) ......................................................................................... 116 Figure 3-4: Case Study TImeline ......................................................................................................................... 117 Figure 3-5: The Research Project Workplan ....................................................................................................... 130 Figure 4-1: Example of Support Score Graph ..................................................................................................... 134 Figure 4-2: Strategic Focus Theme Support ....................................................................................................... 140 Figure 4-3: Cross-firm Support for the Strategic Focus Theme ........................................................................... 140 Figure 4-4: Role of IT Theme Support ................................................................................................................. 143 Figure 4-5: Cross-firm Support for the IT Theme................................................................................................. 143 Figure 4-6: Use of KM Models Theme Support ................................................................................................... 147 Figure 4-7: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Models Theme...................................................................... 147 Figure 4-8: KM Processes Theme Support ......................................................................................................... 151 Figure 4-9: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Processes Theme ................................................................ 151 Figure 4-10: Knowledge Complexity Theme Support .......................................................................................... 154 Figure 4-11: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Complexity Theme ............................................................. 154
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Figure 4-12: Personal & Social Knowledge Theme Support ............................................................................... 159 Figure 4-13: Cross-firm Support for the Personal & Social Knowledge Theme ................................................... 159 Figure 4-14: Intellectual Property Theme Support ............................................................................................... 162 Figure 4-15: Cross-firm Support for the Intellectual Property Theme .................................................................. 162 Figure 6-1: A Framework for KM Strategy Development ..................................................................................... 217 Figure 6-2: My Research Audit Trail .................................................................................................................... 228 Figure F-1: STRATFIRM Strategic Focus ........................................................................................................... 275 Figure F-2: STRATFIRM Role of IT ..................................................................................................................... 278 Figure F-3: STRATFIRM: Usefulness of KM ModelsProcesses for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge ................................................................................................................................. 281 Figure F-4: STRATFIRM KM Processes ............................................................................................................. 286 Figure F-5: STRATFIRM Complexity of Knowledge ............................................................................................ 288 Figure F-6: STRATFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge ..................................................................................... 293 Figure F-7: STRATFIRM Intellectual Property ..................................................................................................... 296 Figure G-1: GENFIRM1 Strategic Focus .............................................................................................................. 300 Figure G-2: GENFIRM1 Role of IT ...................................................................................................................... 303 Figure G-3: GENFIRM1 Usefulness of KM Models Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge ............................................................................................................................................... 306 Figure G-4: GENFIRM1 KM Processes ................................................................................................................ 309 Figure G-5: GENFIRM1 Complexity of Knowledge ............................................................................................. 311 Figure G-6: GENFIRM1 Personal & Social Knowledge ....................................................................................... 314 Figure G-7: GENFIRM1 Intellectual Property ...................................................................................................... 315 Figure H-1: GENFIRM2 Strategic Focus ............................................................................................................. 320 Figure H-2: GENFIRM2 Role of IT ...................................................................................................................... 322 Figure H-3: GENFIRM2 Use of KM Models ......................................................................................................... 324 Figure H-4: GENFIRM2 KM Processes ............................................................................................................... 327 Figure H-5: GENFIRM2 Complexity of Knowledge.............................................................................................. 328 Figure H-6: GENFIRM2 Personal & Social Management .................................................................................... 331 Figure H-7: GENFIRM2 Intellectual Property ...................................................................................................... 333 Figure I-1: ITFIRM Strategic Focus ..................................................................................................................... 338 Figure I-2: ITFIRM Role of IT............................................................................................................................... 341 Figure I-3: ITFIRM Usefulness of KM Models ..................................................................................................... 343 Figure I-4: ITFIRM KM Processes ....................................................................................................................... 347 Figure I-5: ITFIRM Complexity of Knowledge ...................................................................................................... 349 Figure I-6: ITFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge ............................................................................................... 353 Figure I-7: ITFIRM Intellectual Property .............................................................................................................. 355 Figure J-1: LAWFIRM Strategic Focus ................................................................................................................ 361 Figure J-2: LAWFIRM Role of IT ......................................................................................................................... 365 Figure J-3: LAWFIRM Usefulness of KM Models ................................................................................................ 367 Figure J-4: LAWFIRM KM Processes.................................................................................................................. 370 Figure J-5: LAWFIRM Complexity of Knowledge ................................................................................................ 372 Figure J-6: LAWFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge .......................................................................................... 376 Figure J-7: LAWFIRM Intellectual Property ......................................................................................................... 379
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List of Tables Table 2-1: Key Themes for Knowledge Management ........................................................................................... 58 Table 2-2: Continued Definition Challenges ........................................................................................................... 61 Table 2-3: Failure to Impact Real World Practices ................................................................................................ 62 Table 2-4: Approaches to KM Strategy ................................................................................................................. 66 Table 2-5: Approaches to KM Governance ........................................................................................................... 66 Table 2-6: The Most Influential Words in Each of the Five Journals ...................................................................... 80 Table 3-1: The Research Themes Investigated in the Study ............................................................................... 115 Table 3-2: The Approach to Interview Design ..................................................................................................... 119 Table 3-3: Recommendations for Sample Size in Purposive Sampling................................................................ 125 Table 3-4: Specific Examples of Purposive Sampling .......................................................................................... 127 Table 4-1: The Participating Firms ....................................................................................................................... 136 Table 4-2: Interview Participants ......................................................................................................................... 137 Table 4-3: Total of Codable Comments by Theme ............................................................................................... 137 Table 4-4: Summary of Study Findings ............................................................................................................... 174 Table 5-1: A Summary of the Discourse and Diffusion of KM Concepts ............................................................. 192 Table 5-2: Determining the Existence of a Next Generation of KM ..................................................................... 202 Table 6-1: Validity, Reliability and Generalisation Considerations ...................................................................... 223 Table F-1: STRATFIRM Code Summary Chart ................................................................................................... 273 Table G-1: GENFIRM1 Code Summary Chart .................................................................................................... 298 Table H-1: GENFIRM2 Code Summary Chart..................................................................................................... 318 Table I-1: ITFIRM Code Summary Chart ............................................................................................................. 336 Table J-1: LAWFIRM Summary Code Chart ....................................................................................................... 358 Table K-1: Case Studies in Consulting Firms ....................................................................................................... 383 Table K-2: Case Studies in Law Firm ................................................................................................................... 385
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Related Research Papers The following refereed research papers and book were produced during the course of this study: Knowledge management systems -- Why so many failures? IEEE Innovations in Information Technology Conference, Dubai, 19-21 Nov. 2006 (with U. Qureshi) Tacit Knowledge Revisited – We Can Still Learn from Polanyi. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol 5, issue 2, May 2007 Developing a Model of Next Generation Knowledge Management. The Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, Vol 5, May 2008 (with C.T. Grant) Knowledge Management, an Enduring Fashion. 7th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China 11-12 November 2010 “Knowledge Management, a Confusing but Enduring Fashion”, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management., Vol. 9, No. 2.,April 2011 Grant, K. (2011) "An Examination of Knowledge Management as a Management Fashion", 8th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning – ICICKM 2011 Grant, K. (Ed.) (2011) “Case Studies in Knowledge Management”, Academic Publishing International, UK The Fashion of Management Fashion, In Preparation
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CHAPTER 1 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: AN INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH Overview This research study develops and tests theory that will help organisations develop better Knowledge Management (KM) strategies. It examines whether the practice of KM has resolved the problems experienced in the early years of its rapid growth in interest and use or whether it should be considered as a transitory management fashion experiencing a decline in interest. This chapter introduces the field, discusses its evolution and explains why determining an appropriate KM strategy is an important and current issue in the field. It describes the methods used to define the problem, carry out the fieldwork and derive the results from the research.
1.1
INTRODUCTION
Consideration of Knowledge Management as a strategic issue is a relatively new phenomenon in business. While philosophers have debated the origin and nature of knowledge for many centuries and economists since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) have recognized its role in competitive advantage, widespread consideration of knowledge as a topic worthy of its own management focus is relatively recent – perhaps some fifteen years. Its increased visibility, as an important topic for both management and academic consideration, often closely linked to innovation, is frequently presented in the context of a new type of economy or society. The concept of the “knowledge economy” is often attributed to Peter Drucker in his book The Age of Discontinuity, where he discusses “the emergence of knowledge as the new capital and as the central resource for the economy”. It is often described as being driven by two forces – a dramatic increase in the knowledge intensity of doing business and the increasing globalization of economic activities (Drucker, 1969).
While “knowledge” has become a frequently discussed business topic, it has proved difficult for executives and managers to determine how best to address this new management challenge. Indeed, business leaders, while expressing a strong interest in understanding how best to address Knowledge Management within their organizations, have raised significant concerns about the effectiveness of their KM interventions to date.
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As Baskerville and Myers (2009) have pointed out, very few management techniques are truly new and innovative. Rather, they are often a re-packaging of known concepts, taking into account new environmental factors and opportunities. Thus, an innovation can lie dormant for a considerable period, possibly following some initial interest. For example, in the KM field, the work of Polanyi on tacit and explicit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958), the use of computers for Artificial Intelligence/Expert Systems, starting in the late 1970s, and concepts of Organisational Learning in the 1980s drawing on the work of Argyris and Schön (1978), March and Olsen (1975) and Levitt & March (1988) received limited recognition until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when, through the work of practitioners such as Sveiby and Risling (1986a), Stewart (1991) and Drucker (1992), the potential role of knowledge in business success was identified.
By the mid to late 1990s Knowledge Management (KM) had become a recognisable field with a fast growth of academic and practitioner publications, the establishment of knowledgefocused functions in many organizations, in a variety of formats, and the implementation of a wide range of IT systems to facilitate the management, creation and use of knowledge. By the early 2000s, this widespread activity, which has been described as “First Generation Knowledge Management” or FGKM (McElroy, 2002), became the subject of a great deal of critical review -- by academics, practitioners, corporate management and in the business press -- and recommendations were made by several established authorities for the development of a new or Next Generation of KM (NGKM) to resolve these criticisms. In recent years, while investment in knowledge-related processes and activities continues and academic interest remains strong, there are still unanswered questions as to the usefulness of much of what is being done, as well as an increasing gap between researchers and practitioners.
1.2
DEFINING THE FIELD
1.2.1 Key Themes in the Evolution of the KM Field Attempts to define knowledge have engaged philosophers and researchers for over two millennia and, as the field of KM has evolved, a variety of new definitions have been proposed with little consensus emerging. However, a useful definition that has received
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some level of support and sets the scene well for this research is Davenport and Prusak (1998, p.5) Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knower. In organizations, it becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms. Similarly, no single widely accepted definition of KM exists. As Smith (2004, p.6) suggests, “Knowledge Management (KM) is a rapidly growing field that crosses diverse disciplines,” from psychology to information systems, and can be “viewed as a conceptually complex broad umbrella of issue and viewpoints”. However, an examination of the literature in the field does suggest five dominant themes, each widely discussed and having a core set of related academic publications: The management and exploitation of "intellectual capital". Social views of knowledge: organisational learning and communities of practice. Knowledge work and knowledge models and processes. The widespread use of IT to capture, codify and share knowledge Strategic and operational management of knowledge activities. As the field has evolved, a number of discipline-specific journals were established. At least 20 such journals have been identified in a scientometric analysis (Serenko and Bontis, 2009). In addition, KM has been a frequent topic in many of the IT-related journals and trade magazines.
1.2.2 KM as a Strategic Issue As the five themes described above were developing in theory and practice, this consideration of knowledge as something to be managed raised strategic questions. This was influenced in part by the emergence of the Resource-Based View for Strategy (Grant, 1991, Spender, 1996a) and the concept of core competencies (Prahaled & Hamel 1990), which led to the application of the term “Knowledge Management” to the field by Wiig (1993, Wiig, 1994, 1995). A new executive-level position was created in many major organisations, that of the Chief Knowledge Officer (Earl and Scott, 1999). The management consulting firm of Bain & Company has surveyed senior executives’ views on management tools and trends
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since 1993 and it has reported continued executive interest in the topic of KM from 1996 to 2010, peaking in 2006, with about 65% reporting its use, and then a sharp decline by 2010 to about 40% (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2011). Over the 14 years since KM entered the top-25 topics, respondents have consistently reported lower satisfaction with the results of KM initiatives, when compared to other management tools used. (For example, in 2009, when KM was ranked as the 14th most important of the 25 management tools reported, it ranked 20th in the levels of satisfaction, well below the satisfaction levels of most other topics.)
A number of alternative approaches for KM strategy have been proposed with quite varied suggestions, with little consensus as to their relative benefits. In classifying approaches to KM strategy, Earl (2001) developed a taxonomy of seven different strategic approaches in three categories (Technocratic strategies -- systems, cartographic and engineering; economic strategies – commercial; and behavioural strategies -- organizational, spatial and strategic) with Haggie and Kingston (2003) observing that “some strategies focus on the knowledge, others on the business processes/areas, and others on the end results.”
1.2.3 Concerns and Criticisms of the Early KM Experiences As discussed earlier, the initial fast growth of the field was followed by a period of critical reflection, from 2001 to 2004. While some successes have been achieved and reported, as Stankosky (2005) states in the Preface to the book Creating the discipline of Knowledge Management, “Many executives and managers don’t even know that KM exists, or that it is the solution to many issues concerning organization efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation”. There are many KM failures to point to, perhaps more failures than successes (Grant and Qureshi, 2006, Chua and Lam, 2005).
Prominent research journals published critical reviews or produced special editions suggesting a need for a critical reassessment in KM research (e.g. MIS Quarterly, March, 2001, September 2002 and June 2005; the Journal of Intellectual Capital, January 2004).
Five sets of broad criticisms have been identified:
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Arguments that KM is not a new field but rather a management fad, created by management consultants and technology vendors, which will pass, as have other fads. (Wilson, 2002, Zemke, 2003, Scarbrough and Swan, 2001, Marren, 2003) Too high expectations of ICT as the way to provide KM capability in organizations, resulting in an over-focus on explicit knowledge. (Binney, 2001, McDermott, 1999, Swan et al., 2000) The development of a wide variety of models and classification systems, mostly conceptual and seldom tested in practice, that appear to be of limited use to practitioners (Styhre, 2003, Schultze and Stabell, 2004, Alvesson and Karreman, 2001, Marr and Chatzkel, 2004) Limited efforts to ensure that the knowledge content is valid and relevant to the context for its proposed use. (McDermott, 2000, Armstrong and Pagell, 2003) Inconsistent and inconclusive links between KM strategic choices and organization performance. (Choi et al., 2008, Merono-Cerdan et al., 2007) In response to these criticisms and to the quite varied perspectives offered as strategic approaches to KM, several of the early authorities in this new field (specifically: McElroy (2002), Snowden (2002a), Sveiby (2001b) and Wiig (2002)) developed a series of recommendations to resolve the problems identified. While each approach is proposed independently, their works show a significant level of consistency in claiming that what has happened in the first decade of KM has produced limited success and that a new approach is needed, involving a “generational shift”. Their new solutions are described variously as “Next”, “New”, “Second“ and “Third “ Generations of KM. However, while these authors have developed theoretical models for this next generation there has been limited debate regarding their proposals and very limited testing of these theories in practice.
The criticisms presented and the proposed solutions raise questions about the evolution of the field of Knowledge Management. There is evidence of significant discourse about Knowledge Management and the application of KM in practice, but with quite varied results. One useful way to consider this at the strategic level is to examine the evolution of KM through the lens of management fads and fashions.
1.3
MANAGEMENT FADS AND FASHIONS
The criticisms discussed above demonstrate significant concern regarding the development and usefulness of Knowledge Management in a strategic context. One way of examining
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such questions is to consider approaches to innovation diffusion. Abrahamson (1991), drawing on the work of Rogers (2003) and diMaggio and Powell (1983), proposes the examination of longitudinal changes in diffusion rates of new ideas. In questioning the commonly held management view that “innovation” is a good and necessary activity, he suggests that researchers should take a more skeptical view, especially about the “big ideas” that form the subject of much management attention. Often labeled as “fads” or “fashions”, some innovations diffuse widely and are adopated as part of normal management practice, while others fade and disappear. Suggesting that “a management fashion is a relatively transitory collective belief, disseminated by management fashion setters,” (Abrahamson, 1996) he proposes a four stage model of creation, selection, processing and dissemination, resulting in either a bell curve or s-curve of adoption.
In discussing management fashion supply and demand, Abrahamson (1996) identifies “a variety of organizations and individuals (who) populate a management-setting community: management consultants, business schools and business press organizations, as well as academic gurus, consultant gurus and hero managers.” These fashion setters sense incipient demand for a particular innovation and focus this demand in ways that are attractive for fashion followers (i.e. business managers). Arguing that, "the study of management fashion is a very serious matter indeed, strongly deserving of careful enquiry by management scholars," he recommends examining the rhetoric underlying the creation and dissemination of management fashions. This is done by studying two parallel life cycles for any given management fashion -- the discourse life cycle (in academe and in business) and the diffusion life cycle -- recognising that the level of discourse may differ significantly from the actual adoption or rejection of that fashion (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999).
A recent examination of the life cycle of the body of literature in Knowledge Management/Intellectual Capital from 1994 to 2008 (Serenko et al., 2010) describes a very significant shift in authorship. In the early years of KM, non-academics constituted one-third of all authors. However, “by 2008, practitioners’ contributions dropped to only ten percent of all KM/IC authors. Pragmatic field studies and experiments, which require an active cooperation of businesses and the involvement of practitioners, constitute only 0.33 percent
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of all inquiry methods. There has also been a decline in case studies.” (p15) In addition, as “the number of research-oriented practitioners has been declining, so has the number of nonacademic readers.” The authors suggest that this move away from practice to theory creates a communication gap between researchers and practitioners that makes it difficult for KM/IC scholarly research to be “transformed into practical managerial approaches and organizational practices”.
1.4
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.4.1 The Current Situation The discussion in the preceding sections has highlighted several issues that contribute to the development of the research problem. Perspectives on KM vary considerably, both in business use and in academic examination. While KM appears to be a subject of widespread interest and an area of significant investment, the results of Knowledge Management initiatives, both at the strategic and the project level, are quite varied. Initial examinations of the discourse life cycle of KM indicate some significant differences between the discourses of researchers and practitioners as well as an increasing gap between theory and practice. A number of significant criticisms have been raised regarding what has been described as the First Generation of KM, with a Next Generation being proposed, and there is limited evidence that these criticisms have been resolved, especially at the strategic level. At the strategic level, while executives continue to see KM as a potentially useful management tool, they are receiving limited guidance as to appropriate strategic approaches. Applying Carson et al.’s (1999) stages of management fashion, we can observe a period of innovation from 1988 to 1995, a period of quite widespread acceptance from 1995 to about 2002, and a period of disenchantment (or at least critical reflection) from about 2001-2005. What is not yet clear is which of Abrahamson’s (1996) outcomes might result (fad, reinvention or enduring use).
1.4.2 The Research Objectives and Approach When examining KM through the lens of management fashion theory, the field seems to be at a potential turning point. Seen as a strategic initiative, KM has shown both promise and
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disappointment. Executives still need guidance on whether this is an area to be pursued or abandoned and, if it is to be pursued, guidance on what approaches should be adopted.
The bibliographic review described earlier (Serenko et al., 2010) highlights an increasing gap between researchers and practitioners in KM and a move away from action research and field studies to more rigorous research techniques. This is of particular concern at a time when executives are looking for guidance in how best to use this new management tool. This concern is reflective of a wider debate that has been taking place in business research over the last 15 years -- the contrast between Mode 1 and Mode 2 research, as described in the seminal work of Gibbons et al. (1994, p.3) where “Mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context governed by the largely academic interests of a specific community,” whereas Mode 2 research “is carried out in the context of application.” Mode 1 research “is what we traditionally conceive of as the scientific approach to knowledge creation” while Mode 2 research “is less concerned with discipline base… and is crucially concerned with knowledge as it works in practice in the context of application” (Starkey and Madan, 2001, p.S5). Starkey and Madan emphasise the need to “close the relevance gap” -- to make the outcomes of research both relevant to and accessible by management. This is of particular concern in an applied field like KM. The research presented in this dissertation sets out to do this in the field of KM strategy.
The primary objective of this research is to determine whether KM is a fad approaching the end of its useful life, an enduring management fashion, or whether it is experiencing multiple cycles of reinvention as organisations adapt through experience and from exposure to new concepts. The most complex of these three options is that of re-invention, and that is the claim made by the proponents of Next Generation Knowledge Management.
A management fashion examination of the field requires both a bibliometric discourse life cycle analysis and a diffusion life cycle analysis. The bibliometric discourse life cycle analysis can be carried out through a combination of literature review and bibliographic analysis, while the diffusion life cycle analysis requires in-depth fieldwork to determine the degree to which various KM theories are applied in practice.
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1.4.3 Choosing the Subjects for Field Research Mode 2 research calls for close interaction with the research subject, often through action research or case study. Since, in such research, the selection of subjects is not necessarily expected to provide a statistical sample, subjects or cases might best be chosen for relevance to the research topic and accessibility for data collection.
Knowledge-intensive firms, which depend on the creation of new knowledge and the effective mobilization and distribution of the special knowledge they have within the organisation for their very existence, are fertile areas for the study of knowledge-related practices. Since they are organisations whose existence depends on the effective deployment of knowledge assets, they can provide insights useful to a wider population of organizations (Rylander and Peppard, 2005). For this research, one specific class of knowledge-intensive organisation -- professional service firms -- stands out as particularly interesting since they are both management fashion setters and management fashion users.
1.5
THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.5.1 The Research Methodology The body of this dissertation, following a review of the theory of management fads and fashions, presents a discourse life cycle analysis carried out through a combination of literature review and bibliographic analysis, both in general and in the special case of the knowledge-intensive organisation -- which then leads to the development of a final set of research questions and a framework to analyse the diffusion life cycle within the target cases.
The study approach has its roots in both the Functionalist and Interpretivist paradigms (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) and takes the form of a multiple case study used to both test theory and determine actual practice in the field, drawing on the work of Benbasat, Goldstein et al. (1987), Yin (2003) and Flyvbjerg (2006). It examines Knowledge Management practices in five major professional services firms -- a strategy consulting firm, two general consulting/ accounting firms, one information technology consulting firm and a law firm. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with professionals and support staff at all levels in each organization, along with examination of available documentation and the
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technologies used. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Computer-assisted and manual methods were then used to analyse and synthesise the data collected, using a coding scheme developed from the literature review.
1.5.2 The Research Questions The formulation of the research questions was driven by the consideration of the KM literature within the context of the theory of management fads and fashions. The rapid growth in popularity, the criticisms of the FGKM and the proposed NGKM follow the management fashion model. This research study investigates the discourse life cycle in some detail and tests whether a corresponding diffusion life cycle exists.
Therefore, the primary research questions addressed are: To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that Knowledge Management is a sustainable business innovation and not a management fashion? To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that a “next� generation of Knowledge Management is in place or is being implemented? This is examined through seven study propositions or Themes developed in the literature review and the degree of diffusion for each of these Themes is determined through the fieldwork.
In addition, the following subsidiary questions will also be considered. To what degree do PSFs demonstrate an explicit or implicit recognition of the role of knowledge in their businesses and how is this incorporated in their business strategies and cultures? How do professionals and other staff in PSFs talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management? Is there a consistent or coherent discourse about knowledge in PSFs and does this discourse correspond to that taking place more generally in the KM field? Are there differences in the Knowledge Management Strategies in place in different types of PSF?
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Does Management Fashion Theory provide a suitable framework to examine KM diffusion in PSFs? Thus, the primary research emphasis is the investigation of the management fashion of KM, carried out through examination in the field of its seven key Themes developed in the bibliographic literature review.
1.5.3 The Target Firms and the Interview Analysis Five professional services firms participated in the study, with interviews taking place between 2006 and 2009: STRATFIRM: One of the world’s leading global management consultant firms, with a strong focus on strategic and other high-end services. It has several thousand employees worldwide. GENFIRM1: A very large and global professional service firm, providing audit, tax and management advisory services. It has more than 100,000 employees worldwide. GENFIRM2: A second large global professional service firm, providing audit, tax and management advisory services. It also has more than 100,000 employees worldwide. ITFIRM: A global information technology professional service firm, providing services in outsourcing, systems integration and consulting. It has nearly 30,000 employees worldwide. LAWFIRM: A large Canadian-based diversified law firm, operating across Canada, with some international links. It has almost 1,000 professionals worldwide, with most located within Canada. A total of 34 professionals across the five firms were interviewed. In addition, evidence was also collected from internal documentation and physical inspection of KM portals and systems. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using a set of thematic codes developed to investigate the seven propositions. Some 2,685 codable comments were identified and analysed.
The results of this analysis were used along with the bibliographic analysis of the literature, to determine the degree of diffusion of KM innovation and hence, which of the three management fashion outcomes most closely corresponds to the situation within the firms studied.
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To further validate the case study findings, two additional activities were carried out. The findings from each of the Themes studied are compared to the reported findings in some 23 other case studies of Knowledge Management in professional services firms and eight industry leaders were interviewed in 2012 to provide a current senior perspective on the study findings.
1.6
THE IMPORTANCE AND RELEVANCE OF THIS RESEARCH
This research addresses questions that are relevant and persistent in KM research. Despite some 15 years of theory and practice, current literature demonstrates a wide range of views as to appropriate strategic choices and executives continue to express concern about the results to date.
The effective use of knowledge, often seen in the context of innovation, continues to be presented as a key to success in the 21st Century, particularly for businesses located in the high-cost developed economies. Knowledge Management is one of the management tools proposed to meet this challenge, but it is not clear that it is, in fact, the best way to do so. The study findings will help determine whether KM is of strategic value to organisations and, if so, to propose appropriate strategic approaches.
The application of management fashion theory, a frequently-used technique to examine management innovation, is an important contribution to the KM field. The examination of discourse and diffusion life cycles provides a new perspective and also allows a comparison of KM to other management fashions that have been studied over the last 20 years. Thus, it also provides a contribution to management fashion theory, providing guidance in the evaluation of future management fashions.
The study findings will provide useful guidance to practitioners, particularly those in professional services firms. They can help firms formulate strategies for Knowledge Management and provide guidance to those responsible for providing specialist Knowledge Management functions within the firms.
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The findings should also prove useful to researchers and educators in the KM field. The study identifies the degree to which a number of widely discussed KM innovations have been adopted by major knowledge-intensive firms and also discusses challenges in making KM research relevant and useful to practitioners. It also identifies challenges to be met in ensuring that appropriately skilled KM practitioners are available to the workplace.
1.7
A GUIDE TO THE REMAINDER OF THIS THESIS
Chapter 2 provides a critical review of the literature in the fields of management fashion and KM and develops seven key KM Themes to be tested in the fieldwork. Given the generational perspective of this work, it opens with a discussion of the fads and fashions literature and develops a framework with which to examine the discourse life cycle of KM. It then uses this framework to examine the evolution of thinking about knowledge over the last 20 years and presents bibliometric data to support this analysis. It concludes by discussing the role of knowledge in knowledge-intensive organisations and, more specifically, professional services firms.
Chapter 3 describes the research methodology followed and explains the use of the case study methodology chosen for the fieldwork. The methods used to collect and analyse the study data are described, including coding techniques, methods of data synthesis used, criteria used to interpret the study findings, and discussion of the risks and limitations of the study approach.
Chapter 4 introduces the five case study firms and presents the results of the cross-case data analysis, demonstrating the level of support identified for each of the seven study Themes, comparing the results of the bibliographic discourse timeline analysis developed in Chapter 2 with the diffusion analysis developed for each case.
The individual case analyses are present in Appendices to demonstrate the level of support found within each firm for the seven propositions or Themes developed in the literature review.
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Chapter 5 presents the study conclusions, integrates the findings from the fieldwork with the discourse analysis presented in Chapter 2 and discusses the implications.
Finally, in Chapter 6, recommendations are developed for future work by practitioners and researchers, along with a discussion of the level of generalisability possible from this research, as well as identification of limitations to the research and potential additional research activities. It concludes with a personal reflection.
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CHAPTER 2 THE CONTRIBUTION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TO BUSINESS SUCCESS Overview This Chapter examines the evolution of the discipline of Knowledge Management through the lens of Management Fashion Theory. Management Fashion Theory is an extension of Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion of Innovations, that takes a sceptical view of business innovations, viewing the discourse about and the diffusion of innovations as a cultural phenomenon rather than a rational decision making process. After a brief introduction to the field of Knowledge Management (KM), a review of the theories of Diffusion of Innovations and Management Fashion is presented, along with a description of the methodology used to apply Management Fashion Theory to the discourse on KM. Links between Management Fashion Theory and Institutional Theory are discussed. The analysis of the written discourse on KM is presented in four stages: First a significant period of “latency” is discussed, during which foundational ideas and precursors to Knowledge Management appear; Then, a rapid growth period is described during which KM becomes an innovation of interest to many major organizations; Next, a critical review and reflection period is identified, where some of the initial experiences are questioned and new directions proposed, including a proposed “Next Generation” of KM; Finally, the current situation is described, including a potential conflict between the interests of practitioners and researchers. This analysis includes a comprehensive bibliometric review of KM publications from 1990 to 2010. From this analysis, a set of Primary and Secondary Research Questions are developed. Professional Services Firms (PSFs) are introduced as a unique and useful environment in which to study the degree to which KM is a management fashion. Consultants, in particular, are seen as significant fashion setters, and supporters of innovation for their clients. However, in this case and unlike other innovations promoted by consultants, where the innovation is something to be implemented at the client, the use of knowledge is fundamental to the consultants’ own business model. The Chapter concludes with an introduction to the proposed research programme, in which the actual diffusion of KM practices in the field is investigated and compared to the views identified in the literature analysis, in order to provide strategic guidance for the future use of KM.
2.1
THE EMERGENCE OF A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND CLAIMS FOR THE NEED FOR MANAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE
It is frequently suggested that a major economic transition, starting in the late 1960s, has taken place, a shift from an industrial economy to a “knowledge economy”. As Peter Drucker, one of the key proponents of such a change, suggested, “... the center of gravity of the work force is shifting from the manual worker to the knowledge worker” (Drucker, 1973, p.44). According to this view, the traditional factors of production -- capital, land and labour
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-- have been extended to include a fourth factor -- knowledge -- and this new factor is claimed to be the most important one.
In this new knowledge-based world many of the traditional strategies to gain market success have been challenged with what may be a realization of the Schumpeterian view of "creative destruction" (Schumpeter, 1934), causing dramatic changes in how organizations need to organize and manage to survive. Evolving, additional, or parallel economies have also been described, such as the "service,� "global" and "digital" economies. (Aldridge, 1999)
With this recognition of the importance of the contribution of knowledge to the economy came a growing belief that this “knowledge asset� needed to be managed just like the other more established assets (capital, land and labour) and the field of Knowledge Management emerged into significant visibility by the mid-1990s. This increased interest happened at a time that the business environment was being challenged by other significant factors. Business had become increasingly global, with the widespread transfer of business processes to lower cost outsourcing suppliers. The explosive growth and increased availability of the Internet and of mobile communications had created a world where not only is information available on a vast range of topics, but new social cultures and networks are emerging, which bypass established methods of creating and sharing knowledge, along with new modes of social interaction.
Attempts to define knowledge have engaged philosophers and researchers for over two millennia, and an in-depth review of the epistemology and the evolution of thought around the concept of knowledge is beyond the scope of this thesis. Reviews of the concept often identify an evolution of thought from the early arguments of Plato and Aristotle, to the contrasting views of the rationalists (such as Descarte, Kant, and Hagel) versus the empiricists (such as Hume, Lock and Mills) in the 17th to 19th-century, and finally, to 20th century views (such as Wittgenstein, Feyerabend and Foucault).
As Scarbrough & Burrell (1996, p.178) comment:
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Knowledge is a slippery and elusive concept, and every discipline has its own secret realization of it. Problems of interpretation haunt every attempt to use the concept effectively, such that even basic typologies that talk about say, formal versus tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1967) actually can be quite meaningless in certain contexts. A common approach in KM-related papers is to open with a statement of the growing importance of knowledge in the competitive or global environment. Some authors then go straight on to discuss KM, without any further consideration of the meaning of the term knowledge. Others introduce a definition of knowledge, often building the paper’s arguments from that definition. Such definitions are quite varied and often uni-dimensional. For example, typical approaches include: Definitions based on philosophic or scientific concepts, considering propositional knowledge (BonJour, 1985), such knowledge is “justified true belief” (Hunt, 2003) Economic definitions usually describing knowledge assets (Sveiby, 2001a) Social and personal definitions, often related to elements of knowing, learning or sharing (Polanyi, 1958, Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001, Wenger et al., 2002) , sometimes describing sense-making activities (Weick, 1995) Business activity definitions, describing knowledge as the output of processes (Ruggles, 1998, McElroy, 2002) or something to be collected and stored, often using IT tools (Tiwana, 2002, Malhotra, 2003) Others attempt more comprehensive definitions, including Spender’s three types of Knowledge: knowledge as data; knowledge as meaning; knowledge as practice (Spender, 2005). One widely quoted definition that is a good foundation for this thesis is this from Davenport and Prusak (1998, p.5) Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knower. In organizations, it becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms. In this world of rapid change, Knowledge Management (KM) has been expected by many to play a strategic role, however, within the KM literature, there is no clear direction on how to determine what that role should be. Indeed, over the last decade, some critics have suggested that KM is not really a new strategic opportunity and is little more than a management fad, sometimes described as “old wine in new bottles” (Spell, 2001, p.358). One
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significant example of this lack of any clear or common direction for KM is that, despite almost 20 years of discussion, little consistency has emerged on a basic definition for the term (Sims, 2008).
KM can be seen as one of the latest of a series of innovations proposed to management as a solution to strategic challenges. To be seen as “successful,” managers must be seen to innovate -- and to be continually in a search for ways to improve their business. They identify gaps and performance opportunities to gain advantage. In identifying and implementing these innovations, managers look to a variety of sources for inspiration and help, to the business press, to academics and, perhaps most frequently, to their professional advisers, often management consultants.
2.2
A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The first decade of KM has been succinctly summarised by J-C Spender (2005, p127), who observed that: The most obvious news is that Knowledge Management (KM) has become big business, growing explosively since Drucker drew attention to it in 1988 (Drucker, 1988). We now see KM conferences all over the world, a huge number of KM trade journals, and battalions of KM consultants. The majority of organizations, both private and public, have KM projects of various types and their spending is enormous… There has been a parallel growth of academic discussion about knowledge. He then goes on to say, “As KM has risen in importance and managerial fashionability the hype and confusion has multiplied, leading some to argue that KM is a fad of little long-term significance.” (ibid, p.127)
In discussing the need for relevance in management research and management practice, Worrall (2008, p.2), examines business knowledge, commenting that “In the recent past, there has been a growing appreciation in the business strategy literature, typified by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), that knowledge is an essential, non-imitable element of a firm’s competitive strategy” and that “there has been insufficient analysis of the nature of professional or practical knowledge which is often experience-based, tacit, difficult to articulate explicitly”. He is concerned that “there is ample evidence to suggest that the management research has had, and continues to have, little effect or impact on management
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practice” (ibid, p.2). Further, he suggests that management fads often have a greater ability to capture management attention than does more traditional management research. Indeed he claims that the articulation of these fads becomes “a form of plausible sophistry that is too easily ingested by a cadre of managers who lack the critical skills effectively to evaluate either the validity of the claims that the research makes or the potential organizational damage that populist material of this type can bring about.” Indeed, “management fads, scorned by academics seem to have much more impact on management actions than the output of mainstream academic researchers.” (ibid, p.3)
Knowledge Management is a highly appropriate subject in which to examine these issues further. Despite appearing to be a topic of major management focus for more than 15 years, there are still significant concerns about its usefulness. Perspectives on what KM is seem even more varied today that at any time in its evolution. As an example, Sims has collected 53 distinct definitions of KM, with 54 distinct attributes, commenting, “These are substantially different. There are only five attributes that are seen in 30% or more of the definitions: KM is a process (55%), it is targeted at the organization (company) (68%), it deals with knowledge (34%), sharing is part of the story (30%), and the definition includes a ‘why’ (40%)” (Sims, 2008). Most of these definitions have either a management or a process focus (Bounds, 2008), with about 20% mentioning Intellectual Capital or Assets.
A recent effort to define KM by Snowden pulls together most of these themes quite well: The purpose of Knowledge Management is to provide support for improved decision making and innovation throughout the organization. This is achieved through the effective management of human intuition and experience augmented by the provision of information, processes and technology together with training and mentoring programmes. (Snowden, 2009, p.2) Some evidence also exists of an increasing separation between researchers and practitioners and continuing debate as to the longevity of KM as a management practice (Serenko et al., 2010). Limited informed guidance is available to help organisations develop appropriate strategies for KM.
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By applying a management fashion perspective to the field of KM, insight can be obtained to provide strategic advice to management as well as guidance on future research. In addition, the examination of Knowledge Management practices within professional services firms can provide a new insight into the application of management fashion theory that has not been demonstrated to date in other studies in the field.
2.3
EXAMINING THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS
The effective use of knowledge is often claimed to be key to competitive success in the global economy of the 21st century. Not only is the effective management of knowledge argued to be a critical element of the innovations needed to be successful, KM is, of itself, a major "innovation”. Thus, before embarking on a more detailed review of the literature related to KM, the nature of management innovation and how innovations are adopted (or rejected) by organizations is examined.
2.3.1 The Theory of Diffusion of Innovations One approach frequently used to examine management decisions to adopt new innovations is the Theory of Diffusion of Innovations, initially developed by Rogers in the 1960s (Rogers, 2003) drawing on widespread studies of promotion and adoption of agricultural innovations. For Rogers (p.12), “an innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption” and “diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system”. The participant in the innovation decision can be an individual or an organization. Diffusion can be planned or spontaneous and successful diffusion of an innovation depends on four factors: The Innovation Itself: Considering the relative advantage of the innovation compared to previous practices; its compatibility with existing values and practices; its relative simplicity or complexity; the degree to which it can be piloted on a limited basis; and the visibility of results. The Communications Process: The channels and agents through which participants gain knowledge of the innovation. Adoption Timing: Including both the time taken for the participant to become aware of and adopt an innovation, as well as the readiness of the participant to adopt innovations. The Social System within which the participant is considering the innovation.
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While the theory has been used to examine a wide range of community settings (Robinson, 2009), it has particular applicability within the business environment. Three concepts introduced by Rogers have become widely adopted within business practice and academic research and are of relevance to this research study.
The first is the use of the S-Curve to examine rates of adoption of an innovation. Figure 2-1 illustrates the general concept. The horizontal axis is normally time (although in some uses it may be investment) and the vertical access is a measure of success (levels of adoption, usability of product, market share, etc).
Level of Adoption (or market share or functionality)
Time (or Investment) Figure 2-1: The S-Curve Concept
The second concept is the development of a taxonomy for adopters of innovations. As shown in Figure 2-2, Rogers suggests five categories of adopters.
Figure 2-2: Categories of Innovation Adoption
Of particular importance to the adoption rate is the role of “opinion leaders” – who can be within the community, recognized by their “technical competence, social accessibility, and
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conformity to the system’s norms” or they can be external change agents, professionals recognized by their professional training, social status and propensity towards change. Combining the two produces a picture of the adoption of a successful innovation over time, as shown in Figure 2-3, showing how adoption levels or market share reach saturation by the time the laggards adopt the innovation.
Figure 2-3: A Successful Innovation Adoption
The third concept is the recognition that all innovations are not successful (or at least not successful in their first incarnation). Despite the work of the opinion leaders and change agents, some innovations do not become widely adopted. The underlying assumption is that the innovation does not have sufficient attractiveness to the participants to supplant current behaviour. In this case after a period of innovation and early adoption, adoption rates plateau or decline. In some cases, the innovation goes through modification (reinvention) and a new innovation cycle begins.
While the Theory of Diffusion of Innovations has seen widespread acceptance as a descriptive theory, it has some significant weaknesses. The first is that most approaches to innovation diffusion have “inherent sources of bias, all favoring the innovation,” often driven by “management consultants who advocate faster and faster change cycles and greater responsiveness to competitive conditions” (Wilson et al., 1999, pp27-28). Another weakness is an underlying assumption that the fact of widespread diffusion and adoption is a demonstration that the innovation is good and valuable. Innovation diffusion theory assumes that the success or failure of an innovation is based on a set of rational factors that can be identified, however there are many cases where dysfunctional innovations have been
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widely adopted and beneficial innovations rejected. This has led to the emergence of a more sceptical view of the innovation process, frequently described as management fads and fashions (Abrahamson, 1991).
2.3.2 Examining Innovation Diffusion as Management Fashion Abrahamson (1991) argues that the management innovation-diffusion literature is dominated by a perspective that assumes that rational adopters make independent and technically efficient choices and that, frequently, this is not the case. He goes on to propose that the diffusion of “innovative administrative technologies” (prescriptions for designing organizational structures and cultures) can be described as management fads or fashions.
He supports this argument by suggesting that the efficient-choice perspective assumes an environment in which there is little uncertainty about either the organisation’s goals or the environment in which it operates and that there is a clearly demonstrated benefit from adopting the innovation. However, adoption decisions are more often made in “conditions of uncertainty concerning environmental forces, goals, and technical efficiency”. In such cases, the fashion perspective , drawing on DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) early work in Institutional Theory, suggests that organizations will frequently imitate administrative models promoted by “fashion setting organizations”. This gives them “legitimacy”, “often considered to be the core concept in institutional theory”(Mignerat and Rivard, 2009, p.370)
Thus, management fashion is “largely a cultural phenomenon, shaped by norms of rationality” (i.e. sets of behaviours that are believed to be rational by a particular stakeholder group) and expectations of progress (i.e. management must be seen to be always looking for improvement) (Abrahamson, 1996). This continuing user demand for new management fashions is met by a supply of new ideas promoted by management fashion setters. These fashion setters may “invent, rediscover or reinvent the management technique they attempt to launch into fashion”. Sometimes, while the management technique may be seen as new or improved, in reality it may be a popularization of ideas previously promoted but not widely diffused. This has been described as an “old wine in new bottles” phenomenon (Kimberly, 1981, Spell, 2001).
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The underlying expectation is that, over time, the use of a specific management fashion will eventually decline and new fashions must emerge to meet the demand for innovative ideas. Specific versions of the fashion S-curve have been developed to show this expectation that a management fashion is typically characterised by a long latency phase followed by a wavelike, often asymmetrical and ephemeral popularity curve (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999), as shown in Figure 2-4. Following an (often extended) period of latency, where initial concepts are formulated but do not receive widespread attention, some trigger (this can be exogenous or endogenous to the field) drives a period of rapid growth in popularity, followed by a period of widespread use and then a period of decline. During this period of decline the management fashion may be subject to a re-examination and redefinition that may then act as a trigger for a new a wave of popularity.
Mignerat and Rivard (2009) suggest a very similar curve for the institutionalisation process, with three stages to the popularity surge (innovation, theorisation and diffusion) and describing the period of popularity as institutionalisation, possibly followed by a deinstitutionalisation period.
Figure 2-4: The Management Fashion Cycle (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999)
Some fashions can achieve widespread adoption and continued use for a considerable period of time, thus becoming an “enduring fashion� (they become institutionalised). Others will decline quite quickly and these are considered to be "fads". Finally, in a given subject area during a period of decline, a redefinition can take place and multiple cycles or generations of
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innovation are visible where, as one proposed approach declines, fashion setters introduce a new and improved innovation. Figure 2-5 illustrates the three possible outcomes. FAD
ENDURING FASHION
REINVENTION
Time Figure 2-5: Three Possible Management Fashion Outcomes (Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999)
Of particular importance in the supply of management fashion is the role of the "management guru.” Huczynski (1993) describes three kinds of management guru: The Academic guru: An academic from a major educational institution, who has developed and popularized his or her ideas on some aspect of management. Examples include Michael Porter, Henry Mintzberg and Kenneth Blanchard. The Consultant guru: Senior professionals and prestigious firms who have established a reputation for creative insight and extensive experience in particular fields. Examples include Peters and Waterman, W Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker and the consulting firms of McKinsey and BCG. The Hero-Manager guru: A senior executive who has committed their thoughts to print, either directly or through a biographer, and whose authority comes from apparent success. Examples include Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch and Donald Trump. The output of these various gurus tends to have three key characteristics: They have a vision or philosophy of relevance to their target audience; they demonstrate some form of active research in the topic; and, their solutions tend to be aggressive or “over the top”, often requiring dramatic action for implementation. Frequently, the fashion is defined using “buzzwords” or slogans. While words such as guru, buzzword or fashion might be considered to denote something of little importance, proponents of management fashion argue that this work should be taken very seriously. Specifically, Collins (2000), in his critical examination of management fads and buzzwords, argues that the work of gurus constitutes a “ready-made science of management” that, given its influence on business decisions, must be exposed to critical review. Carson et al. comment that:
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…clearly there are some negative connotations associated with the word. Many fashion setters, such as consultants, would object to the label "fad" being associated with their intervention. Further, it is likely that at some point an intervention becomes so ingrained and established, and the market becomes so saturated, that the intervention deserves to be identified by a term which implies more permanence and realized potential than "fad" does (Carson et al., 1999, p323). They suggest a three-stage evolution from “fad” to “trend” to being adopted as “collective wisdom”.
Abrahamson differentiates between fashions and fads , suggesting that “the fashion perspective assumes that organizations in a group imitate other organizations, such as management consulting firms, that reside outside that group, while “’the fad perspective differs, however, because it assumes that the diffusion of innovations occurs when organizations within a group imitate other organizations within that group”. Others seem to use the terms interchangeably and collectively with no differentiation between the two terms. For the purpose of this study the term “fad” will be used to describe a management innovation that has only short term impact with an “enduring fashion” indicating an innovation that has seen a significant level of adoption over a longer time and, perhaps, has been accepted as a standard activity requiring little or no explicit recognition.
Between 1996 and 2011, at least 23 studies of management fashion have been carried out, examining 32 different management topics, with several topics being studied multiple times. These are summarised in Grant (2012). As a recent example of such studies, Baskerville & Myers (2009) examined information systems research and practice, looking at the publication interest in re-engineering, office automation, the use of CASE tools and eCommerce. Their results can be seen in Figure 2-6, which plots levels of interest over time. The most notable finding is that all four topics exhibit the rapid growth and decline cycle predicted for management fashions. They commented that: One of the most notable findings of our analysis is how quickly topics in both the IS researcher and practitioner literature rise to prominence. As a general rule, the upswings of the IS fashion waves are rapid, and occur within the space of between three to five years. Of the four topics we studied, three of them peaked within five years. (p 658)
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In the managemenent fashion studies reviewed by Grant, of the the 32 topics surveyed, 26 had peaks of interest of less than five years, with only six demonstrating enduring interest.
Figure 2-6: Waves of Management Fashion in IS (Baskerville and Myers, 2009)
2.3.3 A Technique to Study Management Fashion Abrahamson & Fairchild (1999) distinguish between the discourse about a fashion and the actual use of the fashion and recommend that management fashions can be studied by examining two parallel life cycles – the evolution of the discourse surrounding the innovation and the degree to which the innovation is actually adopted for continued use -its diffusion. This recognition that there are two dimensions to the popularisation of management innovations is a useful addition to the examination of institutional change.
Discourse life-cycle analysis1 is an approach used to examine the volume and nature of discourse about a particular fashion over time. This can be done by bibliographic and content analysis, sometimes separating the various modes of discourse -- mass media,
1
Abrahamson’s use of the term “Discourse Analysis” can be confusing. In academic research, Discourse Analysis is often viewed as a post modernist technique, intended to provide a critical perspective on social situations, and often drawing on the work of Derrida and Foucault. Abrahamson's concept, especially as it has been applied in subsequent research, focuses on bibliometric analysis and currents of the occurrence of specific terms. Therefore, in the remainder of this thesis, it will be described as “Bibliometric Discourse Analysis”.
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Internet, trade/business press, academic press (journals and dissertations). Figure 2-6 is an example of such analysis.
Diffusion life-cycle analysis is an approach used to determine the degree to which an innovation is actually adopted by organizations (fashion followers) and the level of use over time. Depending on the nature of the innovation, this can be done through surveys, case studies or analysis of secondary data, such as growth/decline in the businesses of service or product suppliers and specific market sales data. Of the 23 management fashion studies reviewed for this research, all examine bibliometric discourse, however only five examine the diffusion, usually by referencing secondary data. This is a significant weakness and concern in the actual application of Abrahamson’s theory in field work.
2.4
A TIMELINE FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
As Karl Wiig (1999) has suggested: The business direction we call Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged over the last decades as a result of many intellectual, societal and business forces. Some of its roots extend back for millennia, both in the West and the East, while others, particularly those associated with Cognitive and Information sciences, are quite recent.(Wiig, 2000, p3) The review of the literature on knowledge and Knowledge Management that follows in the next sections of this chapter suggests that, while investigation of the nature of “knowledge” has been the focus of attention of philosophers and scientists for more than two millennia, consideration of knowledge as something to be managed explicitly is much more recent and has taken some diverse forms. As shown in Figure 2-7, KM can be considered to have had a long latency period of some 50 years, during which a number of key concepts were developed (Nonaka and Nishinguchi, 2001).
Figure 2-7: A Knowledge Management Timeline
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This preceded a rapidly growing wave of strong interest in both discourse and diffusion in the late 1990s, followed by a period of reflective criticism and arguments for a reinvention of the field. Finally evidence is presented of a division in KM discourse between researchers and practitioners and of continued concerns about its relevance and usefulness.
2.5
THE LATENCY PERIOD FROM 1948-1994: THEORETICAL & PRACTICAL BRIDGES TO THE EMERGENCE OF KNOWLEDGE AS A MANAGEMENT TOPIC
During a significant period of latency, from about 1950 to the beginning of the 1990s, a number of key concepts emerged that would later play a significant part in the development of thinking around KM. Some refer explicitly to knowledge, others do so more indirectly. The key concepts are illustrated in Figure 2-8.
Figure 2-8: Bridges to KM 1948-1990
2.5.1
“Personal Knowledge”
A review of the links between the prior discussion on the evolution of thinking about knowledge and the early beginnings of what became to be considered as Knowledge Management identifies the importance of the work of Michael Polanyi. (Grant and Grant, 2008). Polanyi’s theory of “Personal Knowledge” (presented in his book Personal Knowledge (Polanyi, 1958), based on the belief that all knowledge is to some degree tacit, sets the foundation for much of the later theoretical work done in the KM field. In many ways, Polanyi can be seen as a bridge between prior (more philosophical) works on
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knowledge and research theory and the beginnings of an approach to the explicit role and use of knowledge in business communities.
Polanyi speaks much more of "knowing" rather than of "knowledge" and roots much of his argument on the role of language in communicating knowledge. While suggesting that language is a vital tool we can use to share knowledge, he also emphasizes that we can often know how to do things without either knowing or being able to articulate to others why what we do works. This is the foundation of the concept of "tacit" knowledge, which he develops further in his book The Tacit Dimension. He distinguishes skills and how we learn them from knowledge -- “The aim of a skilful performance is achieved by the observance of a set of rules which are not known to the person following them.” (Polanyi, 1958, p.50).
Serenko and Bontis (2004) found, in a survey of all citations in three major KM journals (from first publication to the end of 2003) that Polanyi's two major books in the field (Polanyi, 1958 and 1966) are collectively the second most cited source in KM. The most cited source was Ikujiro Nonaka’s various works on the Knowledge Creating Company. Polanyi presents a dual view, addressing tacit knowledge and the role of language in knowledge transfer and in shared understanding. In a knowledge community, an inter-related formal language is developed, including a transformation from tacit to explicit knowledge, at least for those experts who can agree on and interpret that shared language (See Uschold, 1996). This link between tacit knowledge and "knowing how" was also addressed by Gilbert Ryle, in his work on ordinary language (Ryle, 1949).
2.5.2 Information Theory & Information Technology It was not until the work of Claude Shannon at Bell Labs that the term "information" was used in a business context. Generally recognized as the originator of Information Theory, his work on information transmission (Shannon, 1948) focuses on the successful transmission of a correctly understandable message, despite the impact of noise or entropy. Since then, the terms "data" and "information" have been used in many forms -- they are often used interchangeably but they cannot be considered synonyms and sometimes their uses are contradictory.
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The growth of use of the term “information” in business is closely linked to the increasing use of computers, starting in the mid-1950s. At first, computers were seen as tools for "data processing,” then by the mid-1970s it became management information systems or “MIS” (Beer, 1972), with "Chief Information Officers" appearing by the early 1980s (Synnott and Gruber, 1981). This "information" era also saw the development of the DIKW or “Data/Information/Knowledge/ Wisdom” hierarchy shown in Figure 2-9, usually credited to Ackoff (1989). This model, though it has received widespread recognition and use, has also been criticized as being too simplistic and, as will be discussed later in this chapter, its misuse may have contributed to the failure of many KM projects.
Figure 2-9: The Data/Information/Knowledge/Wisdom Hierarchy (from Ackoff, 1989)
2.5.3 Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence The emergence and evolution of computer technology and information systems also led to speculation and experimentation on whether the computer could go beyond simple transaction processing and take on "thinking" tasks -- perhaps replacing human thinking for certain types of application.
Cybernetic concepts emerged in the mid-1900's (from the work of Wiener, von Bertalanffy, Ashby and von Foerster and others), gaining more practitioner interest as the power of computers grew. One strong proponent of cybernetics, Stafford Beer, argued for biological
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analogies between individual thinking and corporate thinking -- for example in the Brain of the Firm (Beer, 1972) -- largely based on the concept of corporate knowledge, although he did not use that precise term.
Alan Turing first formalized the idea of the thinking machine (Turing, 1950). This idea was the focus of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community and a subset of that field, described as Expert Systems, was the target of much effort in the 1970s and 80s. Successful expert systems tend to work in narrow domains. An expert system contains two primary components (a knowledge base and an inference engine) and the discipline was sometimes described as Knowledge Engineering. This is one of the first explicit occurrences of knowledge as a modern management concept. Despite continued interest in the technical and academic communities, artificial intelligence and expert systems have not achieved significant breakthroughs at the strategic level in many organisations.
2.5.4 The Appearance of the First Knowledge Management “Gurus” The end of the latency period saw the emergence of the first opinion leaders to advocate that managers should focus their attention on KM. Consistent with Abrahamson’s views of management fashion setters, these individuals correspond to Huczynski’s (1993) description of “gurus”.
Specifically, these include two “hero-manager” gurus -- Karl-Erik Sveiby, credited with the first book on the management of knowledge (öretagetKunskapsf or "The Knowhow Company", published in Sweden in 1986) and Leif Edvinnson, who is considered to have been the first Chief Knowledge Officer (appointed in 1991) -- and three “consultant” gurus -Peter Drucker, Thomas Stewart (then editor of Fortune Magazine) and Karl-Erik Wiig (Director of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Center at Arthur D. Little).
These opinion leaders had a significant influence on the early evolution and growth of the field of KM. In addition, the work in a related discipline (organizational studies) of a prominent “academic” guru, Peter Senge of MIT, includes some significant elements of KM.
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2.6
A WAVE OF RAPID ADOPTION FROM 1995-2001: THE EMERGENCE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
An initial review of the prominent literature in the field from 1995 to 2001 identified a number of common themes. As shown in Figure 2-10, the themes are: 1. The management and exploitation of "intellectual capital". 2. Social views of knowledge, including organizational learning and communities of practice. 3. Knowledge work and knowledge models, frameworks and processes. 4. The widespread use of IT to capture, codify and share knowledge. 5. The need to manage knowledge activities at both the strategic and operational levels.
Figure 2-10: Common Themes in the KM Literature
Each of these five KM themes is supported by identifiable and often quite discrete user and research communities. Thus, they provide a useful structure for understanding the evolution of thoughts on KM during this first generation. The first two are argued by many of their proponents to be discrete fields, complementary to KM, whose emergence somewhat preceded that of KM.
2.6.1 Theme 1: The Management and Exploitation of “Intellectual Capital” “Intellectual Capital” (sometimes expressed as “Intellectual Assets”) is one of the earliest topics established that might be considered to be a key KM theme. As with many KM terms, a variety of definitions exist, however many authors concur that it includes human capital,
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relational capital and structural capital (see: Stewart, 1997b, Edvinsson and Malone, 1997). Hubert St. Onge suggests that “Knowledge Capital” is a better term, more acceptable to practitioners (Chatzkel, 2000, p104). Edvinsson and Malone see intellectual capital as “possession of knowledge, applied experience, organizational technology, customer relations and professional skills that provide a company with a competitive edge in market.” (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997, p44)
The idea of managing intellectual capital or "knowledge assets” is, perhaps the earliest coherent theme that emerged in the IC/KM field, with some antecedents in the word of economics and innovation (Teece, 1986). Karl-Erik Sveiby's early work in Sweden, (for example, Sveiby and Risling, (1986a)) is seen by many as the beginning of the Knowledge Management movement and an example of a hero-manager guru.
He presents the concept of the “invisible balance sheet” and the value of "know-how," arguing that this intellectual capital can be identified, measured and managed. This inspired a number of Swedish initiatives, amongst which Lief Edvinsson's work at Skandia is prominent. Edvinsson, another hero-manager guru, is widely recognized as the first CKO, (appointed by Skandia in 1991 as “Corporate Director for Intellectual Capital”) who proposed a model of intellectual capital which included human capital, structural capital, business assets and intellectual property (Edvinsson, 1997).
Wider popularization of the concept likely started with Thomas Stewart's writings in Fortune magazine (Stewart, 1991, Stewart, 1994). The first of these, titled Brainpower, suggests that: “Every company depends increasingly on knowledge -- patents, processes, management skills, technologies, information about customers and suppliers, and old-fashioned experience. Added together, this knowledge is intellectual capital” (ibid p.44). Knowledge has become the primary ingredient of what we make, do, buy, and sell. As a result, managing it, finding and growing intellectual capital, storing it, selling it, sharing it has become the most important economic task of individuals, businesses, and nations. Practitioners such as Hubert St Onge at the CIBC in Canada, who was a early adopter of the Knowledge Assets view of KM (Stewart, 1997b) and Stephen Denning, with his work at the
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World Bank on the power of storytelling (Denning, 1997), provided early and pioneering contributions that were frequently reported.
In Scandinavia, there has been both early and ongoing discussion about explicit reporting on intellectual assets, including both Edvinsson's work at Skandia and the more recent evolution of a methodology for the disclosure of intellectual capital under the three dimensions of human, structural and relational capital. (Claessen, 2007)
In this perspective, knowledge is usually seen as a thing or object, an asset of the organization and something that contributes to its overall value. This is frequently called "knowledge capital" or “intellectual capital” (IC) or “intellectual property” (IP) or, more generally, “intangible assets”, and is often identified as: External structure or customer relationships; internal structure; and individual competencies or human capital. This is argued to be the primary cause of the stock valuations of corporations that are higher than their book value. Proponents of this view frequently discuss carrying out knowledge audits or inventories. While such knowledge can include patents, trade secrets and other unique capabilities, there is recognition that value is created through the interaction of all three classes of intangible assets.
During this period, researchers in the accounting field such as Lev (1997) and Mouritsen (2001) have also questioned the adequacy or traditional accounting practices that undervalue the impact of intangible assets and contributed to the discussion and how to measure and report intellectual assets.
In the late 1990s, this body of work was summarized and updated in similar versions by Sveiby (1997), Stewart (1997b), Edvinsson & Malone ((1997) and Teece (1998). Two journals devoted to the field have been established, the Journal of Intellectual Capital (est. 2000) and the International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital (est. 2004).
While a variety of models for intellectual capital/ intangible assets have been presented, many authors adopt what has been described as the “three-way model” of intellectual
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capital: employee competence, internal structure and external structure (see for example Sveiby, 1997).
The Intellectual Capital view can be closely linked to other work that examines the economic view of knowledge. For example, Spender suggests that, in addition to the traditional factors of production --land, labour and capital -- knowledge is also a critical factor and that the use of different types of knowledge assets can produce different returns (or levels of economic rent) (Spender, 1996a).
2.6.2 Theme 2: Social Views of Knowledge Another early theme was the consideration of learning and knowledge sharing as a social activity. This theme was popularized by Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990) and evolved from the world of general systems theory.
Bontis et al. broaden the definition of Intellectual Capital within the wider domain of KM, suggesting that “the evolving stock of intellectual capital over time is dependent on Knowledge Management. Organizational learning broadens the discussion further to incorporate behaviours as well as knowledge and provides a means to understand how the “stocks” change (flow) over time.” (Bontis et al., 2002, p404). In their paper, Bontis et al. identify 21 quite varied definitions of Organisational Learning, with the most mentioned themes being processes and knowledge creation and sharing. Some take an organisation focus others look at individual behaviour.
“Organizational learning” is seen as being distinct from the “learning organization”, with Oertenblad (2001, p126) suggesting: The two most common ways to distinguish between organizational learning and learning organization in existing literature are that learning organization is a form of organization while organizational learning is activity or processes (of learning) in organizations, and that learning organization needs efforts while organizational learning exists without any efforts. One of the most frequently mentioned activities associated with organisational learning is that of “Communities of Practice”. The concept is frequently credited to Wenger who defines communities of practice as “groups of people who share a passion for something that
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they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better” (Wenger, 2004, p2). Key to many of the views of communities of practice is that they are often informal and cross-organisational boundaries. As an example, Lesser & Pruzak (1999, p2) suggest that “the term ‘community’ highlights the personal basis upon which relationships are formed. The word further suggests that communities of practice are not constrained by typical geographic, business unit or functional boundaries, but rather by common tasks, contexts, and work interests.”
Much of this work in organizational learning addresses a key challenge -- attempting to define knowledge in a business or organizational context. Thus, while the organizational learning field takes as a given that "knowledge" is learned by both individuals and organizations, it provides quite varied views on what exactly that knowledge might be. This discussion frequently focuses around two linked concepts -- organizational memory and communities.
For an organization to be a “learning organization,” it would seem reasonable to assume that it needs to have an ability to acquire, retain and use knowledge independent of that held by individuals. Walsh & Ungson (1991, p61) suggested that, “In general, an organization may exist independent of particular individuals” and that “an organization may preserve knowledge of the past even when key organizational members leave.” Their definition of organizational memory holds that “In its most basic sense, organizational memory refers to stored information from an organization's history that can be brought to bear on present decisions. This information is stored as a consequence of implementing decisions to which they refer, by individual recollections, and through shared interpretations.”
Brown & Duguid (1991) discuss the importance of informal communities of practice in success for learning organizations, linking working, learning and innovation. A core concept here is shared meaning, an ability to know and understand what the other person knows or assumes within the community. This assumption is critical for effective communications between members of the community. At the same time, Lave & Wenger described the nature of such communities in a case study and demonstrated the existence of communities of
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practice in an analysis of apprenticeship systems. Later, Brown & Duguid point out that an organization is likely not one community but, rather, multiple communities and these may or may not overlap. Brown and Duguid (1998) described the field as OL/KM, with organization learning being the key to institutionalizing change in the organization (Easterby-Smith et al., 1991, Easterby-Smith and Lyles, 2003a).
2.6.3 Theme 3: Knowledge Work and Knowledge Models and Knowledge Processes Three linked sub-themes have emerged around the concept of knowledge work. One is related to the special situation of the knowledge worker and of knowledge-intensive organizations. Another relates to Knowledge Management models, both conceptual and structural, and a third has evolved around knowledge processes. Each of these is discussed in more detail below.
As mentioned earlier, the most common theme in the multiple definitions identified for KM is that of knowledge processes. Maier and Remus (2002, p116) suggest that a process orientation is necessary for successful KM strategy. 2.6.3.1
Knowledge Work & the Knowledge Worker
The early 1990s saw the beginnings of the examination of the knowledge worker as a specific topic of interest. Peter Drucker is often credited with making the distinction of knowledgeintensive work. Almost 50 years ago, he proposed a new type of worker – the “knowledge worker” (Drucker, 1957). His key argument is that a knowledge worker is a unique individual and not the replaceable unit of production, envisaged for labour in the industrial economy. Further, if knowledge workers exist, then so do knowledge-based (or at least knowledge-intensive) organizations (Drucker, 1993, Drucker, 1992). Others, such as Richard Nolan, of the IT think-tank consulting firm of Nolan Norton, linked this to a move to transform business operations and identified a growing competence gap that should be of concern to organizations wishing to retain a competitive position (Nolan, 1990).
Gummesson points out that “knowledge workers populate all organizations in greater or fewer numbers. They are found in business school research programs, on management teams, in pharmaceutical laboratories and in other R&D departments” (Gummesson, 2000,
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p8). For some firms, knowledge is the most critical factor, with Lowendahl (2000) suggesting three broad classifications of firms: capital-intensive; labour-intensive; and knowledgeintensive. 2.6.3.2
Knowledge Models & Frameworks
Perhaps the most significant KM paper published in the 1990s was Ikijiro Nonaka's The Knowledge-Creating Company (Nonaka, 1991). Published at a time that Japanese companies were widely considered to have superior business models to those of North American companies, this paper suggested a fundamental difference between the Japanese approach to knowledge creation and the Western management approach that considered the organization as a machine for "information processing.� The work has been presented in several versions during the 1990s. (e.g.Nonaka, 1994, Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Nonaka et al., 2000)
Nonaka "corporatized" the tacit/explicit dimension of “personal" knowledge, as originally proposed by Polanyi (1958) and proposed a spiral model for knowledge creation and transfer called the SECI Model (Socialization, Externalization, Internalization, Combination). In 1998, Nonaka, drawing on the work of Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida, also suggested the need to create an appropriate environment in which knowledge can be created and transferred, describing this as a "Ba" -- a shared space for emerging relationships (physical, virtual, or mental) that provides a platform for advancing individual and/or collective knowledge. Different types of Ba are proposed, corresponding to each of the stages of the SECI model (Nonaka and Konno, 1998).
The importance of Nonaka's series of papers on the Knowledge Creating Company, with its fundamental assumption that tacit technology can be transferred and can also be converted to explicit knowledge set in a corporate context, is evidenced by its dominance as, by far, the most referenced concept in the KM field (Serenko and Bontis, 2004, Grant, 2006). It has been the focus of many practitioner projects implementing elements of the model, particularly the externalization stage. Further, while a variety of other knowledge classification systems have been proposed, variations on Nonaka's interpretation of Polanyi's original tacit/explicit knowledge concept dominate KM literature - both academic and practitioner. Sometimes,
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instead of dealing directly with the degree of tacitness, authors describe the "stickiness" of knowledge. Von Hippel describes "sticky information" as information that is difficult to transfer (von Hippel, 1994).
This concept of corporate or organizational knowledge suggested by Nonaka is also discussed by Spender. Spender distinguished between organizational and individual knowledge, often linked through implicit knowledge – knowledge known to many or all in the organization that could be (but does not need to be) expressed explicitly (Spender, 1996a). Spender and others also talk about corporate or organizational memory, which is argued to exist in culture, processes and structures, as well as computer databases and other files.
A number of other knowledge models have been proposed. McAdam and McCreedy (1999) and Kakabadse et al. (2003) offer several alternate categories of KM model, including “philosophy-based” models (of which Polanayi’s tacit/explicit model is an example), “knowledge category” models (such as Nonaka’s SECI model and Boisot's I-Space (Information Space), with its six phases of knowledge evolution across the three dimensions of diffusion, abstraction and codification (Boisot, 1999)), “cognitive” models (often based on intellectual capital or knowledge process themes such as the Skandia IC model (Roos and Roos, 1997) or the Knowledge Life Cycle model of McElroy (1999)), and “socially constructed” models, (such as that of Demarest (1997), who introduces social interchange processes for the dissemination of knowledge).
Some argue that, rather than simply considering models of knowledge or processes for knowledge creation and sharing, there is a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Certainly building on Nonaka's work, the core argument is that the firm exists as a collective system for knowledge creation and application. This is also closely link to the Resource-Based View of strategy (Spender, 1996a, Barney, 1996). 2.6.3.3
Knowledge Processes
The early 1990s saw a widespread interest in business process reengineering – peaking around the publication of Reengineering the Corporation (Hammer and Champy, 1993) –
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along with increased recognition of the importance of business processes as a primary means of adding value. A number of authors, notably Davenport et al. (1996) and Davenport & Prusak in Working Knowledge (1998), discussed the issues relevant to applying process models to knowledge work, differentiating between processes that apply knowledge and processes intended to create knowledge. The Journal of Knowledge and Process Management (est. 1997) was one of the first to be established in the KM field.
Beers et al. suggest (1996, p54) that “Knowledge work processes include such activities as research and product development, advertising, education, and professional services like law, accounting, and consulting. We also include management processes such as strategy and planning.” Thus, “the process orientation of knowledge work is different from that of operational or administrative work.” (p57) More generally, Davenport and Prusak (1998) identify four knowledge processes: knowledge generation, knowledge codification, knowledge transfer and knowledge application.
2.6.4 Theme 4: The Widespread Use of IT to Capture, Codify and Share Knowledge The discussion earlier in this Chapter, on the role of cybernetics and expert systems, suggests a long association between knowledge activities and information systems. In addition, by the mid-1990s, the evolution of the personal computer and personal computer applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and personal databases had reached a reasonably mature state. Telecommunications and private network applications were pervasive in many organizations, through the use of communications applications such as email, voice mail (and newer "groupware" tools such as LotusNotes were being offered to the market).
The mid-1990s also saw the beginnings of the Internet explosion, with its rapid growth in both Internet sites and users, especially in North America. This provided a growing body of users, both individual and corporate, with access to information sites, communication tools such as email, and an increasing number of group and community tools. In addition, organizations started to develop Intranets -- networks based on Internet technology that are accessible only to employees and selected customers/suppliers.
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To give an idea of the scale of IT-related KM, the Gartner Group (Eid, 2005) suggested a 2004 global market size, just for content management and collaboration software, of almost $6 billion, predicting that this might grow to $9 billion by 2009.
Significant claims have been made for the contribution of IT to successful KM. Frappaolo and Capshaw (1999) suggest that KM systems can intermediate (connect people), externalize (provide explicit knowledge to users), internalize (extract and filter external knowledge) and provide cognition (connect knowledge to process, to help decision making). The IT Community was also responsible for the largest proportion of articles on KM-related topics during this period, with one study suggesting that, between 1990 and 2000, over 40% of all KM-related articles were published in/by the IT/IS community, nearly double that of the next largest group -- those with a management focus (Swan and Scarbrough, 2002).
IT/KM applications tended to focus on the more effective use of information processing tools, frequently with the objective of converting tacit to explicit knowledge. Commonly used applications were those that created and maintained repositories of information, from simple expert directories to detailed insights on specific issues, and those that improve communications between knowledge workers, such as email, discussion boards and blogs. In addition the technologies that have been developed for "data mining" -- the exploration of existing databases for new knowledge and insight -- are also widely used and referred to as Knowledge Management systems (Turban et al., 2007). Closely linked with this IT view was a continued interest in KM from the Library and Information Sciences field, with its interest in taxonomies and information filing and retrieval.
2.6.5 Theme 5: The Need to Manage Knowledge Activities at both the Strategic and Operational Levels By the early 1990s, many authors and practitioners were arguing that there was a need for explicit focus on the management of knowledge -- or at least the management of knowledgerelated functions and processes within many types of organization. This goes beyond the approaches suggested in the Intellectual Capital view -- which includes some management elements.
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One of the first to look at Knowledge Management as a business practice (and the individual often credited with the first use of the term “Knowledge Management�) was Karl Wiig, a former management consultant, and founder of the Knowledge Research Institute, who set out, in a trilogy of books (Wiig, 1993, 1994, 1995), frameworks for knowledge creation and dissemination and for its direction and management.
Knowledge Management was also seen as a key element of the Resource-Based View (RBV) strategy school (Grant, 1991, Barney, 1996). This school gained significant support in the 1990s as an alternative or extension to the Market-Positioning school that dominated much of strategic planning in the previous decade (Porter, 1985) with links that go back to the early work of Penrose on theories of growth in firms (Penrose, 1959). In this view, strategic planning starts with an assessment of a firm's resources and capabilities and its capacity to help achieve competitive advantage, thus leading to a proposed strategy. A firm's knowledge base was seen as a key element of the firm’s resources and capabilities and as part of strategic planning (Grant, 1996). This perspective is often linked to the concept of core competencies (Prahaled & Hamel 1990).
This strategic view also held that knowledge forms a basis for competitive advantage and a significant number of organizations have created a new senior executive management role -the Chief Knowledge Officer or CKO (Earl and Scott, 1999). Zack (1999) demonstrated a link between a firm's strategy and its use of knowledge. He proposes the use of a Strategic Knowledge Map to examine an organization's competitive position through its use of core, advanced and innovative knowledge (when compared to its competitors).
Part of this debate looked directly at whether the strategic focus should be on the reuse and exploitation of existing knowledge or the exploration and creation of new knowledge. Others have examined such links to assess whether discrete knowledge strategies can be discerned. For example, Truch (2002) found a link between the Miles & Snow generic strategic typologies (Miles and Snow, 1978) and the knowledge orientation of different organizations. Drew (1999) describes techniques, such as external scanning, knowledge
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audit and knowledge portfolios, that can help in strategy development. Earl identified seven different strategies for knowledge (Earl, 2001): Technocratic The systems school The cartographic school The process school Economic The commercial school Behavioural The organisational school The spatial school The strategic school A much simpler approach was suggested by Hansen et al., who suggest that the key strategic choice is between a codification approach or a personalization approach (Hansen et al., 1999).
2.7
A PERIOD OF REFLECTION, CRITICISM AND RE-INVENTION: 2001-2004
The preceding review of the early discourse on KM -- both academic and practitioner -demonstrates that the field of KM has seen significant evolution over the very short period it has been a focus of management attention. When compared to other management fashions, levels of interest have been very high and very diverse.
2.7.1 Emergence of Criticisms of the Growth Phase of KM While the discourse during the rapid growth phase included much debate about the nature of knowledge, and the role of KM, this growth phase saw relatively limited critical assessment of its commonly held view and practices. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, some criticisms of KM were emerging. This is consistent with Carson et al.’s (1999) stages of management fashion, as we can observe a period of innovation from 1988 to 1995, a period of quite widespread acceptance from 1995 to about 2002, and a period of disenchantment (or at least critical reflection) starting from about 2001. This early criticism clusters around five main categories: The “Fad” Argument An Overfocus on IT The Questionable Validity of the Models that Underlie KM Practice The Usefulness and Validity of the Knowledge itself
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The Importance of Context The first two of these criticisms concentrate on the “management” part of KM, the last three look more at the nature of the “knowledge” itself. 2.7.1.1
The “Fad” Argument
Following the rapid growth stage, a number of authors have suggested that KM is indeed just another fad. For example, Wilson (2002) describes KM as, "in large part, a management fad, promulgated mainly by certain consultancy companies, and the probability is that it will fade away like previous fads." Given this criticism, several authors have indeed examined KM as a management fad or fashion.
Scarbrough & Swan (2001) examine “knowledge management” and the “learning organization” in the context of management fashion. They use it to identify similarities with prior fashions and to discuss some of the weaknesses in commonly applied approaches to examining management fashions, particularly in the context of innovation diffusion. They highlight an apparent lack of “cross-fertilization” between the two linked disciplines.
Ponzi & Koenig (2002), drawing on the work of Abrahamson (1999) also examine the degree to which KM can be seen as a fad (for them, something that emerges very quickly, is adopted with great zeal and declines just as fast), a fashion (a fad that briefly shows signs of maturity before declining) or something more long-lasting. They provide early empirical evidence that suggests that "Knowledge Management has weathered the five-year mark and perhaps is becoming an addition to the management practice.” Thawesaengskulthai & Tannock (2008), while primarily examining quality management and continuous improvement also demonstrate a continued interest in discourse on Knowledge Management.
As Davenport & Prusak suggest, perhaps “there are no faddish ideas – only faddish managers and companies” and that, “Some ideas are certainly more superficial and amenable to faddish pursuit than others, but that doesn’t mean they are without potential merit.” (Davenport and Prusak, 2003)
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2.7.1.2
An Overfocus on IT
A survey of KM papers from 1990-2000 (Swan and Scarbrough, 2002) finds that more than 40% were written by and for computer or IS/IT professionals, which suggests that the IT community "has become an important professional patron of KM." (See Figure 2-11.) They further suggest that, although “the rationale for KM calls for a variety of management practices, including the application of IT but also the redesign of organizational routines and the development of HR practices” (p12), the patronage of KM by specific professional communities, especially that of IT, has paradoxical effects which promotes its use and success, but also separates it into areas of narrow focus, thus limiting its effectiveness.
Figure 2-11: Total Number of Articles by "Profession" (1990-2000), from Swan & Scarborough, (2002)
As Swan & Scarborough highlighted, single community focus tends to be sub-optimal. Binney (2001) criticizes this approach and argues for a KM spectrum which incorporates a number of perspectives, including the role of enabling technologies. In contrast, Gartner Research (Harris, 2006, p3) suggests that while "strictly speaking, KM does not require the use of software", they "believe that KM technology is necessary to a good KM program." McDermott suggests that, "Ironically, while the knowledge revolution is inspired by new information systems, it takes human systems to realize it… we need to enhance both thinking and information" (McDermott, 1999, p116).
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Another impact of this overfocus on IT was, at least in Western organizations, an emphasis on explicit knowledge and the building of repositories. While limited research has been done in examining the levels of success in IT-focused KM projects, two reviews of KM projects described in the literature found that the majority of such projects studied had either failed or produced inconclusive results (Grant and Qureshi, 2006, Lam and Chua, 2005). 2.7.1.3
The Validity of the Models that Underlie KM Practice has not been Clearly Demonstrated
As Box & Draper (1987, p424) famously wrote, "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful," and there has been a strong interest in models in the KM field that demonstrate a wide range of conceptual frameworks. In reviewing early KM models, McAdam & McReady (1999, p95) commented, “Thus models must be treated with caution. It is suggested that they are useful so long as they are critiqued to understand the underlying assumptions in the representation, rather than accepting them as objective representations of reality.�
Within the academic discourse, many alternative models and classification systems have been proposed for KM, these are both descriptive and prescriptive, with a major focus evident (in the literature and in practice) on Nonaka's SECI cycle and the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge these alternative modesl are, likely driven by the over-focus on IT discussed above. Several critics have pointed out that these models are, at minimum, oversimplifications.
For example, Styhre suggested that "in the Knowledge Management literature, there is little patience with an organizational resource that cannot be reduced into a number of categories and skills" (Styhre, 2003) and criticizes the codification or knowledge representation approach. In many cases, there is also misinterpretation of frequently referenced key works. An extensive review of papers in three major KM journals has indicated that, in discussions on the tacit/explicit dimensions of knowledge, the work of Polanyi is frequently cited and used incorrectly, to argue that this is an either/or state, rather than a continuum as proposed by Polanyi (Grant, 2007).
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Some others go further, suggesting that knowledge and management are contradictory concepts (e.g. Schultze and Stabell (2004) or Alvesson and Karreman (2001)), particularly the belief that, in order to manage tacit knowledge, it must be made explicit. Marren (2003) questions the whole concept of KM, the existence of "corporate" knowledge and the focus on knowledge as an end in itself, without link to the action or business advantage. Wilson also questions the concept of KM in a wide-ranging review of reference sources and suggests that "in many cases, 'Knowledge Management' is being used simply as a synonym for information management" (Wilson, 2002). He is critical of Nonaka & Takeuchi's SECI model, arguing that their model misrepresents the concept of tacit knowing developed by Polanyi in 1958. 2.7.1.4
The Usefulness and Validity of the Knowledge Itself
Beneath this is an even more fundamental question: Is the knowledge that is being created, captured, shared or recorded actually useful and relevant knowledge? These concerns are especially true of the explicit knowledge frequently captured in information systems – often presented as the importance of differentiating between “information” and “knowledge”.
Much has been written about the challenge of capturing useful knowledge. Useful knowledge might be defined as “evidence that could contribute to better decisions than would have otherwise been made in given situations” (Armstrong and Pagell, 2003). Concerns range from the quality of the knowledge being captured and presented, to the challenges in getting individuals within the organization to actually contribute to the knowledge base. In the limited number of detailed studies of KM projects identified, poor content is a frequently reported cause of failure (see Grant, K.A. and Qureshi (2006)).
In addition, in the KM literature, there is relatively little focus on getting the right knowledge and making sure of the validity of that knowledge and its relevance for the situations in which it is being used. For example, is what is being captured "best" or “good” practice or just "any" practice? Surprisingly, the practitioner literature is largely silent on this issue, and there is limited attention paid to it in the more theoretical work. In the field, there appears to be only limited debate on the nature of knowledge and on the need to validate the correctness and usefulness of the knowledge.
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2.7.1.5
The Importance of Context
The last point in the previous section illustrates a dichotomy that has presented itself frequently throughout this chapter. Many researchers and practitioners pay little attention to discussions about the actual knowledge being created, shared or transferred. As with the “rational management” use of the word “innovation”, it is just assumed that, of itself, “knowledge” is a good thing and that any knowledge is a knowledge asset. Limited effort is made to consider the contexts in which the knowledge has been created, is being used, or might be used, and by whom, and for what purpose. For those who take an intellectual capital focus, the key seems to be identifying and managing an asset often considered to be intangible. This is also true for the information technology community. For those taking a more social view, the emphasis is much more on the creation and support of the community. Surprisingly, even many of those who examine the nature of knowledge work and knowledge models ignore the various philosophical views of knowledge developed by the scientific community over several hundred years, when describing their new views. Finally, those taking the strategic and operational management focus often tend to focus more on structural and process activities rather than the nature of the knowledge itself.
A very prevalent view in the Knowledge Management literature, particularly in the IC & IT areas, is that of “knowledge as object.” Organizations are seen as managing knowledge objects, which are created and shared by employees. These objects can be inventoried and valued. This view tends to inspire major efforts to externalize or codify knowledge. Thompson and Walsham (2004) point out that this approach, exemplified by Nonaka in his SECI knowledge spiral, while being a natural management response when trying to deal with intangible things, ignores the importance of context in understanding the nature and usefulness of knowledge. They point out that, although Nonaka bases his theory on that of Polanyi, by objectifying the focus as “knowledge” he moves away (or, at least, many of those who have based their work on his have moved away) from Polanyi’s fundamental assertion that all meaningful knowledge is, to some degree, tacit and context-specific. Such approaches ignore Polanyi’s focus on “knowing” rather than on knowledge. Thomson & Walsham conclude:
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Approaches to ‘Knowledge Management’ (KM) which attempt to sideline or ignore Polanyi’s critical (if inconvenient) insight risk, at best, a misguided capital investment and at worst, disastrous consequences for intra-organizational interaction, since they often replace established, localized communication structures, cultural norms and understandings – which, as we shall argue, can be conceptualized as components of context – with, for example, an indiscriminately applied, database-driven intranet. (p726) In discussing context in an organizational knowledge setting, Spender (1996b, p65) criticizes “the presumption that memory reflects knowledge’s separability from both the processes of its discovery and from the processes of its reattachment during implementation.” In other words, both the context of knowledge capture and its reuse are critical to understanding KM.
While examining common misconceptions about the role of case studies in research, Flyvbjerg argues very strongly for the importance of context suggesting that, “Contextdependent knowledge and experience are at the very heart of expert activity,” and that all experts “operate on the basis of intimate knowledge of several thousand concrete cases in their areas of expertise” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p222).
2.7.2 A Call for Re-Invention – A “Next Generation of KM” The criticism reviewed above coalesced in the early 2000's around a view that we were at a potential turning point in thinking about KM and that, in order to respond to these criticisms, a new or “Next” generation of thinking and action was needed. This is discussed below. The period from 1990 to about 2001 was seen as First Generation Knowledge Management (FGKM).
Several of the original KM fashion-leader authors have developed their views of what this "Next Generation” might be and their work is reviewed below. 2.7.2.1
McElroy’s “Second Generation Knowledge Management”
McElroy (2002, McElroy, 2003) and Firestone & McElroy (2004a) argue that First Generation Knowledge Management (FGKM) was largely based on a narrow, technology-centric brand of thinking and that a new Second Generation Knowledge Management (SGKM) is emerging. McElroy characterizes FGKM as having an underlying assumption that valuable knowledge exists within the organization and that, "The hallmark of first generation KM is
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its overwhelming emphasis on the capture, codification and distribution of existing knowledge through an organization" (McElroy, 2002, p.8) -- in other words an emphasis on converting tacit to explicit knowledge that can easily be shared, often through information systems. He describes this as "supply-side" KM.
His SGKM is “demand-side” KM focusing on organizational learning for business innovation and competitive advantage. He presents a Knowledge Life Cycle model. This model suggests two key activities, Knowledge Production and Knowledge Integration, which, within a Business Processing Environment, combine knowledge processes and knowledge sets. In essence, the cycle is initiated by problems in the business process. Given this model, he then argues that KM is the management of these processes. He suggests that this "demand-side" KM, has the effect of "accelerating the production of new knowledge” which is “a far more valuable proposition" with a "focus on enhancing the conditions in which innovation and creativity naturally occur” (McElroy, 2002, p9).
In defining SGKM as a management discipline that focuses on organizational learning with business innovation and competitive advantage in mind, he presents a Knowledge Life Cycle -- a “framework of models” in which “many different and competing views on how knowledge is produced and integrated in organizations can be organized and positioned relative to one another.” This is seen as "demand-side" KM. The belief that knowledge processes are, at the core, social systems, leads to the claim that these processes are largely self-organizing, but within discernable patterns in a given organization. Also underlying McElroy’s SGKM view is the concept of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) from complexity theory.
This leads to prescriptions for SGKM in practice. He proposes a KM strategy framework. He argues that this can be used as the framework for all KM strategy and that management’s only ways to impact actual knowledge performance are by two forms of intervention – policy or program.
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2.7.2.2
Snowden’s “Third Generation Knowledge Management”
Snowden (2002a) suggests that we are moving towards a “Third” generation, describing the generations as: Generation 1:
Late 80s to mid-90s, largely information and ICT focused
Generation 2:
Mid-90s to early 21st century, focused on tacit-explicit knowledge conversion, triggered by the SECI model of Nonaka
Generation 3:
Beginning in 2002, based on complexity theory
Describing this as a progression, from Content to Narrative to Context, he claims that this new generation is not a simple evolution, but a change in paradigm – “as large a change as the shift from Newtonian to modern physics, it challenges the conceptual underpinnings of process management and scientific management in general,” (ibid p.100). For him, “Knowledge Management is the creation of shared context. The interplay of context and content and the level of abstraction are key to the notion of knowledge sharing.” He suggests that we are dealing with both ordered and unordered (chaotic) situations and that creating spaces in which this can take place are critical (Snowden, 2002b). His arguments have some similarity with, but go beyond, Nonaka’s “Ba” construct. With McElroy (2000), he sees Complex Adaptive Systems Theory as the key to understanding the role of KM.
Snowden claims that the need to distinguish between content and context is key. Shared context is needed for understanding. KM is “creating information from data by the provision of shared context” (Snowden, 2002b). “Real” Knowledge Management is heuristic, not prescriptive (he suggests the analogy of chef vs. recipe).
Fundamentally, his view is that there are strong ecological/anthropological roots to KM. He identifies three key heuristics to the new way to manage knowledge: Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted. We can always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down. We only know what we need to know when we need to know it.
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Snowden has used the word “Cynefin,” a Welsh word meaning “a place” to label the sensemaking framework he has developed to distinguish between formal and informal communities. With dimensions of low to high abstraction and a need for learning vs. teaching, he defines four "open spaces" or domains of knowledge: Known: Where the formal organization can usually handle knowledge activities Knowable: Where groups of "professionals" can create and share knowledge Complex: where voluntary and informal networks can provide common understanding Chaos: Where new situations dominate and there is a need to impose pattern on chaos to make it comprehensible and manageable 2.7.2.3
Sveiby’s Focus on People and Intangible Assets
While he does not explicitly use the "Next Generation" term, Sveiby also addresses the need for a new or improved approach to KM. In an interview in 2001, he describes the "American" interpretation of KM based on "the management of information, making it available in the whole organisation, generating, capturing and harvesting, making the knowledge in people's heads so that it can be stored and retrieved. This has been a huge disappointment to the promises from the IT companies…" In contrast, he describes his own focus for a "people oriented track that is only right now beginning to emerge" (Sveiby, 2001b).
His “knowledge-based strategy” enables people to "use their competence to create value in two directions: by transferring and converting knowledge externally or internally to the organization." Consistent with earlier definitions of IC/IP, he defines three families of intangible resources that interact to create this value: External Structure, Internal Structure, and Individual Competences (Sveiby, 2001b).
Sveiby suggests that successful use of these resources is influenced by attitudes towards trust and collaboration. He categorises these attitudes into four clusters: Employee, work group support, immediate supervisor, and organizational culture. In related fieldwork, he found that “improving the collaborative climate” was a major element for success in knowledge work (Sveiby and Simons, 2002). He identifies nine ways in which knowledge flows between these three sets of intangible assets and suggests these can be combined to maximize overall value creation.
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While describing these assets as “intangible,” Sveiby also argues that they can be measured and has developed a number of tools (most notably the “Intangible Assets Monitor”) to help do so. By focusing on the management of these intangible assets, which he also describes as “non-financial” assets, “it is possible to create superior shareholder value.” 2.7.2.4
Wiig’s Next Generation Knowledge Management
Wiig comments that “during the last 15 years, KM has changed from one generation to the next” but suggests that it is still in its infancy and needs extensive development. The over focus on IT in the first generation has produced an ad hoc and often unrealistic approach to implementation of KM projects, producing “frustrations, disappointments and frequently, cancellations” of projects (Wiig, 2002).
Wiig sees the new generation, driven by a demand-pull of management and operating philosophies and practice developments with an IC focus, drawing on positive practical experiences with KM and a supply push of new science and technology developments. He believes that enterprise effectiveness comes from the individual actions of its employees and the collective actions of its management. Effectiveness comes when most of the efforts of both groups correctly interpret and implement a (feasible) strategy.
Wiig’s Next Generation Knowledge Management or "NGKM" emphasizes creating the right kind of corporate environment, which he refers to as enterprise-wide or comprehensive Knowledge Management. This is achieved by pursuing a central strategic thrust with four areas of tactical focus: People-focus (cognitive science, research on how K-related processes evolve, and meta-knowledge), Intellectual Asset focus (education/library initiatives, better use of IC assets, and better understanding of situation-handling capabilities), Technology focus (modeling, more sophisticated systems, and infrastructure), and Enterprise Effectiveness focus (better strategic understanding – conceptual and implementation, transfer of personal knowledge into structured IC, knowledge diagnostic and analysis tools) (Wiig, 2004).
For Wiig, NGKM organizations are characterised by:
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Broad and proactive philosophy and management Knowledge focused strategies and practices An IS stewardship mentality Self-sustaining and self-renewing KM practices, a systems perspective Vigilant application of state-of-the-art KM practices and infrastructure 2.7.2.5
Other Supporting Views
While the four views described in detail above represent some of the most fully developed views of NGKM, other authors make similar suggestions that a new approach to KM is emerging (or is needed). Examples include the work of Saint-Onge & Armstrong (2004), who see the evolution of the “Conductive Organization” and Allee (2003) who focuses on “Value Networks”. Although not normally seen as working in the knowledge field, Miles, Snow & Miles (2000) look at future business models and integrate many of the themes found in the discussion around the links between Knowledge Management and innovation. In arguing that we are now in a third era of innovation (first standardization, then customization, now innovation) they claim that "neither the organizational model necessary to facilitate continuous innovation, nor the business model necessary to turn its value adding-potential into profits has been fully articulated." Edvinsson (2000) suggests that the new generation of Knowledge Management tools should focus on intellectual capital. 2.7.2.6
A Common Framework for a “Next Generation” of KM
The review of the work of Next Generation proponents provided above demonstrates that several of the early influential writers in the KM field are making a consistent argument – that a new or next generation of KM is needed and is emerging. Each of these authors provides a critique of FGKM and uses this to develop a specific description of what the generation might be. However, no one has presented significant evidence to support any one view, nor have any been tested in the field by other researchers. While each author claims a degree of uniqueness for his new theory, all are consistent in claiming that this Next Generation is expected to resolve the real problems identified with First Generation KM. This is a possible stage predicted by Management Fashion Theory.
Despite each author’s claims of uniqueness, there are very significant overlaps and commonalities. These can be integrated with the five KM Themes developed earlier in this
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Chapter, as most can be closely linked to at least one of the five themes of KM presented earlier. From this, a final set of seven Themes were developed by adding two additional Themes by a separation of the models, work and processes Theme into three distinct Themes. These final Themes are presented in Table 2-1, along with an indication of the level of support from each of the key authors.
Regarding Theme 1, as McElroy suggests, the Knowledge Life Cycle is the key to successful SGKM and the act of Knowledge Management is something "that seeks to have impact on knowledge processing" (McElroy, 2002). Sveiby has a slightly different perspective arguing that, "A knowledge-based strategy formulation should thus start with the primary intangible resource: the competence of people," and that the key is to leverage knowledge transfers/conversions to create new value. This is also key to Wiig's approach (Wiig, 2004).
In Theme 2, as McElroy said in FGKM, "the goal of KM has been to capture, codify and distribute organizational knowledge (usually in centrally managed computer systems)," and that this has "provoked a discernable backlash" in the marketplace that has damaged the credibility of KM (McElroy, 2000). Snowden describes the problem; "Most Knowledge Management in the post-1995 period has been to all intents and purposes content management" (Snowden, 2002a, p.101). While recognising the overfocus, Wiig is more moderate and sees IT as a critical, but not key, element (Wiig, 2004).
For Theme 3, McElroy claims that FGKM is very transactional, emphasizing the capture and codification of existing knowledge, which is not the key focus of NGKM. The issue is "demand-side" not "supply-side" KM (McElroy, 2002). Snowden points out: "The deficiencies of the SECI model in practice are becoming evident" and, “there is a body of tacit knowledge that cannot be made explicit" (Snowden, 2000). It should be noted, however, that each of these author does, in fact, propose new models aiming to make up for the deficiencies of their predecessors.
For Theme 4, McElroy's Knowledge Life Cycle provides a formal set of procedures to produce and integrate knowledge in the organization and he suggests that "accelerating the
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production of new knowledge is a far more valuable proposition" than codifying existing knowledge. KLCs exist at multiple levels, including the corporate level, and represent a "management discipline" (McElroy, 2002). This is also supported by Sveiby, although he is a little more focused on the effective use of existing knowledge (Sveiby, 2001), and Wiig, who suggests a hierarchy of processes from operational, to tactical, to strategic (Wiig, 2004). Theme 5 is only supported by McElroy and Snowden. McElroy claims that NGKM is "firmly rooted in complexity theory." Key examples include nested knowledge domains and the role of individual knowledge agents combining to form collective or shared organizational knowledge (McElroy, 2002). In Snowden's "third age", the knowledge environment can be complicated, complex and chaotic and an understanding of the relevant "knowledge space" is critical to success (Snowden, 2002a).
Theme 6 suggests that both organisational and personal knowledge exist under a variety of behavioural and social issues, all of which must be addressed for KM to be successful. As McElroy claims, drawing on Senge's earlier work "organizations not just individuals, actually learn" and that the tension "between what individuals know and knowledge held collectively by groups of individuals" is a stimulant for innovation and creativity (McElroy, 2002). Snowden further says that "much knowledge is held collectively within communities and cannot be represented as the aggregation of individual knowledge" (Snowden, 2000).
Finally, as Theme 7, perhaps the least changed of the FGKM concepts, Intellectual Capital is still seen as key, taken into account with the other six themes of NGKM.
While the four views described in detail in Exhibit X represent some of the most fully developed views of NGKM, other authors make similar suggestions that a new approach to KM is emerging (or is needed). Examples include the work of St Onge and Armstrong, who see the evolution of the “Conductive Organization” (Saint-Onge and Armstrong., 2004), Allee, who focuses on “Value Networks” (Allee, 2003) as well as Miles et al., who looked at future business models and integrate many of the themes found in the discussion around the links between Knowledge Management and innovation (Miles et al., 2000). In the
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framework presented in Table 2-1, the support is described as "strong" if there is significant direct evidence from the author's work describing the theme and its importance. ORIGINAL THEMES DEVELOPED FROM THE LITERATURE MANAGING KNOWLEDGE AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL
IT-BASED KM
KNOWLEDGE MODELS, WORK & PROCESSES
SOCIAL VIEWS OF KNOWLEDGE
MANAGING INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
“NEXT GENERATION” KM EMPHASIS THEME A: FIRMS MUST TAKE A STRATEGIC FOCUS TO KM Firms must have specific strategies for Knowledge Management to realize the benefits THEME B: REDUCE THE ROLE OF IT The IT focus that has largely dominated the first generation, while it has had some success, has not brought the results hoped for by many. Successful KM strategies will have less emphasis on IT THEME C: DEVELOP MORE Useful KM MODELS Models and taxonomies of knowledge while useful in helping to understand the nature of knowledge in organizations do not show how to make effective use of knowledge. More relevant models are needed THEME D: INCREASE THE EMPHASIS ON CREATING NEW KNOWLEDGE While knowledge activities include the effective use of existing knowledge, it is more important to improve how new knowledge is acquired, particularly in terms of business innovation. THEME E: RECOGNISE THE COMPLEXITY OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Newer thinking recognizes greater complexity in the knowledge challenges facing organizations, and includes consideration of Knowledge Management in the context of complex adaptive systems. THEME F: RECOGNISE THE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE Important knowledge is often highly personal nature and efforts to institutionalise this knowledge without taking into account a variety of group and social issues. THEME G: INTELLECTUAL ASSET MANAGEMENT Since the primary reason that firms have market value above book value is the recognition of Intellectual Assets and these need to be explicitly managed
Other Authors’ Support
McElroy 2GKM
Snowden 3GKM
Sveiby Assets
Wiig NGKM
Strong
Strong
Moderate
Strong
Strong
Strong
Moderate
Moderate
Ponzi Miles
Moderate
Strong
Strong
Strong
Moderate
Moderate
Miles St Onge
Strong
Strong
Moderate
Moderate
Ponzi
Strong
Strong
Strong
Strong
Allee Miles St Onge
Strong
Moderate
St Onge Edvinsson
Moderate
Table 2-1: Key Themes for Knowledge Management
If the theme is directly mentioned by the author but not as a critical element of that author's theory it is described as moderate. These are presented as "Key Themes" for KM and could also be viewed as propositions to be tested to respond to specific research questions.
This framework was developed over a two year period and presented for critical review, first as a working paper at an EDAMBA doctoral colloquium in 2005, then as a peer-reviewed
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paper presented at a KM conference in 2007 and, finally, published in a journal paper (Grant and Grant, 2008). Modifications to the framework and related concepts were made after each of these reviews. These Themes are used to inform the fieldwork reported later in this thesis.
2.8
A CONTINUED DIVISION IN THE DISCOURSE: 2004-2012
Examination of the literature following the call for reinvention or a next-generation of Knowledge Management provides only very limited support for the solutions proposed by the “gurus”. Instead, many of the criticisms and concerns raised continue to be discussed and alternate solutions proposed for their resolution.
Several common concerns stand out and are discussed below.
2.8.1 Continued Definitional Challenges One of the characteristics of a “mature” field is that “controversies wane and reviews of the literature state matter of factly what is and is not known. One or two definitions of the construct become generally accepted and relatively few operationalisations or operationalisation procedures predominate”(Reichers and Schneider, 1990). This is emphatically not the situation within KM. This lack of consensus appears at several levels. 2.8.1.1
Are OL & IC Part of the KM Discipline?
As has been discussed earlier, the field of Knowledge Management has antecedents in organizational learning and the early work in intellectual capital and, while many authors with a KM focus take the view that the KM discipline encompasses these other fields, most authors writing more specifically in these fields tend to disagree, seeing KM as a separate discipline that has links with their own. For example, “Intellectual capital management and KM serve different purposes, while they have similarities. They differ from each other, but they also complement one another” (Zhou and Fink, 2003, p.39).
In some cases, authors argue for a closer relationship between their field and KM or even a possible merger. Firestone & McElroy (2004b, p.183) argue, “The implication of the evolution of KM just described is clear. KM and OL should join forces and develop a unified discipline. KM needs OL and its expanding body of good research work. OL needs the practitioner base of KM and its abiding interest in problems and practice.” Cavaleri (2004,
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p.175) suggests, “By all appearances, there is reason to believe that a convincing argument can be made that there is a sufficient philosophical basis to ground both OL and KM in shared ideology to their mutual benefit. Whether such an approach is feasible in other ways, such as appealing to practitioners and offering strong face value is another question.” A few authors even question whether their field should continue. For example Grieves argues that “the idea of the learning organization should be abandoned on the grounds that it was an imaginative idea that has now run its course.” (Grieves, 2008, p.463) 2.8.1.2
A Lack of Consensus on Core Definitions
A recurring theme when definitions are being discussed is the lack of consensus even on core definitions. Indeed, some authors argue that this is a good thing (e.g. “One opportunity with vague management ideas is that since they are not too precisely defined, they give space to dynamic thinking…as well as inspiration.” (Ortenblad, 2007)) or justify this with the argument that the field is still young and emerging (Guthrie et al., 2004, O’Donnell et al., 2006).
Table 2-2, below, shows examples of the concerns raised around key definitions in the field to demonstrate that this is a continuing refrain in the literature, right up to the present. This may be an appropriate argument for academic debate, but it does raise significant challenges for practitioners, who are looking for solutions and guidance on how to operationalise KM concepts.
2.8.2 A Critical Appraisal of the Usefulness of the field and a Quest for Relevance Publications in the IC/IP area, in particular, demonstrate continuing concern about the usefulness and impact of the field. Some examples of the concerns are shown in Table 2-3. A recurring theme in the primary specialist journal, the Journal of Intellectual Capital, continues to be questioning of the role of the IC discipline. Dumay (2009, p.498) points out that “a quick search of articles in the Journal of Intellectual Capital for 2008 show 12 papers where Skandia still gets a mention, even to the point of advocating and reiterating its ‘theory’ behind value creation where the evidence suggests that in the end this did not work for Skandia.”
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Area/Comment Knowledge “Different people from different cultures use different metaphors to conceptualize knowledge. They may be using the same word; however, this word can refer to totally different understandings of the concept of knowledge.” Although ‘‘knowledge’’ has emerged as a central theme in strategy and organizational research, there seems to be a lack of consensus as to what constitutes knowledge, where it resides, how it is, or should be, created. This is unsurprising: questions related to the essence of knowledge have intrigued and occupied most of those individuals currently heralded as the world’s greatest thinkers, from Plato to Popper. It is difficult to imagine how the efforts of organizational scientists, as earnest and informed as they may be, could have quickly settled such long-standing debates. Thus, despite advances in scholarly work, alternative thoughts exist as to what knowledge means. Knowledge Management Perhaps it is the vagueness of the definition of Knowledge Management that both allows it to flourish and dooms it to failure. Those in the know realize that Knowledge Management is different at every turn; it is continually changing and evolving. Although KM experts such as Davenport, Prusak, Stewart and Sveiby have developed the basic concept and ideas of KM since the late 1990s, the research stream of KM is still emerging. Perhaps to date there has been no study that clearly defines boundaries and frameworks of KM. Since KM involves almost every field of business, i.e. management theory, marketing, management information systems and so on, the proposed success factors are fragmented and diversified. …part of the reason for the confusion that surrounds KM is due to a lack of precision in terminology. This has exacerbated the poor understanding of KM practices in the broader business community. Consistent definitions of the building blocks of KM are lacking, and there is no real consensus on definitions that describe the activities that are required to transform information to knowledge, and then knowledge to innovation. Interestingly, while researchers and practitioners unanimously agree on the significance of knowledge, especially with regard to the need of organizations to continuously develop new knowledge to compete in the rapidly changing environment, there is no agreement among them with respect to the concepts and definitions related to knowledge and Knowledge Management Intellectual Capital
Author
“Many attempts have been made to classify IC and many experts in the field made it very clear that they do not believe that we need any more frameworks or classifications.” “The cross-disciplinary nature of the field means that different diverse backgrounds talk about IC. It often feels they are using the same terms but carry completely different meanings.” “Beyond their agreement that the benefits of IC are accrued over a long-term period, however, authors differ regarding the definition of IC” “Though the concept of intellectual capital (IC) has received much attention for more than a decade, there is a lack of consensus on its components and definitions. There is little agreement and much confusion regarding the definition of IC” There is, as yet, no currently accepted definition of intellectual capital; indeed, the notion of an essentialist definition of IC is strongly challenged in this issue. The field is very much at the emergent stage, and the focus to date has been primarily mainstream managerialist In analyzing the literature, many theorists have stated that the IC issue is very scattered and fragmented because a plethora of concepts, methods and tools have been proposed over the last ten years. With reference to the IC concept, as said, it is not well understood and rarely defined clearly. Organisation Learning/Learning Organization Despite this failure to include knowledge as an essential element in how the learning organization is defined, many in the organizational learning community would assent that knowledge is the natural product of learning, it is simply not its focus. In large part progress in developing an OL theory has been impeded by lack of agreement on the ontological and epistemological basis for such a theory. The overlapping nature of Knowledge Management (KM) and organisational learning (OL) makes it difficult to differentiate between their concepts.
(Marr and Chatzkel, 2004, p.226)
(Andriessen and van den Boom, 2007, p.641) (Assudani, 2005, p.41)
(Call, 2005, p.29) (Chong, 2006, p.233)
(Beesley and Cooper, 2008, p50) (Rai, 2011, p.795)
(Abeysekera, 2006, p62) (Huang et al., 2007, p.386) (O’Donnell et al., 2006, p.6) (Giuliani, 2009, p.247)
(Cavaleri, 2004, p.162) (Crossan et al., 2011, p.454) (Mishra and Bhaskar, 2011, p.345)
Table 2-2: Continued Definition Challenges
This is also true, to a somewhat lesser degree in the OL/LO area, particularly in response to the learning organization concept. In an editorial, Eijkman (2011, p.165) comments that “While there are the occasional more critically inclined papers, there appears to be a distinct tendency in TLO and in related literature, to ignore or go lightly on any thinking that may be construed as critical of ‘cherished’ concepts.”
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Area/Comment Knowledge Management ‘Everybody discusses Knowledge Management, but how can it be used and how can we successfully apply it?’’. This question from a company representative has its roots in a practical problem experienced by many organizations that are seeking to understand and deploy Knowledge Management (KM) for their business. The popularity of KM however, should not be seen as a measure of its success. In terms of improved performance, KM initiatives have met with mixed (if not limited) success (Malhotra, 2003), to the extent that many companies now avoid the use of the term ‘‘Knowledge Management’’, replacing it with ‘‘benchmarks’’, ‘‘best practice’’ (Call, 2005), or even replacing the word ‘‘knowledge’’ with ‘‘insights’’ to avoid getting caught up in the ‘‘hype’’ that surrounds the concept. The current debates on the epistemology of ‘‘knowledge’’ and ‘‘intellectual capital’’ are interesting but varied in quality, and for the most part lack a common understanding. …To some extent Marr et al. are right that what really matters is to develop the practical applications of Knowledge Management, as it is possible to live with some ambiguity Perhaps the most significant gap in the literature is the lack of large-scale empirical evidence that KM makes a difference to organizational performance Intellectual Capital Intellectual capital research has evolved primarily from the desires of practitioners (Bontis, 2002). At the same time, it has the ambition to be an academic discipline. The former requires relevance; the latter requires rigour. there is need to expand the dialogue between academics and practitioners. IC is at a crossroads – the espoused benefits of managing knowledge resources have often not been realised or recognised in practice A number of organisations have adopted IC management practices, lauded their benefits and then quietly withdrawn from them IC research has demonstrated considerable variation (Abeysekera, 2006; Canibano et al., 2000; Petty and Guthrie, 2000) but it has not lead on durable, evidence-based generic theories for IC p77
Author
Thus, the legitimacy of IC as a concept is threatened because in practice there is little empirical evidence to show that firms are using the concept of IC as a management technology to drive value creation in the new economy Organisation Learning/Learning Organization “Given this editorial overview spanning 15 years, it is reasonable and safe to say the following. First, that the LO as a prescription for organizational change “writ large” has little relevance to contemporary practitioners, consultants, and researchers…”
(Dumay, 2012, p.5)
“Despite the wide reach of the discipline, difficulty in implementing KM and OL practices within organisations persists.”
(Greiner et al., 2007, p.4) (Beesley and Cooper, 2008, p.50)
(Williams, 2008. p.72)
(Zack et al., 2009, p.393) (Andriessen, 2004, p.393) (Chatzkel, 2004, p.337) (Dumay, 2009, p.490 & p.494) (Vlismas and Venieris, 2011, p.77)
(Eijkman, 2011, p.169)
(Pun and NathaiBalkissoon, 2011, p.204)
Table 2-3: Failure to Impact Real World Practices
The KM Literature, in general, is much less self-critical. As Jashapara (2005, p.139) comments, “Even though the Knowledge Management discourse is over seven years old, there has been almost negligible criticism of the discourse.”
One area that stands out is a relative lack of work in the empirical (as opposed to the theoretical) identification of business justification to adopt KM practices. While early work (such as Gold et al., 2001) did establish some links between specific KM practices and aspects of organisational performance or business improvement, there is relatively limited recent work to demonstrate organisational impact. Zack et al., in an exploratory study to establish the evidence regarding the relationship between KM and organisational performance, reviewed 19 empirical studies to find that KM practices were “positively associated with organisational performance” and that KM practices were “directly related to intermediate
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measures of strategic organisational performance,” concluding, however, that, “Perhaps the most significant gap in the literature is the lack of large-scale empirical evidence that KM makes a difference to organizational performance” (Zack et al., 2009, p.398). In this context, it is interesting to compare Bontis’s (1998, p.69) early comment that, “Intellectual capital has been considered by many, defined by some, understood by a select few, and formally valued by practically no one,” to Spender’s 2006 reflection, some 8 years later, that, “The Knowledge Management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC) fields are clearly of many parts, and are frequently marked, as the wags have it, by much heat but little light. We still find little empirical support for their promoters’ enthusiasms” (Spender, 2006, p.12).
Though the concept of intellectual capital/property (IP/IC) has received much attention for more than a decade, there is a lack of consensus on its components and definitions. There is little agreement and much confusion regarding the definition of IP/IC (Huang et al., 2007, p.386): “Different researchers on IC agree that knowledge is the aspect which generates current sustainable competitive advantage; however, there is no such clarity between the theoretical perspective and its practical application” (Chatzkel, 2006, p.568) Despite some attempts to make KM a more practical discipline, there appears to be an increased separation between key practitioners (and organizations in general) and researchers in the field. This is of particular concern in what many consider to be an applied discipline that derived from industry rather than from academe. Practitioners’ involvement in research has fallen, their contributions to the publications in the field have dropped from about a third in the early years to about 10% by 2008 (Serenko et al., 2010).
For some researchers, the problem may be not the academic body of knowledge but the failure of practitioners to properly understand and adopt KM as it “should” be practiced, whether through failure to understand, unwillingness to come to grips with complexity or adopting a pick and choose convenience approach in implementing KM (Firestone and McElroy, 2005, Gorelick and Tantawy-Monsou, 2005, Marr, 2005, Ortenblad, 2007).
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2.8.3 Processes versus Assets Within KM papers, the emphasis is frequently on defining, establishing or improving knowledge processes, whether for knowledge creation or knowledge sharing. Although frequent mention is made of knowledge storage, these are seldom described as intellectual capital or assets. Lucas and Ogilvie (2006) see two distinct schools of thought for KM, one looking at KM as a resource management challenge, the other seeing it as a social one.
Most IP/IC papers are silent on knowledge processes, with the most significant effort being placed on policies and techniques for intellectual asset measurement and reporting. (Indeed, almost a third of all papers in the Journal of Intellectual Capital are devoted to these issues.)
2.8.4 The Usefulness of Models During this period, there has been quite limited effort to create new models in the field, although modifications to existing models are frequently discussed.
The most frequently referenced model is that of tacit versus explicit knowledge, usually citing Polanyi and/or Nonaka. More specifically, although mentioned somewhat less frequently, Nonaka’s SECI model has some visibility. The DIKW model is also frequently referenced, with occasional efforts to refine its structure. Within the IC field, there is frequent reference to the “triple model” of IC -- (Saint-Onge, 1996, Stewart, 1997b, Sveiby, 1997), as well as efforts to expand and modify that model. It is sometimes presented as a five-element model of human capital, social capital, structural capital, organisational capital and client and network capital (see, for example, Swart, 2006, p.143).
2.8.5 Limited Adoption of the “Guru’s” Proposals for NGKM and Their Own Personal Reinvention Relatively few authors in this period have picked up on the calls for a next generation, as laid down by Snowden, McElroy, Sveiby and Wiig. Where reference is made to their work, most frequently it is either to complexity and chaos, or to McElroy’s work on next-generation processes. These authors continue to be amongst the most cited in the field, but the citations are generally to their earlier work in the 1990s. (Ma and Yu, 2010, p.179).
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In more general terms, a few authors have indicated some generational or “next stage” observations. For example, the guest editorial and commentary in a special edition of the Journal of Intellectual Capital in 2004, suggested that “the field of intellectual capital seems to be transitioning to its next stage,” moving from creating awareness to demonstrating the practical relevance of intellectual capital as a useful discipline for organisations (Marr and Chatzkel, 2004, Chatzkel, 2004). Chatzel (2006, p.568) sees IC as entering “the vanguard of the third stage, which can be called the ‘implementation’ stage. In a sense, IC has succeeded in making its case. This current era involves efforts not only to describe IC, but to use it as a framework to both understand value and manage it for strategic outcomes.”
While a few authors have discussed the usefulness of using chaos theory and complex adaptive systems to help better understand KM, this has not been a significant theme in the literature. Somewhat ironically, given the NGKM arguments against an overfocus on IT, references to next generation KM, often relate to next generations of KMS.
It is also noticeable that, in the years following their calls for a next generation of KM, several of the gurus have reinvented themselves again – or at least changed their focus. For example, Karl Wiig has argued for a societal perspective on knowledge (for example, at the national or city level) (Wiig, 2007).
2.8.6 The Need for a KM Strategy A number of authors continue to search for improved approaches to KM strategy, offering a variety of approaches. Table 2-4 summarises the approaches suggested, identifying the key elements for each approach.
One topic that has received some interest recently is that of KM governance structures. Table 2-5 summarises the papers addressing approaches to governance.
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Author (Haggie and Kingston, 2003)
Approach Suggested Process to select a KM strategy
Key Elements Strategy, business sector characteristics, and SWOT, values, org. structure and culture, nature of knowledge Two alternate main strategies -knowledge markets vs knowledge communities Builds on Hansen et al.
Notes A review of KM strategy papers from 1993 to 2001
(Garavelli et al., 2004)
8-Point Star Model
(Scheepers et al., 2004) (Wenger, 2004)
Evolve KM strategies over time to reflect experiences Strategic stewardship of knowledge Executive sponsorship
Knowledge should be managed/captured by practitioners, through communities of practice
Improve practices through capturing learning from experience Recognise contributions Organizations need a practical, yet theoretically reliable, knowledge strategy model Link KM to business objectives and strategy
(Halawi et al., 2006)
Builds on RBV
(Dufour and Steane, 2007)
No one approach fits
(Greiner et al., 2007)
Link KM strategy and business strategy
(Saito et al., 2007)
Link business strategy to KM strategy
(Swain and Ekionea, 2008)
Align KM to business strategy, using Miles & Snow typology
(Palte et al., 2011)
Link KM Strategy to Business Strategy
Comprehensive KM Architecture framework
(Donate and Canales, 2012)
The approach to key and strategy should be contingent one linked to the firms specific situation and strategic objectives
KM Profile: concept, objectives, storage, distribution, protection, culture, HR
Reviews 4 strategic approaches -Classical, Contingency, Behavioural and Political Uses a 2 x 2 innovation/ efficiency and codification/ personalization) matrix to choose strategy Three choices for strategy: approach to KM, as a knowledge strategy, as KM implementation strategy Focus on efficiency, flexibility and comprehensibility
A variant on Hanson Link to IT for KM
KM processes key, IT important, little on tacit knowledge Field work suggests 4 models (proactive, moderate, passive, inconsistent)
Table 2-4: Approaches to KM Strategy Author (Firestone and McElroy, 2004a) (Schroeder and Pauleen, 2007) (Kannabiran and Pandyan, 2010)
Approach Suggested Adopt a governance based model
Key Elements KM should be a board-level responsibility, not an executive one
Notes KM as fiduciary responsibility
Need to balance strong central leadership with specific KM initiatives
Consider examples of IT governance models
Early case study
Adopt a federal governance approach
CKO as top executive reporting to CEO
(Schroeder et al., 2012)
Choice of governance structure depends on nature of organisation
(Zyngier and Burstein, 2012)
Link governance approach to corporate governance model to achieve benefits
Establish a KM Council to oversee the knowledge organization with business units having responsibility for implementation Structure includes: Distribution of authority, KM governance groups, reporting levels, form of KM units. Need governance processes and relationship mechanisms Understand role of KM, align KM with business value propositions, establish policies, decision-making and delegated authority, risk management
Compares to IT governance mechanisms and typologies
Included benefits evaluation
Table 2-5: Approaches to KM Governance
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2.8.7 The KM Discipline One issue that emerges frequently in consideration of KM is its positioning as a discipline. KM can be argued to draw on a number of different disciplines, one of the contributing reasons for the lack of focus on definitional issues discussed in this section. While the KM community considers it to be a discrete discipline, it is not clear that this is well recognized outside of the community and a number of others have raised this as a concern. Jennex and Croasdell (2007) address this question using Kuhn’s (1996) criteria for defining a discipline and argue that it meets all of Kuhn’s conditions. Saito considers this further and suggests that KM is becoming an established discipline, however its scope may be narrowing, with more interest from the information systems and library science fields and less from strategy and organisation studies (Saito, 2007).
2.9
A BIBLIOMETRIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF KM AND ITS THEMES
In this section, bibliometric discourse life cycle analysis is used to examine the literature on Knowledge Management. Two sets of analysis are presented, each of which examines the KM Themes developed earlier in this chapter.
First, a bibliographic analysis is carried out using the online ProQuest Research Library Complete, which provides abstracts, indexing and full text for more than 1,800 titles from academic journals, popular magazines, business publications and newspapers, and allows a separation of sources.
Second, a content analysis study is carried out on the abstracts of all papers published in the five most highly rated KM-related journals since the inception of each to the end of 2011, a total of some 2176 papers, using the Crawdad Text Analysis Software tool.
2.9.1 The Bibliographic Analysis The following methodology was used to conduct this analysis: 1. All searches were done using ProQuest Research Library Complete. 2. A time period of 20 years, from 1990 to 2009, was chosen for the analysis. Prior to 1990, there were very few references to KM.
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3. The final data collection for this analysis was done during a one-week period in April 2010. 4. For each year, the following counts were established: All:
The total number of references from any source (this includes several other sources in addition to the three specific categories described below and plotted on the graph). Scholarly: The total number of documents from scholarly journals as well as all dissertations. Industry: The total from magazines, trade publications and industry reports. Newspapers: The total number of general newspaper articles related to the field. Other Any other source. 5. Searches were carried out on the term “Knowledge Management” and on related terms derived from an initial review of the literature. To ensure consistency of analysis, each search was done using an identical set of databases and the search was limited to citations and abstracts. 6. The results for each set of searches were plotted on graphs showing levels of interest over time. This work has also been presented more fully in Grant (2011) . 2.9.1.1
Knowledge Management
Figure 2-12 shows the results of a search for the term "Knowledge Management" on the ProQuest online database in April 2010, producing some 26,000 citations. (To set this in context, similar searches for “business process reengineering” and “quality circles” produced 9,336 and 2,361 citations, respectively.)
Visual inspection of the graph presented suggests that a period of latency continued to about 1995, followed by a rapid growth from 1995 to 2001 and then a decade of consistent interest at about 2,000 citations per year.
(Note: The plot shows a spike in the trade publications in 2008. This is due solely to the inclusion in that year in the ProQuest databases of a set of electronic journals published by NewsRx/ Vertical News of Atlanta. These do not represent any significant increase in the discourse and consist largely of multiple listings of industry announcements. A similar spike will be seen in some other graphs presented later in this Chapter.)
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Figure 2-12: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "Knowledge Management"
The graph plots suggest that popular interest, as demonstrated by newspaper articles, peaked in 2001 and has since declined. Discourse within industry sources initially exceeded that from academics. However, industry interest has plateaued since about 1999, at about 500 citations per year, while academic interest rose steadily until 2006, after which it has also plateaued at almost 1,000 citations per year. This is consistent with Abrahamson and Fairchild’s (1999) description of the management fashion cycle, but with no evidence of any decline. When comparing this with the cycles developed for other management fads and fashions (such as quality circles and business process re-engineering) this indicates a significantly longer period of popularity within the discourse analysis than has been evident for most of these other innovations.
However, the field of Knowledge Management can be viewed from a number of different perspectives, each with its own terminology, as evidenced by the KM Themes developed earlier in this Chapter. The next stage of the bibliometric analysis examines a number of
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topics within the KM field to determine whether the patterns identified in the overall analysis are consistent or whether there are significant differences in different subject areas. 2.9.1.2
Intellectual Capital or Assets
Figure 2-13 shows the bibliographic discourse analysis from 1990 to 2009, using the search term “‘intellectual capital’ or ‘intellectual assets’”. Inspection of the graph shows the same rapid rise demonstrated for the term “Knowledge Management” but with a slightly earlier emergence of the theme, reaching a steady state by about 2000 at about 600 citations per year. Examination of the individual categories indicates that, over the last decade, while there has been a steady increase in discourse within the academic community, peaking in about 2004 at some 150-160 citations per year, industry discourse peaked earlier, by 1998, then declined slightly to a steady state thereafter, at about 100 citations per year. Newspaper citations show a slightly more varied pattern, in the 100-160 range, over the last 10 years. This is the only plot that shows a continued high level of interest in the term in newspapers.
Figure 2-13: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "'Intellectual Capital' or 'Intellectual Asset'"
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Overall, quite similar levels of sustained interest are shown by academe, industry and the press –quite different from the results in the other areas studied. In the context of management fashion, the notion of intellectual capital or assets can be seen as an attractive concept for management. By allying KM with more traditional concepts related to financial statements and measurement, it provides a rational framework, using familiar words and concepts. Less clear, is the degree to which its proponents and practitioners see this as a formal systemic measurement tool to be rigourously applied (as in financial accounting) or as a more ambiguous framework to allow the recognition of a discussion about the organisation's knowledge or intangible asset base. In addition, it encourages a view of knowledge as an object rather than something more personal. To the degree that it focuses attention on the identification and accounting for intellectual efforts, it may even prove to be a barrier to innovation and the creation of new knowledge. 2.9.1.3
Social and Personal Aspects of KM
In Figures 2-14 and 2-15, the results of two bibliographic searches are presented.
Figure 2-14: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Organisational Learning' or 'Organizational Learning'"
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Figure 2-15: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Term "Communities of Practice"
The first shows the results of a search for “Organisational Learning” (using both the British and US spelling) and the second looks at “Communities of Practice” -- these represent concepts that occur frequently in this Theme. The plot for organizational learning shows a steady growth in interest from 1990 to about 2003, after which it remains at a steady state of around 700 references per year.
In contrast, the plot for “communities of practice” discourse shows a period of latency until about 1997, followed by fast growth till 2007, when it demonstrates a possible plateau at about 240 references per year (as explained earlier, the spike in 2008 should be ignored).
Of particular notice in both plots is the very high level of discourse in academic sources when compared to industry or press interest. 2.9.1.4
Knowledge Work and Workers
Figure 2-16 shows a bibliographic analysis, using the search terms of “‘Knowledge Management’ and ‘work” or “worker’”. This demonstrates a very limited level of interest,
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with a period of latency until 1996, followed by a very rapid growth until 1999, reaching a fairly steady state discourse at a low citation level of about 60 per year.
Both the academic and industry discourse shows a sustained period of growth before flattening out in the mid-to-late 2000s, with the academic citations reaching a somewhat higher level.
Figure 2-16: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Knowledge Work' or 'Knowledge Workers'” 2.9.1.5
Knowledge Management Models
Figure 2-17 shows a bibliographic analysis, using the search terms of “‘Knowledge Management’ and ‘model’”.
Overall, a period of latency until 1997 is followed by a rapid growth until 2006, after which, interest seems to plateau at just over 300 citations per year, with almost all of the growth and discourse taking place in academic journals. Industry discourse and press discourse show relatively little interest in KM models.
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Figure 2-17: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Knowledge Models'" 2.9.1.6
Knowledge Work and Process
Figure 2-18 shows a bibliographic analysis, using the search terms of ‘“Knowledge Management’ and ‘process’”.
Overall, a period of latency until 1997 is followed by a very rapid growth till 2001, followed by a steady state at about 500-600 citations per year. Academic discourse shows a sustained period of growth before flattening out in 2006, while industry discourse flattens out at a lower level by 2002.
To some degree, this interest in knowledge processes might be seen as a continuation of the focus on business processes initiated in the BPR fashion of the 1990s, going beyond the cost reduction process work that characterized much of that activity.
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Figure 2-18: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Process'” 2.9.1.7
Knowledge Work and IT
Figure 2-19 shows the bibliographic analysis, using the search terms of “‘Knowledge Management’ and ‘information technology’ or ‘system’”.
A period of latency until 1997 is followed by a very rapid growth in two years, followed by a steady state at about 800 citations per year (ignoring the 2008 spike, as before). Fairly similar levels of interest exist in academic and business sources, although the academic discourse shows a longer period of growth before flattening out in 2008, while industry citations demonstrate a plateau by 1999. This significant focus on IT within KM can be seen as a bringing together of several factors already discussed. The dramatically increasing capabilities of IT during the growth period proved attractive to organizations that saw knowledge as tangible objects to be stored and retrieved, which created a dominant perspective of the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge, often based on a naïve interpretation of Nonaka’s SECI model.
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Figure 2-19: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Information Technology' or 'System'" 2.9.1.8
Knowledge Management Strategies
Figure 2-20 shows a bibliographic analysis using the terms “Knowledge Management” and “strategy”.
A period of latency is visible until about 1996, followed by a rapid growth over about five years, peaking at about citations per year in 2002, then settling at a level of about 250 citations per year. The plots show a steady level of industry discourse from about 1999 but continued growth in academic discourse until about 2005, reaching about double the rate of industry citations, at about 150 per year.
There is some evidence of a change in focus, with some anecdotal evidence suggesting that the CKO role is changing, or in some cases disappearing, and that many organizations are still not clear as to the most appropriate strategic approach for Knowledge Management.
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Figure 2-20: A Bibliographic Analysis 1990-2009, Search Terms "'Knowledge Management' and 'Strategy'"
2.9.2 Content Analysis of the Most Significant KM Journals To further test the discourse on the study themes, a content analysis study was carried out on the abstracts of all papers -some 2,176- published in the five most highly rated KM-related journals since the inception of each to mid-2010: The Learning Organization (established 1994) -- 419 abstracts Journal of Knowledge Management (est. 1997) -- 676 abstracts Knowledge and Process Management (est. 1997) -- 340 abstracts Journal of Intellectual Capital (est. 2000) -- 482 abstracts Knowledge Management Research and Practice (est. 2003) -- 259 abstracts The tool used was Crawdad Desktop 2.0 Text Analysis Software, which allows the analysis of large qualitative datasets of textual material, using natural language processing techniques, to examine word influence and clustering, including developing visual displays to show ontological relationships. It examines measures of influence of words and phrases in texts using Centering Resonance Analysis (CRA). “CRA uses linguistic analysis to identify
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important words in utterances and to link these into a network. Important words are those making up noun phrases, which are potential centers in the utterance” (Corman et al., 2002, p.172).
CRA first categorizes texts in terms of a pattern of connections among words by parsing a text into its component noun phrases, converting the word sequences into networks of relationships among words (or nodes), and analysing the network of word associations to determine the relative influence of each word. Additional information on CRAWDAD is provided in Appendix A.
The analysis used the following process: 1.
The abstracts from every issue of each of the five journals were combined in a single text document for each journal.
2.
All general and format specific elements were removed (Journal title, date, and volume number, issue number, page number, etc).
3.
Composite terms, such as “Knowledge Management” and “intellectual capital” were identified for input to the system (this feature allows both composite and similar terms to be clustered as one, so, for example, “Knowledge Management” and “KM” were treated as a single term).
4.
The abstract sets were analysed as follows: a. For each journal individually b. For all journals combined c. By time periods (up to 2000, 2001-2005, 2005-2010)
5.
Analyses were then carried out, using CRAWDAD's visualisation and influential word and word-pair tools.
Figure 2-21 presents a visualization that shows the most influential nodes and their interconnections within the text of the five journals. This is, in essence, a concept map, with the relationships being developed by automated text analysis rather than by the analyst’s own interpretations. In general, the words located toward the top of the map are the most influential. Inspection of the map shows a close correlation to the Themes developed in the initial literature analysis, except for the absence of “strategy” (though “management” and “business” are present), thus providing a validation that the Themes chosen reflect dominant discussions within the academic KM literature. When the individual journals are analysed, some differences are apparent.
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Figure 2-21: The Most Influential Words in the Five Highest-Rated Knowledge Management Journals 1992-2010
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However the differences between the journals can best be demonstrated through the examination of the influential words within each text and this is presented in Table 2-6.
Rank
All Journals
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Journal of Knowledge Management
Knowledge and Process Management
Knowledge Management Research and Practice
The Learning Organization
1
knowledge
intellectualcapital
knowledge
knowledge
knowledge
organisation
2
knowledgemanagement
companies/firms
knowledgemanagement
process
knowledgemanagement
learning
3
organisation
knowledge
organisation
knowledgemanagement
organisation
organisational
4
companies/firms
intangible
frameworks/models
organisation
companies/firms
knowledge
5
frameworks/models
value
companies/firms
companies/firms
frameworks/models
frameworks/models
6
intellectualcapital
management
management
business
process
management
7
learning
capital
process
frameworks/models
organisational
companies/firms
8
process
frameworks/models
organisational
management
info/sys
change
9
management
organisation
development
info/sys
management
development
10
organisational
analysis
info/sys
organisational
social
process
11
business
asset
technology
development
new
business
12
development
performance
analysis
project
development
action
13
info/sys
business
business
community
practice
new
14
analysis
financial
innovation
new
theory
concept
15 16
framework analysis
development relationship
information role
analysis industry
community different
practice knowledgemanagement
17
new
industry
industry
technology
intellectualcapital
analysis
18
performance
new
performance
service
information
info/sys
19
value
innovation
new
role
learning
relationship
20
industry
information
practice
strategy
communication
performance
21
practice
human
concept
information
work
manager
22
technology
process
strategy
activity
literature
individual
23
information
measurement
network
innovation
factor
work
24
innovation
disclosure
learning
culture
analysis
role
25
relationship
empirical
social
change
business
project
26
role
method
community
use
perspective
employee
27
strategy
sector
article
context
use
theory
28
concept
strategy
work
practice
role
strategy
29
project
result
different
application
sharing
social
30
social
different
perspective
manager
context
culture
31
community
manager
purpose
relationship
concept
leadership
Table 2-6: The Most Influential Words in Each of the Five Journals
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This shows the influence ranking of the key words/phrases. According to the analysis tool, all of these words are considered to be significant, with those in italics being considered very significant. Of the 31 words identified in the cross-journal analysis, between 17 and 27 appear in each of the individual journals. The largest difference is within the Journal of Intellectual Capital, where 14 words that ranked within the journal do not appear in the composite analysis. Closer examination shows that the majority of these relate to financial accounting and asset valuation activities (the most significant being intangible, capital, asset, measurement, financial and disclosure). The most notable omission in this journal is the term “Knowledge Management” which is not recognized as being of statistical influence. The Learning Organisation has nine words that do not appear in the composite ranking (the most significant being change, action, action, individual, work, employee and culture).
Journal of Knowledge Management and Knowledge and Process Management, in contrast, do not contain significant references to intellectual capital or assets, financial measures in general, and terms such as culture, social, individual, work and relationship have very low or no significance. Knowledge Management, Research and Practice has 10 words that do not appear in the composite list. In some cases, these do appear in individual journals’ lists (for example social, work, sharing) and others are related directly to its research focus (such as theory and literature).
As might be expected, the most significant (highest-ranking) words in each journal have a close correspondence to the title of that journal. However, the more detailed analysis indicates a significantly different level of discourse in each journal, with a distinct separation as to whether or not “Knowledge Management” is seen as the relevant discipline.
This analysis provides some support to the suggestion that, while the fields of intellectual capital and organisational learning are related to KM, the academic work in each of these areas is a discrete body separate from that of KM, using its own vocabulary and concepts. Since, from a practitioner perspective, the field of KM is generally seen as a single area, this may have significant impact on the diffusion of the related concepts and their adoption.
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2.10 THE CURRENT SITUATION 2.10.1 Summing Up the Current Discourse on KM In the previous section, a bibliometric discourse analysis of the key concepts of Knowledge Management was presented in a series of graphs. From the literature review, inspection of the citations examined, analysis of the graphs and the table, and the word influence analysis presented in the previous section, the following conclusions can be drawn in applying management fashion theory to the discipline of Knowledge Management: With the possible exception of “organizational learning”, every one of the topics analysed demonstrates a latency period followed by a rapid growth in popularity, consistent with the concept of a management fad or fashion. None of the topics analysed demonstrates any decline, with most showing consistent interest or increases in the discourse, thus providing no evidence of a fashion decline. In each topic, the early growth in discourse takes place in industry and the popular press, with academic discourse initially lagging and then increasing to pass the discourse rates of the other communities. For the three most frequently occurring topics (Knowledge Management, KM and IT and Intellectual Capital), overall levels of discourse in academe and industry are quite similar. For the other six topics, much more discourse took place within academe than in industry. With the single exception of Intellectual Capital, popular press interest in the topics is fleeting, typically lasting no more than two or three years, peaking in 1999/2000 and then declining to very low levels. There is a significant variation in the terminology used within the highest ranked journals representing three of the major Themes -- Knowledge Management, intellectual capital/assets and organizational learning. For each of the Themes, there is strong evidence of the influence of management fashion setters, including hero-manager gurus and consultant gurus. The results for 2008 and 2009 need to be considered carefully. As has been explained earlier, the significant spike in interest within industry sources visible in 2008 for every topic, except for organisational learning, is due a new addition of a specific set of industry journals and it did not indicate any increase in discourse. For 2009, although a slight decline is visible in some plots, bibliographic reviews might be expected to under-report the most recent year since many publications restrict online access to the most current volumes.
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A summary of the citations analysed by type is shown in Table 2-8, ranked by level of citation interest. ALL #
ACADEMIC #
%
INDUSTRY #
%
NEWSPAPERS #
%
OTHER #
DIFFUSION SUMMARY
%
Knowledge Management
25573
7869
31%
7524
29%
1615
6%
8565
33%
KM & Information Technology/Systems
10127
3177
31%
2851
28%
441
4%
3658
36%
Intellectual Capital/Assets
7793
1569
20%
1848
24%
1988
26%
2388
31%
Organisational Learning
8384
6506
78%
1705
20%
155
2%
18
0%
KM Processes
6258
2835
45%
1295
21%
157
3%
1971
31%
KM & Strategy
3218
1245
39%
795
25%
134
4%
1044
32%
KM Models
2755
1932
70%
391
14%
45
2%
387
14%
Communities of Practice
1993
1480
74%
364
18%
67
3%
82
4%
Knowledge Work(ers)
637
330
52%
196
31%
17
3%
94
15%
Latency period, rapid growth, steady level for last 10 years, similar interest in academic and industry discourse, limited newspaper interest Latency period till 1996, then rapid growth over 3 years, followed by steady state for academic and industry discourse at quite similar levels Latency period, initially rapid then steady growth over 15 years, steady and similar levels of academic, industry and newspaper discourse Limited latency period, rapid growth over 10 years, then steady level of growth, dominant discourse is academic, much lower levels of industry and newspaper discourse Latency period till 1996, then rapid growth over 5 years, followed by steady growth of academic and flat industry discourse Latency period till 1996, then rapid growth over 3 years, followed by fairly steady growth for academic and flatter industry discourse Latency period till 1997, then steady growth over 11 year period, with almost all discourse in academe Latency period, steady growth over 10 years, dominant discourse is academic, much lower levels of industry and newspaper discourse Latency period till 1996, then rapid growth over 3 years, followed by steady growth for academic and slightly flatter industry discourse, but at similar levels of interest
Table 2-8: Summary of Bibliometric Discourse Analysis
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When this analysis is considered, in conjunction with the critical assessment presented at the end of the growth phase and the claims by several of the original KM management fashion setters that a Next Generation of KM is needed, it is reasonable to conclude that there is a significant opportunity for further examination of the actual diffusion of the concepts in practice. This discourse analysis demonstrates a significant and consistent shift, with increasing levels of interest by academics not being matched by writers publishing in industry sources. In addition, although the field of KM was distinctive for the significant early involvement of practitioners as trendsetters, an extensive recent examination of the discourse life cycle of the body of academic literature in KM/IC from 1994 to 2008 (Serenko et al., 2010) described a very significant shift in authorship. In the early years of KM, nonacademics constituted one-third of all authors. However, …by 2008, practitioners’ contributions dropped to only ten percent of all KM/IC authors. Pragmatic field studies and experiments, which require an active cooperation of businesses and the involvement of practitioners, constitute only 0.33 percent of all inquiry methods. There has also been a decline in case studies. (p.17) In addition, Serenko et al. also report that as “the number of research-oriented practitioners has been declining, so has the number of non-academic readers.” The authors suggest that this move away from practice to theory creates a communication gap between researchers and practitioners that makes it difficult for KM/IC scholarly research to be “transformed into practical managerial approaches and organisational practices” (ibid, p.19).
This increasing divide reflects the debate between Mode 1 and Mode 2 research. As Starkey and Madan (2001, p.3) suggest, "Business is increasingly concerned with relevance, while business and management researchers in universities cling to a different view of knowledge." Traditional Mode 1 research is often within a single discipline (consider the findings presented above for organizational learning and communities of practice) whereas Mode 2 research tends to be more heterogeneous, with a more direct interaction between research and practice, thus it might be argued to have a good fit to the multidisciplinary field of KM. Worrall (2008) points out that management fads often seemed to have more impact on management actions than the output mainstream academic researchers and that there is a need to close the “relevance gap” by using “pragmatic” approaches, focusing on problem-
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solving and practical wisdom rather than the pursuit of pure knowledge (perhaps techne vs episteme).
2.10.2 The Continued Strategic Challenge Despite 15 years or so of examination, there is no consistent view of strategic approaches for KM. A number of alternative approaches for KM strategy have been proposed with quite varied suggestions. These include: Managing Knowledge as an Asset (Stewart, 1997a, Edvinsson and Malone, 1997, Sveiby, 2001b). This is a long-established approach, addressing the multifaceted dimensions of human, structural, customer, relational and social capital (Choo and Bontis, 2002) Managing knowledge comprehensively, including dimensions of intellectual capital, knowledge processes and IT (Towe et al., 1997) Choosing between a codification or a personalization strategy (Hansen et al., 1999). This somewhat simplistic choice is still frequently referenced in the literature as an important strategic dimension Choosing between knowledge markets or knowledge communities (i.e. both individuals and the firm acting as knowledge sellers and buyers vs a collaborative model of knowledge sharing) (Garavelli et al., 2004) An organizational ecology approach, combining principles of Knowledge Management with ideas from ecological design and spatial planning to create environments in which knowledge can be successfully created and shared (Becker, 2007) Creating an innovation-focused organization based on knowledge (Miles et al., 2009). Increasingly, knowledge strategies are linked to innovation strategies
Adopting a governance-based approach (Schroeder et al., 2012, Zyngier and Burstein, 2012).
In classifying approaches to KM strategy, Earl (2001) developed a taxonomy of seven different strategic approaches in three categories and Haggie & Kingston (2003) found that “some strategies focus on the knowledge, others on the business processes/areas, and others on the end results”, recommending the use of a “KM Spectrum” including all of these elements, derived from Binney (2001).
Researchers in other areas within the KM field were also raising questions about successes to date, and directions for the future. Examples include:
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An effort to show how key ideas in the various sub-disciplines of KM and Organisational Learning have evolved and interconnect, identifying early dominant contributors and arguing that “the different sub-areas of the field are at different levels of maturity” and evolving at different rates (Easterby-Smith and Lyles, 2003b) thus leading to different areas for future research (Lyles and Easterby-Smith, 2003). A complete issue of the Journal of Intellectual Capital that suggested that of Intellectual Capital research was at a crossroads and examined future directions for the measurement and management of IC (Marr and Chatzkel, 2004) and arguing for the need “to expand the dialogue between academic and practitioners”. In 2005, MIS Quarterly devoted a special edition in 2 volumes on the links between IT and KM examining challenges in knowledge coordination and transfer, content credibility, learning processes and benefits identification. In one paper, Tanriverdi (2005), found that “reviews of the IS literature do not identify any study that establishes a link from IT to KM capability, or from KM capability to financial firm performance” “despite a widespread belief that IT enables KM and KM improves firm performance”. He investigated the role of KM in large firms and determined that KM can be a positive intermediary between a firm’s IT capabilities and its corporate performance. An argument to extend Knowledge Management into a newer field of Social Capital, new forms of innovation, “which make it possible for social systems to solve problems, learn, and adapt”(McElroy et al., 2006). An examination of the “interplay of community and technology” and how technology enables “communities of practice…where the learning component is central” (Wenger et al., 2009). As these examples suggest, there is still a significant diversity of views as to appropriate approaches to Knowledge Management strategies. Additional fieldwork to investigate actual practice will be a significant contribution to the discipline of Knowledge Management.
2.11 DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS The focus of this chapter so far has been an examination of the evolution of the KM-focused discourse and key related concepts, including the consideration of fads, enduring fashions and reinvention. The discourse analysis has indicated that: While the bibliometric discourse demonstrates the existence of a latency period followed by a period of rapid growth and continued interest, there is, as yet, no evidence of the decline normally expected of a fad or transient management fashion. A number of key fashion setters, individuals who had a significant influence over the initial growth of the KM field recommended the adoption of a Next Generation of KM -- in management fashion terms, a re-invention. This call has not seen significant response within academic literature.
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Despite this continuing and diverse discourse, there has been limited fieldwork looking at the diffusion of these concepts. There is still uncertainty as to the appropriate strategic approaches for success in KM. Industry executives and practitioners are still looking for answers. What is missing from many of the studies of management fashion, including two earlier studies that examined KM (with data ending in 1998 and 2004, respectively), is any in-depth diffusion analysis. Only five studies were located that examine diffusion in any management fashion, with four of these using (often limited) secondary data and just one carrying out any primary research on diffusion.
Thus, an appropriate focus for this research is the investigation of the actual diffusion of the various management innovations that have been proposed as KM, to determine whether KM continues to be a key issue in the field and which elements of the KM discourse are visible in the actual diffusion of KM strategies of organisations. The Themes developed in this chapter, including the work of the four opinion leaders presented earlier as a coherent set of arguments for “Next Generation” KM, can provide a framework to test the diffusion of Knowledge Management innovations in the field.
Such an investigation requires access to organizations capable of demonstrating a richness of Knowledge Management needs. One type of organization, perhaps uniquely qualified to be such a testbed, is the Professional Services Firm (PSF). Management fashion theory claims that such firms are amongst the key fashion setters for immigration, and professional services firms are also an archetype for knowledge-intensive organizations. Thus, even if a NGKM is not visible in the wider discourse, KIFs/PSFs would be very suitable organisations to test for its presence.
Thus the proposed primary research questions are: To what degree do the Knowledge Management strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that Knowledge Management is a sustainable business innovation and not a fad or transient management fashion.
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To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that a “next” generation of Knowledge Management is in place or is being implemented? The primary purpose of this study is to use a Management Fashion lens to provide new insights into KM strategy, both for PSFs and for other organisations for which KM is seen as a strategic need. Given the target organisations, the following subsidiary research questions will also be addressed: To what degree do PSFs demonstrate an explicit or implicit recognition of the role of knowledge in their businesses and how is this incorporated in their business strategies and cultures? How do professionals and other staff in PSFs talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management? Is there a consistent or coherent discourse about knowledge in PSFs and does this discourse correspond to that taking place more generally in the KM field? Are there differences in the Knowledge Management Strategies in place in different types of PSF? Does Management Fashion Theory provide a suitable framework to examine KM diffusion in PSFs? To conclude this chapter, the next section describes the particular characteristics of professional services firms, including their special role in management fashion setting, and discusses the importance of knowledge and Knowledge Management within such organizations.
2.12 STUDYING KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS 2.12.1 The Prominent Role of the Consultant in Management Fashion Theory In discussing the diffusion of innovative management techniques, Abramson emphasizes that “management discourse matters because it shapes the diffusion of management techniques,” and that it also “draws attention to the knowledge entrepreneurs who produce such discourse – management consultants, for example – and to their interests and disseminating discourse promoting certain management techniques in order to trigger the diffusion” (Abrahamson, 1996, p.708). In Institutional Theory, consultants are described as
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institutional agents, capable of having significant influence over the adoption of management innovations with coercive, mimetic and normative influences (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, Scott, 2001).
Abramson also describes the importance of rhetoric -- "widely spoken and written discourses justifying the use of families of related techniques," and this rhetoric contains “labels that denote particular management techniques and specify important organisational goals and the means of attaining them most efficiently by using these techniques". This rhetoric can emerge from exogenous influences (consider, for example, political moves to change banking regulation after the 2008/9 recession) or endogenous sources, where “knowledge entrepreneurs repeatedly refill existing niches with purportedly new and improved management techniques”. These knowledge entrepreneurs, also described as “fashion setting organizations” (Abrahamson, 1991) are seen as key to the creation and early adoption of new management innovations.
A number of researchers have attempted to define the role of these fashion-setting organizations. Each of the following role definitions gives the field of consulting a prominent role in the creation and dissemination of management fashion (italics added for emphasis): “Consulting firms or business mass-media, whose missions involve the creation or dissemination” of new innovations” (Abrahamson, 1991, p.595) “Consulting firms, management gurus, business mass media publications, and business schools” who “compete in a race to define which management techniques lead rational management progress” (Abrahamson, 1996, p.255) “Management fashion is conceptualized as forming an arena in which different groups of participants bustle about – consultants, professors, managers, editors of management magazines, publishers, commercial seminar organizers, organizers of Internet forums, etc.” (Kieser, 1997, p.57) Business knowledge comes “from a manager’s own experience or the experience of others, from books and articles on a variety of topics or videotapes and light speeches by managers and management scholars, from formal education in business school MBAs… increasingly, it comes from consulting firms” (Nohria and Eccles, 1998, p.279) “The fads and buzzwords of management have been created and disseminated by a collection of individuals … who have come to be known as ‘gurus’” and “There are
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three forms of management ‘guru’ -- the academic ‘guru’ the consultant ‘guru’, the hero-manager” (Collins, 2000, p.78) Firms, in sourcing knowledge for innovation “…are more likely to engage consultants, whilst their links with research-based organisations, including the public science-base, are weaker” (Tether and Tajar, 2008, p.1079) “The community of fashion setters is generally a community of experts (gurus, authors, consultants, and scholars)” (Baskerville and Myers, 2009, p.652). While consultants are seen as major players in management fashion setting, there are significantly different perspectives on the value of the consultant’s role. On the diffusion of innovations, Rogers sees “change agents” (the closest he comes to describing a consultant) as a key element in making knowledge available to potential adopters during the innovationdecision process (Rogers, 2003). In Innovation Diffusion Theory, these change agents are seen as positive influences in a rational decision-making process. Collins, in contrast, is quite critical of the role of management consultants as “gurus”, suggesting that “by the normal standards of academic enquiry, the works of the ‘gurus’ are questionable,” despite the apparently sustained level of demand (Collins, 2000).
A common theme in the popular press, including many industry practitioners and academic circles, is a highly sceptical view of the role of consultants, often with the implication “that management consultancy is widely considered to be a lucrative swindle rather than an ethical vocation, a sham profession rather than a respectable occupation” (Butler, 2008, p.223). This sceptical view is an interesting contrast with the apparent willingness of businesses to continue to hire consultants and of academics to become (at least part-time) consultants.
These varying perspectives also indicate an evolution in thinking about the field of management consultancy. Most research and reflective thinking on the consulting field has been presented in the organizational development field with the emphasis on identifying approaches to ensure a successful consultant-client relationship. By the late 1990s, a more critical perspective had emerged, with two critical themes. The first questions the value systems of consultants, examining the strategies employed by consultants to convince clients of the worth of their advice (Fincham and Clark, 2001). The second questions whether an
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“ambiguity- intensive” organization such as a consultancy can actually claim to be a profession (Fincham and Clark, 2001, Alvesson, 2004).
Sturdy et al. (2009, p.628) also question the “traditional notion of consultants as outsiders with new knowledge or expertise,” where “consultants are cosmopolitans and part of a broader knowledge industry whereby management ideas are appropriated or developed and then introduced to clients who, to varying degrees, adopt them as new approaches through various isomorphic processes.” They suggest that consultants often play the role of “legitimation of existing client knowledge rather than bringing new or innovative expertise.”
This growth in criticism is concurrent with a massive growth in the management consulting services industry. While consulting firms have been in existence for almost a century, over the last 20 to 30 years, consultancies have achieved dramatic growth rates. In 1980, the global revenue from management consulting was about $2 billion (and there were about 18,000 consultants). By the end of the ‘90s the global industry was about $62 billion (with about 140,000 consultants) and a recent estimate for 2009 suggested global revenues of the order of $345 billion. (Plunkett, 2010, Onsman, 1999).
2.12.2 Consultancies, Professional Services Firms and Knowledge-Intensive Organizations While management fashion literature emphasizes the role of consultants, consulting firms do, in fact, belong to a wider set of professional services firms which are, in turn, representative of a class of organizations for which knowledge development and diffusion is fundamental to their existence.
Relatively early in the evolution of Knowledge Management, it was recognised that, while knowledge is important to every business, there is a class of organisation for which it is critical. These organisations are often referred to as knowledge-based or knowledgeintensive. Commonly used abbreviations for such an entity are Knowledge Intensive Firm (KIF), Knowledge Intensive Organization (KIO), and Knowledge Based Firm (KBF).
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Early work, for example by Sveiby & Risling (1986b), Gummeson (1990), Starbuck (1992) and Alvesson (1995), suggests that these knowledge-intensive enterprises are characterised by significant problem-solving-related and non-standard production, a degree of creativity on the part of the worker and in the organisational environment, and a significant reliance on individuals (who tend to be highly educated). The literature often differentiates (Alvesson, 1995) between "pure" knowledge companies and companies with the need to include current knowledge within a product - for example, high technology or pharmaceutical companies.
Professional Service Firms (PSFs) are one of the most visible examples of knowledgeintensive firms. While the specific nature of KIFs can vary significantly, PSFs are recognisable communities with many degrees of commonalty and well-established methods of differentiation. David Maister, a long-established practitioner authority (widely viewed as the pre-eminent “consultants’ guru”), suggests that, while there may be perceived differences between these firms, they tend to have a rather similar vision and mission: To deliver outstanding client service; to provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction for our people; and to achieve financial success so that we can reward ourselves and grow (Maister, 1988, p.3). Maister further suggests that professional services firms can be differentiated by the skill requirements of the work and the mix of staff, and by the types of client project. He proposes three types of firm: Brains (innovative problem solving, requiring bright, welleducated, highly current professionals -- for example McKinsey & Co.), Grey Hair (carrying out projects requiring highly experienced professionals -- for example PriceWaterhouse Coopers), and Procedure (requiring the capability to execute the same types of project in a consistent and cost-effective manner -- for example Hewlett-Packard Consulting). Each of these produces a different version of the PSF “Pyramid” commonly used to describe the structure of the firm, with its typical professional hierarchy of Partner, Senior Professional and Junior Professional. In practice, in very large firms, different divisions might fit different categories (for example, most Accenture divisions are Procedure with some smaller Grey Hair units also present).
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To the degree that PSFs are seen as offering “expert” services and experts can be seen as key workers in a “knowledge society,” how PSFs deal with knowledge is obviously critical to market positioning, serviced provision and economic and professional success -- for both organizations and individual professionals.
Thus, a PSF should be fertile ground to study how the role and use of knowledge is evolving, where the interplay of economic pressures, organizational culture and knowledge theory can be studied.
2.12.3 The Role of Knowledge within the Professional Services Firm 2.12.3.1 Knowledge-Focused Assets, Structures and Activities
As has been suggested above, knowledge, whether held by individuals or the corporate entity, is perhaps the most critical resource in a PSF. It has been argued (Robertson et al., 2003) that “their (PSF) survival depends on their ability to mobilize and synthesize professional bodies of knowledge.” This does not mean, however, that all PSFs are exemplars of KM. Indeed, many observers (for example, Starbuck, 1992) have pointed out that being open to new ideas is not the hallmark of many PSFs, especially in the more “traditional” professions. This section presents a hierarchy of knowledge perspectives – the individual professional worker, the concept of a common body of professional knowledge, the PSF itself and the degree of influence of professional governing bodies.
The Professional Worker: Recognition of the importance of knowledge to the professional worker is not new. Donald Schön, whose influential work The Reflective Practitioner (Schön, 1973) is most often used in the context of Organizational Learning, bases much of his work on the concept of the professional worker and the mixture of both theory and experience, which he describes as “reflection-in-action”, that professionals use to carry out their work. He contrasts this with "knowing-in-action,” a largely tacit and almost automatic approach to the daily work of the professional, referencing Polanyi’s definition of tacit knowledge.
The professional worker often works in a task or project environment and, while frequently responding in a routine or standard way, is expected to identify situations where the
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standard approach is neither useful nor appropriate and has to develop an alternate response, often improvised from experience rather than theory (Eraut, 1994).
The Professional Knowledge Base: Associated with most descriptions of professions and professional workers is the concept of a profession’s knowledge base, often referred to as its “Body of Knowledge,” and usually defined by some form of professional body. As Schein (1973) describes it, professional knowledge has three components: An underlying discipline or basic science component upon which the practice rests or from which it is developed. An applied science or engineering component from which many of the day-to-day diagnostic procedures and problem solutions are derived. A skills and attitudinal component that concerns the actual performance of services to the client, using the underlying basic and applied knowledge. Schein also recognizes a gap between the convergent nature of much professional knowledge content and the more divergent use of that knowledge in actual practice, the professional having to “take a convergent knowledge base and convert it into professional services that are tailored to the unique requirements of the client system.” He sums up this divergence between research and practice as the practitioner’s dilemma of “rigor or relevance.”
The Professional Firm: Maister (1988) identifies the key process elements of the PSF and suggests that PSFs develop specific models for business development and project delivery (often from one of three perspectives -- geographic locations, industries served, and functional services), using a combination of widely held and specialized knowledge (both personal and corporate). Depending on their market positioning, they may emphasize their ability to bring new thinking and very current scarce knowledge to bear, or they may focus more on their ability to deliver with very specific knowledge related to the successful delivery of the service. Alvesson (2004) describes two different forms of knowledge advantage in firms – human resource capital, where the emphasis is on hiring and retaining the best people for the business, and human process advantage, with the emphasis on creating work environments and capabilities for synergy.
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Professional Bodies and Associations: As a prerequisite to entry into a profession, a candidate has to demonstrate acquisition of the profession’s common body of knowledge. This body of knowledge is normally defined and described by a professional body. The nature of the professional body varies, as does the status of the specific profession.
In most jurisdictions, practice as lawyer, doctor, nurse or engineer is restricted to current members of the associated professional association. Management consultants need not be members of any professional association to practice, but, in Europe and North America, national professional bodies do exist and offer certification. 2.12.3.2 The Role of Knowledge within PSFs
PSFs exist to provide knowledge-based services to their clients. Underlying this fairly obvious statement are a number of important concepts regarding the nature and use of knowledge in this PSF/Client relationship and each of these is discussed below.
Information Asymmetry between Professional and Client: Implicit in the business models of many PSFs is the concept of information asymmetry. Some suggest that the very existence of PSFs is based on this knowledge asymmetry, first between clients and the PSFs, and, second, between the PSF and its professional staff (Greenwood and Empson, 2003). Professionals are seen as the experts who bring expert knowledge to bear on client problems. This is particularly true for the “true” professions such doctors, dentists and lawyers. Often, the professionals have been trained in a standardized body of knowledge common to all professionals in that discipline and may also have been required to pass exams to demonstrate their competency. However, the more business-related the PSF, the more this may be counterbalanced by the financial dependency of the PSF on the client. (Alvesson, 2004) Further, the greater the asymmetry, the more difficult it is for the client to assess the PSF’s competence and the greater the need to depend on reputation as the reason for the use of a particular PSF.
In other cases, the asymmetry is one of specific experience or role rather than in the body of knowledge – where there is a more equal professional relationship, but with varying roles. For example, consider the relationship between an audit firm and the professional
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accounting staff of its client, or the retention of counsel by the internal legal department of a corporation. All those involved may be chartered accountants or lawyers, but the in-house professionals may lack the specific topic and process experience of the PSF professionals.
Knowledge Transfer from Professional to Client: It is often suggested that a key service provided by PSFs is knowledge transfer to the client organization. Dawson (2000), in his book on knowledge-based client relationships, sees this as the key value-added service from PSFs, if they are to survive and thrive in the 21st century. He describes a move away from “blackbox” services (where the client does not see into the detail of the service provided) to services where a more sophisticated relationship exists between PSF and client and knowledge transfer occurs in both directions, leading to deeper understanding and intimacy -- a virtuous cycle allowing both to develop in tandem.
Schön describes this type of service as what is expected of a reflective professional practitioner. He suggests the presence of a “reflective contract” between the client and the practitioner, which does not so much imply blind acceptance of the professional’s correctness, but rather that the client “agrees to suspend disbelief” in the practitioner’s authority and also agrees to join the practitioner “in inquiring into the situation for which the client seeks help” (Schön, 1983).
Knowledge Workers as Language Workers: Knowledge workers in PSFs are language workers. The way they talk about themselves and their services (the rhetoric) is key to their image, market position, their culture and self-identity. It is much more than knowledgebased expertise -- this rhetoric is fundamental to the firm, its members and their success (Alvesson, 2004).
Other work in this field suggests that, while there are differences between types of firm, there are remarkable similarities in how professionals perceive knowledge development at work in different types of firms (Fosstenlokken, 2003). The work of many PSFs may be seen to be more ambiguous and dependent on rhetoric than that of other KIFs, such as those that produce a product that can be tested (Alvesson, 2004). Further, some PSFs place a much
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greater significance on social relationships and social skills than others, who focus more on the expertise they provide (Alvesson, 2004). This is a key element of PSF strategic differentiation, with some firms focusing on the technical or content elements of their knowledge base, while others emphasise their relational or process knowledge.
Packaging Knowledge to Meet Client Needs: PSFs succeed by providing a package of services that combine several types of knowledge in a way that is seen by clients as adding value. The nature of these services has evolved over time, particularly in PSFs such as management consulting and software project delivery.
For example, in management consulting, the increasing prevalence of advanced business education, especially MBAs, within the general business community, has meant that it is much more difficult for PSFs to exist without adding a lot beyond the “commonly-held knowledge” that was the foundation of many of their services in the 1980s and early 1990’s. As Shelley (1997) suggests, “clients are getting smarter and are demanding more for less.”
This has meant a blurring of the work of PSF professionals and client staff. Projects are done with, rather than done to client organizations and staff. In many PSFs (for example, in large law firms), there has been significant client pressure on fees and rates, forcing the firms to come to grips with fundamental issues such as what knowledge is fundamental to their market success, at what level within the firm should the knowledge (and delivery) reside, and how to be more efficient at delivery of the service. These very pragmatic pressures, at minimum, affect the revenue of each professional and possibly threaten the viability of the firm, and have forced leaders of these firms to look much more closely at the nature and use of knowledge in their firms.
2.12.4 The Discourse on and Diffusion of Knowledge Management in PSFs 2.12.4.1 Thought Leadership and Internal Practices
Early contributions to the field of KM thinking came from firms that could be seen to be "brains" firms, whose clients expect them to provide leading edge thinking and original ideas -- i.e. management fashion setters. Nolan Norton, an IT-focused think tank, began discussing the strategic importance of knowledge with their clients in the early 1990s (Nolan, 1990) and
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McKinsey & Co. did work for their clients in the mid-1990's that culminated in a comprehensive book Knowledge Unplugged that reviewed early KM practices in 40 companies in the US, Europe and Japan (Kluge et al., 2001). KPMG established a KM consulting practice and published a number of papers and guides (KPMG, 1998).
Internally, many major consulting firms organized groups and set up systems for knowledge capture and knowledge sharing. Often, these efforts were based around library functions that had been available for many years. Notable early efforts were Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and Ernst & Young, who, in 1993, set up their Centres for Business Knowledge, to support all the firm's industry groups and services (Morrow, 1998). The building of such centres of knowledge or "excellence" appears to have been common in firms both large and small. For example, one study in 1998 identified such centres in all nine PSF firms studied, while highlighting the practical problems in getting them to work effectively (Moore and Birkenshaw, 1998). 2.12.4.2 Offering KM-Specific Services
In the mid-to-late 1990’s, a number of firms set up KM consulting practices to offer specific KM services to clients. By the early 2000s, virtually all of these practices had been disbanded or merged in with other consulting services. The standard reference in the management consulting field (Kubr, 2002) devotes two chapters to Knowledge Management, recognizing the importance of knowledge both for professional services firms internally and for their clients, however, the description of knowledge-related consulting services is focused on the inclusion of appropriate KM techniques while delivering other, more substantive, consulting services and not as a significant separate service. An examination of the volume of discourse related to KM and Consulting Firms/Consulting is presented in Figure 2-22. Inspection of the plot shows a pattern much closer to that of most of the other short-lived management fashions reviewed at the beginning of the chapter. There is a short and fast rise in popularity over a four-year period, peaking in a single year (2001), then interest falls away quite rapidly over a seven year period. (Again, the secondary peak in 2008 is due solely to the addition to the ProQuest database of a set of electronic trade journals.) Closer inspection of the citations shows an early interest in newspapers and trade publications focusing on KM-related
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services and announcements with a slower build of academic work covering, as might be expected, an examination of KM in the context of consulting and professional service firms.
An examination of the service offerings described on the websites of the 10 largest consulting firms was carried out in May 2010 and found no mention of any major service in KM (various aspects of KM were described within other services being offered). However, a broader search for KM service offerings demonstrated that the services are still being offered by several small niche and boutique firms, including those operated by some of the proponents of NGKM.
Figure 2-22: The Discourse on KM and Consulting
Thus, “pure� KM consulting services appear to have had a very short life span in the mainstream consulting firms, while continuing as a source of interest for small niche firms. This is consistent with the management fashion view of a fad.
2.12.5 PSFs as a Subject of Study for Management Fashions In both Technology Diffusion Theory and Management Fashion Theory, professional services firms, consultants in particular, are seen as institutional change agents and fashion
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setters. Some observers present this as a rational role, providing value to the recipients, others see it as a more self-serving practice, often not rooted in any rigourous demonstration of validity or true value. In those areas previously examined as management fashions, the innovation or new idea studied has been something of potential value to organizations at large (quality circles, TQM, BPR, etc) but possibly of somewhat less use to the PSFs themselves. The concept being marketed and promoted is knowledge about something else. In the case of Knowledge Management, the situation is different. First, the innovation is knowledge about managing knowledge and, second, knowledge is the fundamental asset of the PSF.
Thus, combining a study of the management fashion of Knowledge Management with a study of KM within professional services firms provides a unique opportunity to examine diffusion and practice within the change agent itself.
To test the actual diffusion and use of KM within PSFs is a very appropriate second part of examining KM as a management fashion. This is of particular interest, given that the promotion of KM as a service from PSFs (or at least consultants) appears to be a short lived phenomenon, a management fad.
The preceding review in this chapter demonstrates that the possession of relevant and distinctive knowledge and effective approaches to Knowledge Management are core to the success of PSFs, however defined. What is key, for the purposes of this study, is that the pursuit and use of knowledge is directly linked to the success of the firm. For a PSF, knowledge has to be valuable in its market environment and, since there are no physical products or other intermediaries between the firm’s knowledge and the creation of a value proposition for a customer, the link between knowledge and client service is highly visible.
Thus the PSF, as a KIF with knowledge based services, should be a suitable environment to study current management practices in KM and test the diffusion of the management fashion of KM.
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This fieldwork provides original insight into the actual diffusion and use of KM within PSFs, examining their own behaviour as fashion users rather than fashion setters. Further, an examination of the diffusion of a significant management fashion is also an original contribution to Management Fashion Theory.
The next chapter presents the Research Methodology followed to carry out this fieldwork and to integrate the fieldwork findings with the Discourse Analysis presented in this Chapter.
2.13 SUMMARY In this chapter, a bibliometric discourse life cycle of Knowledge Management has been presented within the context of a wider literature review. From the perspective of this analysis, KM appears to be an innovation with “staying power” -- an enduring fashion. The individual bibliometric discourse analyses presented have demonstrated that KM and its key themes continue to attract widespread interest, well beyond the 4-7 year growth and peak period typical of passing fashions (fads). A set of claims from prominent KM fashion-setters arguing for a reinvention of KM, a “Next Generation of KM” was also described as well as a very limited level of support for this claim in the subsequent literature. However, the discourse around KM-related consulting services -- with a period of only five years from the initial growth in interest to the beginning of decline and a brief Diffusion Analysis of such offerings suggesting a life span of less than five years -- demonstrates a much more ephemeral interest. There are also concerns about weaknesses in approaches presented and a possible growing separation between practitioners and researchers.
The three possible outcomes presented in Management Fashion Theory are: A rapid surge in popularity, a very short peak of interest, followed by a steady decline, often described as a “fad”. A sustained period of interest and use, often referred to as an enduring fashion. Multiple waves of interest and a combination of experience and re-assessment by practitioners and fashion leaders, with concept being re-invented, perhaps with new labels (NGKM).
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The fieldwork carried out in the study investigates whether or not the degree to which the diffusion of Knowledge Management innovations within professional services firms matches the descriptions presented in the discourse.
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CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Overview This chapter presents a summation of the results of my voyage of discovery and evolution of thinking on research methodologies. It introduces the Management Fashion Theory research approach, explains how my theoretical position was developed and the choice of methods of data collection, analysis and presentation methods. My philosophical approach sits on the boundary between the functionalist and Interpretivist paradigms, with the objective of developing theory that can describe, explain and prescribe Knowledge Management strategies. The use of multiple case studies is discussed to examine Knowledge Management strategies in five professional services firms as a purposive sample to test the research framework across several types of professional services firm, along with subsequent validation of the case findings in secondary case analysis and follow-up interviews. It describes the development of an priori coding scheme, along with a semi-structured approach to data collection within each of the cases. A description of the software tools used to analyse the data collected, along with an initial discussion on research methodology challenges, including saturation determination is also provided.
3.1
INTRODUCTION
This examination of the evolution of Knowledge Management is being carried out from the perspective of Management Fashion Theory. As shown in Figure 3-1, Abrahamson’s approach to the study of management fashion suggests two perspectives for examination – Bibliometric Discourse Analysis and Diffusion Analysis. The previous chapter presents the bibliometric discourse analysis and this chapter describes the methodology used to carry out a Diffusion Analysis and integrate the findings.
The Bibliometric Discourse Analysis presented in Chapter 2 demonstrates that the discourse on Knowledge Management (KM) has followed the first three stages of a management fashion (a period of latency, a rapid growth of popularity and a plateauing of interest), has included the existence of trend-setting management fashion gurus, but has not yet has demonstrated any significant decline. It has also demonstrated a claim for a re-invention or Next Generation of KM. The review has also highlighted that there is no one conceptual framework for the topic of KM, and that several different perspectives exist and that this lack of common perspectives has continued until 2012.
The literature and discourse review has indicates a strong and sustained interest in the topic of KM by both researchers and practitioners, as well as the development of a range of largely
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untested theory. The emergence of Next Generation KM thinking proposed by some of the original fashion-setting gurus was a response to criticisms that the First Generation of KM had not produced the expected results, however there has been very little work done to determine whether a truly different approach has emerged in practice.
Figure 3-1: Management Fashion Study Approach
The primary intent of this research is to provide strategic guidance to practitioners by determining the degree to which the diffusion and adoption of KM corresponds to the related discourse and to further determine whether this can be argued to represent a Next Generation of KM (NGKM). This chapter introduces the philosophy and methodology adopted, and discusses the specific research themes and questions being addressed and the data gathering approach adopted. It concludes with a discussion on research quality issues and limitations of the approach.
3.2
PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY
3.2.1 Adopting a Philosophical Approach Researchers frequently debate the relative merits of the two main research traditions of positivism and phenomenology (Easterby-Smith et al., 1991), with an assumption that positivism is more objective and tends to rely on testing theory through large samples, experiments and surveys, while phenomenology takes a more subjective view with more of a
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focus on a wide-ranging discussion of the subject area, often using qualitative methods. In recent years, Huberman and Miles (2002), amongst others, suggest more of a middle ground -- often described as "realism" -- allowing researchers to take into account situation, perspective and context, while still searching for theory that can help managers make decisions.
In this methodological debate, much has also been written about research paradigms, often using Burrell and Morgan's four paradigm framework (Functionalist, Interpretivist, Radical Humanist and Radical Structuralist) -- with Gioia and Pitre presenting a slightly modified picture showing the dominance of the functionalist paradigm, as shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Permeable Barriers Between Research Paradigms, according to Giola & Pitre (1990)
Gioia and Pitre further argue that, especially when studying organizational phenomena, the paradigmic boundaries between them are not absolute, suggesting that, "to a limited but conceptually crucial degree they are (permeable)," and that they are not separated by fixed boundaries. Rather, these boundaries are “transition zones” (Gioia and Pitre, 1990, p591). This research fits close to the boundary between Functionalist and Interpretivist.
Doctoral research is expected to make a theoretical contribution. The perspective on what is a “theory” varies considerably between academic disciplines and by research perspective.
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Frequently, theory is explained by discussing “what is not theory”. For example, Sutton and Shaw (1995, p372), in giving guidance to prospective authors for the Academy of Management Review, claim “Lack of consensus on exactly what theory is may explain why it is so difficult to develop strong theory in the behavioral sciences,” before going on to describe what might distinguish a strong theory from weak theory. For them, “theory is the answer to queries of why. Theory is about the connections among phenomena, a story about why acts, events, structure and thoughts occur. Theory emphasizes the nature of causal relationships, identifying what comes first as well as the timing of such events.” A strong theory is often held to have three elements -- description, explanation and prediction, the last of which being the most important (Whetten, 1989).
However, there have been criticisms of this emphasis on rigour at the expense of relevance. While Kurt Lewin’s “There is nothing quite as practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951) is frequently cited as a rationale for a focus on rigour, concerns have been raised about an increasing gap between the research activities of academics in business schools and in the practitioner managers that these business schools are expected to develop. This divide has been presented as a contrast between Mode 1 and Mode 2 research, as described in the seminal work of Gibbons et al. (1994), where “Mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context governed by the largely academic interests of a specific community,” whereas Mode 2 research “is carried out in the context of application.” Mode 1 research “is what we traditionally conceive of as the scientific approach to knowledge creation,” while Mode 2 research “is less concerned with discipline base… and is crucially concerned with knowledge as it works in practice in the context of application” (Starkey and Madan, 2001, S5). Whitley (1988, p50), suggests that “research in the fields (vocationally oriented sciences) is intended to improve practical skills as well as contribute to theoretical knowledge,” that is, they have “two markets for their intellectual product, themselves and professional practitioners.” Others go further and argue that an ever-increasing focus on research to be read by other researchers mean that business schools are, at least to some degree, failing in their role as a professional school, identifying a significant lack of relevant research and innovation emerging from business schools (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002, Bennis and O'Toole, 2005, Huff and Huff, 2001). Van Aken, arguing that “academic management research has a serious
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utilization problem,” suggests that “the relevance problem can be mitigated if such research were to be complemented with prescription-driven research,” closer to that practiced in medicine and engineering, a form of “design science” (van Aken, 2004, p291). In essence, these others are suggesting that the social sciences view of “description, explanation and prediction” might be usefully replaced by “description, explanation and prescription”.
Starkey and Madan emphasise the need to “close the relevance gap” -- to make the outcomes of research both relevant to and accessible by management. The research presented in this dissertation sets out to do this in the field of KM strategy, while still addressing the need for rigour, in essence, addressing the Mode 1.5 approach to research proposed by Huff (2000), which “balances the not easily remedied weaknesses in Mode 1 and Mode 2 research.”
This research tests whether or not KM is a passing management fashion or something more enduring. The development of a priori theory from literature and prior research and then testing for evidence to support it is typical of a Functionalist perspective. As Gioia & Pitre (1990, p590) state, “Theory building…typically takes place in a deductive manner, starting with reviews of the existing literature and operating out of prior theories about organization structure…hypotheses are tentative statements of relationships that either extend prior theory in a new direction, propose an explanation for a perceived gap in existing knowledge, or set up a test of competing possible explanations for structural relationships.” The prime objective is the verification or falsification of the hypotheses. By contrast, in the Interpretivist perspective, “researchers attempt to account for phenomena with as few a priori ideas as possible,” and “existing theories about structuring processes are often accounted for relatively late in the theory building process.” For Interpretivists, data analysis typically involves “coding procedures to discern patterns in the (usually) qualitative data so that descriptive codes, categories, taxonomies, or interpretive schemes that are adequate at the level of meaning of the informants can be established”. Gioia & Pitre described working on the boundary between the two perspectives.
Often, the paradigm debate revolves around tools and what Deetz (1996) describes as the “boring and misleading subjective-objective problem.” Deetz suggests that Functionalists,
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with their codified and largely quantitative work, acquire an “objective” label, whereas Interpretivists are often viewed as doing more “subjective” work. They are often both, in reality, neo-positivists, drawing largely on traditional and premodern themes, striving to “get it right, to display unified consensual culture in the way it actually exists.”
In summary, this study combines elements of both paradigms, and is, as Deetz suggests, neopositivist, testing a form of a priori theory, looking to arrive at some generalisable conclusions, perhaps prescriptive, using techniques often labeled as Interpretivist.
Creating new knowledge about knowledge raises some interesting challenges. Polanyi has suggested that objective research is a false (and impossible) target and great research comes from a passionate involvement with the subject of the research (Polanyi, 1958). He also argues that all useful knowledge is, to some degree, tacit (Polanyi, 1966). Thus, a researcher into knowledge practices is well advised to look to interpretive techniques to help explore the complex issues involved. Denzin and Lincoln point out "Qualitative research …. does not belong to a single discipline" (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). They further suggest that the qualitative researcher is committed to "a critique of the positivist or postpositivist" paradigm, however this may be too aggressive a claim, and Remenyi et al. argue that the differences between these two approaches (positivist vs. interpretivist) “reveal themselves to be much less significant than they may first appear" (Remenyi et al., 2002).
3.2.2 The Use of Theory There seems to be strong consensus that a doctoral dissertation should provide new thinking and create new theory or add to existing theory. However, depending on one’s theoretical approach, determining the nature of that theory can be looked at from a number of perspectives. As Sutton and Shaw point out, there is more agreement on what theory is not, than on what theory is, “There is little agreement about what constitutes strong versus weak theory in the social sciences, but there is more consensus that references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses are not theory” (Sutton and Shaw, 1995, p371). DiMaggio (1995, p391) builds on this argument to suggest there are three kinds of good theory: Theory that provides covering laws; “generalizations that, taken together describe the world as we see (measure) it”
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Theory that provides (sudden) enlightenment; “clearing away conventional notions to make room for artful and exciting insights” Theory as narrative; “an account of a social process, with emphasis on empirical tests on the plausibility of the narrative as well as careful attention to the scope conditions of the account” However DiMaggio also suggests that “many of the best theories are hybrids,” combining elements of all three. Theory in doctoral research needs to go beyond the dictionary definitions of theory, which range from “unproved assumptions” to “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomenon.” As Weick points out, “If everything from a ‘guess’ to a general falsifiable explanation has a tinge of theory to it, then it becomes more difficult to separate what is theory from what isn't, especially if theory development starts with guesses and speculations and ends with explanations and models.” (Weick, 1995, p386)
Perhaps of more relevance in this work are Corbin & Strauss, who, quoting Hage (1972), argue that “theory denotes a set of well developed categories (themes, concepts) that are systematically interrelated through statements of relationship to form a theoretical framework that explain some phenomenon” (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Glaser and Strauss (1967) describe the evolution of theory development from substantive (situational) through middle range to formal (at higher levels of abstraction).
Klein & Zedeck, citing Campbell (1990), are more directive, “Theories provide meaning. They allow us to understand and interpret data. Theories specify which variables are important and for what reasons, describe and explain the relationships that link the variables, and identify the boundary conditions under which variables should or should not be related” and “Theory tells us why something occurs, not simply what occurs”. (Klein and Zedeck, 2004, p931) “Management research, as currently enacted, seems to have a considerable ‘utilisation problem’ and a low level of ‘face validity’ among practitioners.” (Worrall, 2008, p3).
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3.2.3 The Decision to Use Case Studies This boundary discussion is also core to the decision to use case studies and to selecting the case study approach. Many proponents of qualitative research argue against the development of theory prior to the data collection activity (for example, (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000)). This is frequently repeated in a more focused way in discussions on the case study approach, for example by Gillham, who argues against entering into a case study with "a priori theoretical notions (whether derived from the literature or not) - because until you get in there and get hold of your data‌.. you won' t know what theories (explanations) work best or make the most sense" (Gillham, 2000). However, it is also reasonable to suggest that the emphasis of these authors tends not to consider case studies of business entities. Typically, they address less structured fields more open to alternative perspectives -- for example, Stake, one of the most widely cited case study authorities, in presenting three types of case study, does not include a single business entity or topic in 15 examples. (Stake, 2000) Thus, it would seem reasonable to suggest that business-focused case studies might be a distinct subset of the field with characteristics that might be different to many other types of case study in the social sciences – at least for researchers taking a management perspective.
One examination of case study design does compare the use of case studies in different disciplines. However, while it does mention the use of cases in business, after a brief reference to the pioneering Hawthorne case study in 1933, it restricts the rest of its description of the use of cases in business disciplines to the case teaching method in business schools. (Scholz and Tietje, 2002)
Yin recognizes the role of theory, suggesting, "For case studies, theory development as part of the design phase is essential, whether the ensuing case study's purpose is to develop or test theory" (Yin, 2003). He further discusses the use of "descriptive theory" where he suggests that the research purpose can be to describe events rather than to explain them. Yin also gives guidance on generalization from case study experience to theory, describing "analytic generalization" as contrasted with "statistical generalization" -- the outcome of much survey and experimental research.
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Eisenhardt (1989) does address case studies in a business (often in an IT context) and argues for the use of case study to develop theory, starting from the view that, in case studies “…theory-building research is begun as close as possible to the ideal of no theory under consideration and no hypotheses to test” (p.536).
Benbasat et al. (1987) also emphasize that, while the case study approach allows for the examination of phenomena in their natural setting, its success depends heavily on the interpretive power of the investigator. They further point out that the investigator must be alert to the possible need to modify elements of the work (e.g. site section, data collection methods and tools) as data are collected and hypotheses evolve.
In contrast, Flyvbjerg argues very strongly that there are five common misunderstandings about case study research and that, “the case study is useful for both generating and testing of hypotheses but is not limited to these research activities alone”. Citing Eckstein (1975), he argues that case studies can be better than statistical sampling for theory testing, especially where the strategic selection of cases can lead to more generalizable findings (Flyvbjerg, 2006). He discusses choosing extreme cases (e.g. exemplars and least likely cases), as well as the use of paradigmatic cases, which can be viewed as having “metaphorical and prototypical value.”
In management research in general, and in the field of Knowledge Management in particular, there seems to be a strong argument for the provision of rich qualitative case studies. For example, in the organisational learning field, Easterby-Smith et al., (1991) have emphasised the need for case studies and the examination of specific successes and failures.
3.2.4 The Research Methodology 3.2.4.1
The Theoretical Framework
While a considerable amount has been written and debated about the various areas of KM and about the claims for a “Next Generation” of KM, there has been very limited empirical work done to test the diffusion of the major KM Themes described in the previous chapter whether in general or in relation to the Next Generation claim. This study examines the Knowledge Management practices in a number of professional services firms to determine to
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what degree they demonstrate support for the diffusion and adoption of KM concepts and whether any of the characteristics of the Next Generation are evident. To facilitate this work, the composite model developed from the review in Chapter 2 was used as the basis for evaluation. The model identifies seven key Themes, which include within them all of the key areas of KM interest identified in the literature review and bibliographic discourse analysis presented in Chapter 2.
This is an important question for those involved in the KM field, especially if they are working at a strategic level. Validation in the field of actual KM diffusion that follows the “enduring fashion� demonstrated in the discourse analysis would indicate that KM is a flourishing and evolving field. Examining both the diffusion in general and the match to the specific characteristics proposed for next generation KM will provide direction for future strategic choices. 3.2.4.2
The Research Approach
Testing the actual diffusion of KM in the field using this framework is not a study topic that lends itself readily to survey research – it requires a significant level of complex investigation and interpretation to surface the issues. The overall perspective is strategic, considering how organizations conceive of and use knowledge in ways that link to their business strategy. These might be characterized as looking at "what" and "why" questions. Yin suggests that the case study method is a relevant approach to situations where the observer has no control over the events under study, where the questions are "what" and "why" and where the study focus is on contemporary events (Yin, 2003).
As Yin further states "A case study is an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident." (p13) In this study context is critical. It is the "special" nature of the PSF as both a management fashion setter and as a knowledgebased business that provides the potential to demonstrate (or disprove) the diffusion and adoption of KM concepts.
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Gummesson (2000) also points out that “an important advantage with case study research is the opportunity for holistic view of a process” as is to “…view the process within its total environment and to utilize the researcher’s capacity for ‘Verstehen.” -- gaining a visceral understanding of the experience of another by reliving that experience, building on Weber’s argument that Verstehen can be used as a valid method of scientific inquiry (Weber, 1947).
As discussed in Chapter 2, the decision was made first to focus on organizations which would be recognized as knowledge-intensive (perhaps more likely to demonstrate NGKM) and then to focus on KM within Professional Services Firms (PSFs). This latter decision was both theoretical and pragmatic. First, PSFs deal only with knowledge-related services and can demonstrate a range of approaches with predictable differences and second, the researcher has extensive practitioner experience in the field (as a senior partner with two major management consulting firms). As Lowendahl has suggested, PSFs offer excellent examples of “extreme knowledge-based firms” whose practices are “frequently seen as role models for other firms, in particular as regards Knowledge Management” (Lowendahl, 2000). Lowendahl further calls for additional research into such firms to examine their value creation processes and use this improved knowledge both within PSFs and, more generally, as possible indicators of success for many types of organization in the 21st century.
The fieldwork examined the current state of practice in five professional service firms (a specific class of knowledge-intensive firms) working from the assumption that, as firms whose existence depends on the effective deployment of knowledge assets, they will provide insights useful to a wider population of firms.
Yin (2003) identifies five important components of case-based research design: The study's questions Its propositions if any Its unit(s) of analysis The logic linking the data to the propositions The criteria for interpreting the findings. Each of these is discussed in the next section.
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3.3
THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND FRAMEWORKS
3.3.1 The Research Questions The research questions have been developed from the literature review and discourse analysis presented in Chapter 2. As Andrews suggests, basing research questions on literature review ensures that the questions are well grounded in existing research and prove a coherence between literature review and fieldwork (Andrews, 2003), important factors when testing the links between discourse analysis and diffusion analysis: To what degree do the Knowledge Management strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that Knowledge Management is a sustainable business innovation and not a management fashion. To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that a “next” generation of Knowledge Management is in place or is being implemented? In addition, the following subsidiary questions are also considered. These are ancillary questions (Andrews, 2003), intended to be answered within the context of the two main questions: To what degree do PSFs demonstrate an explicit or implicit recognition of the role of knowledge in their businesses and how is this incorporated in their business strategies and cultures? How do professionals and other staff in PSFs talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management? Is there a consistent or coherent discourse about knowledge in PSFs and does this discourse correspond to that taking place more generally in the KM field? Are there differences in the Knowledge Management Strategies in place in different types of PSF? Does Management Fashion Theory provide a suitable framework to examine KM diffusion in PSFs?
3.3.2 The Study Propositions – Common Themes for the “Next” Generation of KM From the review of the evolution of KM described in Chapter 2 along with the work of Next Generation proponents, several common propositions or Themes were identified in the discourse, with varying degrees of interest. These are summarised in Table 3-1 and form the
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basis of the fieldwork carried out in this project. These Themes were then used as the basis for the development of a semi-structured interview guide, considering the primary and secondary research questions as well as the more detailed discussion of the Themes and the criticisms of KM identified in the literature review. ORIGINAL KM THEME MANAGING KNOWLEDGE AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL IT-BASED KM KNOWLEDGE MODELS, WORK & PROCESSES
SOCIAL VIEWS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGING INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
“NEXT GENERATION” KM EMPHASIS THEME A: FIRMS MUST TAKE A STRATEGIC FOCUS TO KM Firms must have specific strategies for Knowledge Management to realize the benefits THEME B: REDUCE THE ROLE OF IT The IT focus that has largely dominated the first generation, while it has had some success, has not brought the results hoped for by many. Successful KM strategies will have less emphasis on IT THEME C: DEVELOP MORE Useful KM MODELS Models and taxonomies of knowledge while useful in helping to understand the nature of knowledge in organizations do not show how to make effective use of knowledge. More relevant models are needed THEME D: INCREASE THE EMPHASIS ON CREATING NEW KNOWLEDGE While knowledge activities include the effective use of existing knowledge, it is more important to improve how new knowledge is acquired, particularly in terms of business innovation. THEME E: RECOGNISE THE COMPLEXITY OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Newer thinking recognizes greater complexity in the knowledge challenges facing organizations, and includes consideration of Knowledge Management in the context of complex adaptive systems. THEME F: RECOGNISE THE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE Important knowledge is often highly personal nature and efforts to institutionalise this knowledge without taking into account a variety of group and social issues. THEME G: INTELLECTUAL ASSET MANAGEMENT Since the primary reason that firms have market value above book value is the recognition of Intellectual Assets and these need to be explicitly managed
Table 3-1: The Research Themes Investigated in the Study
3.3.3 Case Selection – The Target Firms (Primary Units of Analysis) Yin claims that "the evidence from multiple cases is often considered to be more compelling" and than multiple cases are not simply sampling, but replication that "should serve a purpose within the overall scope of the inquiry" (Yin, 2003, p48). He suggests that this can include both "literal replication", where the same result might be predicted from one case to the next and "theoretical" replication, where contrasting results might be predicted but for predictable reasons. Glaser and Strauss (1967) also describe theoretical sampling as a method of selecting cases because of suspected intrinsic differences between them.
These two approaches can also be combined in a given study. Yin describes the treatment of cases as either holistic (a single unit of analysis) or embedded (where there may be sub-units of analysis). Figure 3-3 shows the choices open to the researcher and the choice made for this study. This is a multiple case study project, examining KM practice in a range of PSFs. It is also an embedded case study, with multiple units of analysis, making it a Type 4 study, according to Yin’s framework. While the primary Unit of Analysis is the firm and each firm
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is discussed as a separate case, the cross-case analysis is done at both the case and the professional rank levels.
Figure 3-3: Four Choices of Case Design (Yin, 2003)
The replication approach considers some variations in each case, given the different nature of the professional service being offered, intended to both test the theory across multiple cases and also to identify any factors that might explain differences. Thus, to respond to the subsidiary questions and to assist in the validation of the case findings, cross-case analysis is done at two levels -- at the firm level and at the professional rank level, by examining the responses of each level of interview participant (i.e. partner, senior or junior working professional or professional support). It also draws on the approaches of Scholz & Tietje (2002) who describe the use of case research as a synthesis tool as an alternative to the more analytic approach used in quantitative studies. They build on Yin’s concept of embedded case studies, describing methods of integrating multiple case studies into a joint case design through an appropriate set of synthesis techniques.
The research design targeted five cases across four types of firm (Strategy Consulting, FullRange Consulting, IT Consulting, and Legal Firms). This constitutes a reasonable number of cases for a Type 4 Study, according to both Yin (2003) and Eisenhart (1989). In some cases, despite a strong commitment to participate, more than six months elapsed from the initial approval to the first interviews. The timing of the 5 case studies is shown in Figure 3-4. The cases followed more of a theoretical rather than literal replication approach.
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For most of the firms, confidentiality was key and all firms agreed to participate as long as the firms’ names would not be included in the thesis, thus they have been given generic names (such as ITFIRM). A research and confidentiality agreement was signed with each firm and with each individual interviewed. A copy of the agreement is included as
Appendix B. Figure 3-4: Case Study TImeline
The intention was to use a structured set of firms that meet the following criteria: They have Canadian operations They have the common characteristics that define a PSF They are relatively large-scale, and may be national or international The set has sufficient variety to represent a range of types of PSF And, in practice, this was largely met. The participant firms had the following characteristics: All had large-scale Canadian operations Four were linked to major global PSFs, one of which operated in a global model The participants exhibited significant variety:
1 strategy firm 2 mixed accounting/ advisory services (i.e. audit, finance and consulting) 1 IT consulting firm
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1 law firm
Within each case, data were collected from three primary sources: Interviews: This was the primary data collection method. While the actual interviewees in each organization did vary, depending on access and organization structure, six to nine interviews were conducted within each organization. The interview structure is based on McCracken (1998) and Boyatzis (1998) and includes a combination of structured and open questions, to test the various elements of the propositions and provide a basis for later thematic analysis. The roles of interview candidates were selected to provide a cross-section of perspectives and included:
Partner/Senior Executive; Working Professionals o Senior Practitioner o Junior Practitioner Support Staff Member; IT/KM Leadership.
Existing documentation: This included readily available material describing the firm and its activities, obtained both from the firm itself and from outside sources. In addition, some access was provided to relevant internal documents, to the degree that these could be made available. Examination of Physical Artifacts: To the degree that the target firm’s use of knowledge can be demonstrated by its KM tools, it was also possible to examine the tools used within the firm to support its knowledge-related processes. After the case study analysis was complete, it was decided that further validation of the findings would be useful and a series of follow-up interviews were carried out with senior executives in the Canadian consulting industry. Seven individuals were identified through the Canadian management consulting association, CMC-Canada, all of whom held senior managing partner positions. In addition, one further interview was carried out with a consultant to the Canadian legal industry who had previously held senior administrative positions with major law firms.
The other common methods of data collection suggested for use in case studies, such as archival records, direct observation and participant observation (Yin, 2003), were not used to any significant degree, although I did, during my visits to the client sites, stay vigilant for any relevant direct observation opportunities that might arise.
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The interview approach was developed using the "Long Interview" concepts and techniques described by McCracken. These allow the researcher to "achieve crucial qualitative objectives within a manageable methodological context" while dealing with the constraints of "time scarcity and concern for privacy" that restrict more in-depth qualitative research approaches. (McCracken, 1998). The key elements of this technique are shown in Table 3-2. 1 2
3 4
5 6
7
Key Elements of the Long Interview Technique (McCracken), as used in this Study The development of a questionnaire to guide the discussion, while not inhibiting the open-endedness of responses. A clear definition of the role of the investigator and the investigator/respondent relationship, including consideration of how the researcher will be presented to the respondent . (In this case, it involved identifying me as a former partner in a management consulting firm and dressing for face-to-face interviews in a way that was appropriate for the specific professional firm setting.) Using a prior literature review (a "deconstruction") to help construct the questionnaire and to specify categories and relationships that may organize the data. (The questionnaire was developed using the research model described above.) A consideration of the investigator's own background and circumstances (a cultural review) to aid in both ensuring familiarity with the interview situation and establishing a degree of distance from it to ensure effective data collection. (This was particularly important in this project given my many years in the professional services field and, in some cases, my personal, though perhaps dated, knowledge of some of the firms being studied.) The use in the questionnaire development, of a variety of techniques -- opening biographical questions, "grand tour" questions to allow wide ranging responses, "floating" and "planned" prompts to address specific issues of interest to me and category questions to make sure all topics of interest have been covered. Careful choice of respondents, to provide a contrast in the respondent pool, which is not to be considered as a sample. (Note: This is where the investigator most diverged with McCracken's protocol. He suggests that respondents should be unknown to both the interviewer and the other respondents. In two cases some of the respondents were professional acquaintances -- and obviously were often known to one another as they worked in the same firm.) Finally, the approach to data analysis needs to be carefully thought out. He recommends that interviews be taped and then transcribed by a third party (both of which were done) and then data analysis should follow a 5-stage process of individual observation, expanded individual observation, integration of multi-interview observations, development of themes and then development of interview theses. (As will be discussed later, I considered and adopted this in a modified form in the data analysis.)
Table 3-2: The Approach to Interview Design
The Interview Framework developed using this approach is shown in Appendix C. A draft version was piloted in the first case, with some modifications being made after the first and second interviews. In practice, individuals’ responses in one area tended to provide partial answers to other questions, therefore, each question was not necessarily asked in every interview. A preliminary coding scheme was then developed from the Themes and the Interview Framework. The coding schema was discussed informally over an extended period with another KM researcher and then included in a discussion paper that was presented and reviewed at an EDAMBA advanced doctoral workshop in 2005. The framework was also included in a refereed conference paper presented in 2007 and subsequently published in a journal article in 2008. The preliminary schema was extended with data-driven codes
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identified during the early interviews, resulting in the final schema, which is presented in Appendix D.
3.4
LINKING DATA TO PROPOSITIONS
The overall approach to data analysis and synthesis drew on Scholz & Tietje (2002),who suggest a three layer architecture model of knowledge integration in case studies where “sub-projects” go through a process of synthesis where conceptualizing techniques (application of methods of knowledge integration) are used to develop a higher level of understanding of the case. They see four types of synthesis: Synthesis as a philosophical strategy of contemplation Synthesis through a pure case model Synthesis as a pre-stage of higher conceptual knowledge Synthesis as a method of complex problem solving This study is close to the “synthesis as a pre-stage of higher conceptual knowledge” type – further described as a Kantian type of enquiry, where the “theory, not the case, is the final point of reference.” Such cases “may be used instrumentally to illustrate various aspects of or notions of a theory or concept” (ibid, p.34).
The basic analysis and initial synthesis was done using the framework developed by Boyatzis (1998): Sensing Themes, doing it reliably, developing the thematic codes, and then interpreting the Themes in the context of a theory or conceptual framework. Boyatzis describes three approaches to developing thematic codes: theory-driven, prior data or prior research driven, or inductive (derived from the data themselves). This study draws on the first of these and the main codes were developed from the theory being tested. Provision was made, however for the identification of additional data-driven codes where Themes were identified during the data analysis that were not adequately covered by those developed from the theory. The final set of codes used is provided in Appendix D.
The process of content analysis in qualitative research is a major challenge, involving “identifying, coding, categorizing, classifying, and labeling the primary patterns in the data"
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(Patton, 2002, p.463). Hussey and Hussey (1997) identify four main challenges in qualitative data analysis and describe possible solutions: Reducing the data: too big a mass of notes and documents and more -- normally resolved by developing some form of coding system Structuring the data: perhaps through a priori theoretical framework, or from one that emerges in the data collection phase Anticipatory data reduction: if done by using an a priori framework, then certain data may be ignored (so try and avoid in a phenomenological approach) Detextualizing the data: sometime converting extended text into diagrams and illustrations to analyze or present (including numbers) The approach used for this study adopts all of Hussey & Hussey’s suggestions.
Further, as Miles and Huberman (1994, p.10) comment, “Data reduction refers to the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data that appear in written-up field notes or transcriptions” often using coding schemes. "Codes are efficient data labeling and data retrieval devices. They empower and speed up analysis” (p.65). Data reduction is then followed by evidence display, which can include text, matrices, graphs, charts and networks.
During interview data analysis, McCracken comments that, "the investigator begins deeply embedded in the finest details of the interview transcript and, with each successive stage, moves upward to more general observations" (McCracken, 1998, p.43). This includes the examination of patterns and themes and the application of judgment to develop theses. McCracken also discusses the need for data reduction, moving from full transcript to identifying significant meta-observations and then developing general points.
In building the coding system, consideration was given to Boyatzis’ (1998) five elements of a good thematic code – a label, a definition, a description of how to know when the theme occurs, a description of qualifications or exclusions to the identification of the themes, and positive and negative examples of the theme. The case data analysis took place in five stages: 1. Transcription and Review
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Each interview was transcribed and references to individual names and firms were removed. Obvious errors of transcription were corrected. Otherwise, the text was left as transcribed, with no attempts to correct grammar or other content. 2. Initial Coding Next, an initial coding of each interview was carried out using the coding schema developed from the Themes. The first pass for each case was done using paper versions of the transcript, but later analysis was carried out using the HyperResearch Qualitative Data Analysis software tool. HyperResearch is a long established and comprehensive tool (Lewins and Silver, 2004) and was chosen for the following reasons: Its overall architecture matches well to this study, allowing the use of “cases” within “studies”. It allowed each interview and supporting documentation to be treated as a single case. These interview “cases” could then be combined in “studies” -- each study corresponding to either a singe firm or a cross-firm study both in total and by participant level. It allowed the creation of a coding schema corresponding to the research framework and allows comprehensive viewing and analytic interrogation and reporting of the textual data. (For example, it allows the easy display of all phrases coded to correspond to a particular theme by interview, by firm or cross-firm.) It has a linked transcription tool, useful for the transcription of recorded interviews. It is a cross-platform tool, working in both Macintosh and Windows environments and allowing file transfer between the two (something useful to my own work situation). All coding from the initial paper analysis was converted and subsequent analysis was done with the tool, which allows the in-line annotation of the interview text and its subsequent analysis in a number of forms. At this stage, a number of data-driven codes were generated and added to the master code list.
For each firm, each interview was examined three times in its entirety to determine “codable comments” – statements by participants that had a relevance to one of the sub-themes. The first pass was done shortly after the interview was transcribed and a paper transcription of the interview was annotated to show the codable comments identified. These were then entered into the HyperResearch Database. The second pass was done through an online review of the coded transcripts, looking for additional codable comments and reviewing the
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original codes for accuracy (and looking for any matches to the data-driven codes added to the coding scheme. Finally, when the data scoring (described below) was completed, each interview was reviewed again to look for those areas for which very few or no codes had been identified. 3. Data reduction and synthesis at the firm level For each firm, HyperResearch was used to organize and present the data related to each Theme and subtheme. Three methods for scoring of Themes were followed: First, each interview was examined to determine a Nominal or Presence/Absence score. This is a simple test to determine whether any evidence exists to support discussion of the Theme. Next, a frequency score was determined at the interview and the firm level to determine the level of support for each Theme and its sub-codes. Tables showing the frequency count of the number of empirical observations related to the Theme for each firm are provided in Appendix E. As Namey et al. (2007, p. 143) say, when “coding has been done systematically using clearly defined codes, a code frequency report can help identify which themes, ideas, or domains were common and which rarely occurred. In this way, the number of times a code is applied can be used as an indication of the salience of a theme or an idea across files, domains, or questions, depending on the analysis objective”. Third, the original text that discussed each Theme, was re-examined to determine the level of support for the two main research questions and a count made of the number of statements that provided support, whether negative or positive, for the diffusion of the Theme or suggested that it was not widely diffused. This count was done in two stages:
First to determine whether it supported the presence of the KM Theme in the firm; Second, to look for either explicit mention or strong inference that the diffusion of the Theme followed the recommendations of the NGKM proponents.
In addition to the frequency counts for the Themes and sub-themes, each related coded comment was examined to determine practices and insights related to the Theme as well as determining the level of diffusion support for the Theme. This is presented as a rich text narrative in each case analysis, drawing on the actual words of the interview participants. 4. Data synthesis at the cross-firm level After the individual case analyses were completed, a cross-case analysis was carried out. This included a repeat of the frequency analysis to determine the cross-firm interest and
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support for each firm and an inter-firm analysis to determine similarities and difference between firms. This was done using the Theme level frequency counts and through a reinspection of the original codable comments for each Theme.
A cross-case review was also carried out to examine similarities and differences across staff levels (e.g. the views of partner-level professionals vs. junior professionals across the five firms). In addition, at this stage, the cross-case findings were compared to those of 23 case studies of PSFs carried out by other researchers and further tested through follow-up interviews with eight industry leaders. 5.
Data synthesis at the theory level
Finally, the data analysis was reviewed again against the two main and five subsidiary research questions. First, the experience of the five case studies was examined to determine the overall level of diffusion of KM across the firms and in the follow-up secondary case analysis and interviews. Second the overall support for diffusion of the NGKM concept was examined, both as a whole and in comparison to the specific views of the authors whose work was used to build the composite NGKM model.
3.5
SAMPLE SIZE & SATURATION
3.5.1 Determining the Sample Size When planning fieldwork, researchers in general and doctoral candidates in particular have to make decisions on how and from whom to collect their data. For those following a positivist paradigm and using quantitative techniques there is abundant guidance, with a solid statistical foundation using probability sampling of a target population. However, others, particularly those adopting phenomenological perspectives, make extensive use of qualitative techniques, including interviews, case studies, observation and action research. In these situations the sampling method used is purposive or non-probability sampling, where “the subjective judgments of the researcher are used in selecting the sample� (Remenyi et al., 1998).
Purposive sampling is a widely used technique in social science research. In purposive sampling, cases/participants are selected to meet a specific set of criteria. Examples include
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choosing convenient, typical or modal respondents, heterogeneous or diverse respondents, experts, extreme/critical/exemplar cases and snowball selection (where initial participants point the researcher to others).
Purposive sampling uses “information rich cases…from which one can learn a great deal about central issues of great importance to the purpose of the research” (Patton, 2002, p.46). Some authors, for example Coyne (1997), differentiate between purposive and theoretical sampling, drawing on the work of Strauss & Corbin (1990), where theoretical sampling in grounded theory means “sampling on the basis of concepts that have proven theoretical relevance to the evolving theory.”
Most texts on qualitative research are silent on sample size. As Guest et al. concluded, from a review of twenty-four research methods books and seven databases, the “literature did a poor job of operationalizing the concept of saturation, providing no description of how saturation might be determined and no practical guidelines for estimating sample sizes for purposively sampled interviews” (Guest et al., 2006, p.60). As an example, in one widely used reference text, Patton commented. “There are no rules for sample size in qualitative enquiry. Sample size depends on what you want to know, the purpose of the inquiry, what’s at stake, what will be useful, what will have credibility and what can be done with available time and resources” (Patton, 2002, p.244). Some limited guidance for specific sample sizes is available. Table 3-3 summarises recommendations made for several types of study. Author Bernard (2000:178)
Recommendation Most ethnographic studies are based on 30-60 interviews.
Bertaux (1981)
The smallest acceptable sample size in qualitative research is 15.
Morse (1994:225)
At least 6 participants for phenomenological studies; approximately 30-50 participants for ethnographies, grounded theory studies, and ethnoscience studies. Between 5 and 25 interviews for a phenomenological study and 20-30 for a grounded theory study. 6 to 8 interviews for a homogeneous sample and 12-20 data sources “when looking for disconfirming evidence or trying to achieve maximum variation.” A phenomenological study “will likely require 10 to 50 descriptions of a target experience in order to discern its necessary and sufficient constituents.”
Creswell (1998) Kuzel (1992:41) Sandelowski (1995:182)
Table 3-3: Recommendations for Sample Size in Purposive Sampling
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3.5.2 Determining Saturation Determining saturation seems to be a decision for the individual researcher, however Guest et al. suggest that “theoretical saturation relates to the development of theory” and such saturation might be held to have occurred when “new information produces little or no change to the code book” (Guest et al., 2006, p.65). They then describe “thematic prevalence” where they define “the importance of a code as the proportion of individual interviews to which a code is applied”, and suggest testing for consistency in theme responses as a method of determining data saturation.
In most discussions on sampling, the unit of analysis might be either an individual or an organisation and either might be referred to as a “case”. Patton (2002, p.448) describes multiple layers of cases and Yin identifies four types of case study (Yin, 2003, p.40).
Gummesson (2000, p.95), drawing on the work of Glaser and Strauss (1967), argue that “theories and models that purport to have a degree of generality” can be based on a limited number of cases, with saturation being “the diminishing marginal contribution of each additional case”. Yin, in discussing multiple case studies, suggests that the selection of cases be done using “replication, not sampling logic”. Replication can be literal (predicting similar results) or theoretical (expected differences but for predictable reasons) (Yin, 2003, p.47-48).
Yin also describes a framework for multiple case studies which examines the results from each successive replication to determine whether any changes to theory or protocol are needed (a form of saturation testing), concluding that anywhere from two or three to as many as five or six replications are needed depending on the degree of difference between cases (ibid, p.50-51).
Table 3-4 provides examples of studies demonstrating saturation,
which include explicit discussion of how saturation was determined.
The sampling framework used in this study fits well within the criteria reviewed here and saturation in each case was determined by the stability of the coding system, as no new codes were being added in subsequent review.
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Author Romney et al. (1986:326) Marshall (1996:524) Guest et al. (2006:78)
Mason (2010) Bruggeman, 2010
Findings In situations of “cultural competence” (i.e. well informed individuals in a homogeneous culture) as few as 4 respondents can produce a high level of accuracy and that well below 30 is a reliable sample. In a purposive sample of physicians, thematic saturation was evident after about 15 interviews and theoretical saturation occurred after 24 interviews. In examining a sample of 60 interviews, found that “data saturation had for the most part occurred by the time we had analyzed 12 interviews”. In further examining how many interviews were necessary to have supported the four themes they developed in their study they found that “enough data existed after 6 interviews to support these four themes”. They concluded that, “For most research enterprises, however, in which the aim is to understand common perceptions and experiences among a group of relatively homogeneous individuals, 12 interviews should suffice. Examined 563 PhDs that used qualitative approaches and found, in the 179 examples that followed a case study approach, between 1 and 95 interviews were carried out, with a median of 33 interviews. Reached saturation at about 25 interviews (of some 40 carried out)
Table 3-4: Specific Examples of Purposive Sampling
3.5.3 Follow-up Activities In some case study research, after the primary case analyses are complete, researchers carry out additional validation activities, such as a focus group or a small number of interviews with industry/subject experts. This technique was followed in this study, by both examining secondary data from other researchers’ case studies and conducting follow-up interviews with eight Canadian industry leaders.
3.6
RISKS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY APPROACH
3.6.1 Challenges to Generalisation of the Findings As has been discussed earlier in this chapter the research paradigm adopted in this study is at the border between Functionalist and Interpretivist, using largely qualitative methods to test the validity of a theoretical framework developed through an a priori review of the extant literature. Gummesson comments that “Both researchers and consultants may feel a need to generalize knowledge: researchers, to develop and test theories, and consultants, as a means of improving their expertise.” He attacks a view commonly held by positivist researchers that a limited number of observations (i.e. cases) cannot be used as a basis for generalization or that statistical studies based on large samples can always lead to meaningful generalizations (Gummesson, 2000).
Interestingly Hamel et al. (1993, p.44) also argue that generalizing from a case study approach is no different than from other forms of study and that:
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The generality of the case study, like any other laboratory test, is relative to the methodological value of the test process involved in the experiment itself and ‘holds until proved otherwise,’ as the scientists put it. The methodological value…is essentially based on (a) the quality of strategies selected in defining the object of study…as well as (b) the methodological rigor displayed in the description of this subject in the form of a sociological analysis that can be understood in action. Gummesson further points out that Glaser and Strauss (1967) see a clear distinction between theory generation and theory testing, and also suggests “that theories and models should be grounded in real-world observations rather than be governed by established theory.”
3.6.2 Other Challenges in Quantitative Data Analysis In the research design, I have tried to address some key challenges often raised regarding qualitative research projects:
Avoiding Theory Bias: When researchers use a thematic coding system based on prior theory, it is often suggested (e.g. Boyatzis, 1998) that, while often convenient, a theory-based approach may introduce bias, especially when the researcher is testing his own theory. In this case, while I developed the Themes and the composite NGKM framework from my literature analysis, it is not “my” theory. Rather, I am testing the theory of others, using a Management Fashion Theory view with no inbuilt bias and thus have less vulnerability to ”projection” than if I were testing my own theory. In addition, since the “researcher started with the theory…the interpretation (of the coding) is a direct commentary on the theory. The theory or parts of it are either confirmed or refuted” (Boyatzis, 1998).
Validity & Reliability: As Remenyi et al. (1998) suggest, validity in qualitative research can be maintained by such techniques as: Using multiple sources of evidence; creating a single study database and maintaining a chain of evidence. The research approach described above addresses all three of these issues (e.g. multiple firms and levels of participant; the HyperResearch database; and the use of the coding and code analysis roll-up, which all provide an inspectable chain of evidence.)
Within this exercise, triangulation is often used to minimize the possibility of bias or misinterpretation due to a single-method, single source study approach.
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Easterby-Smith et al. (1991) identify four types of triangulation that can be used: data (e.g. collected at different times or from different sources); investigator (e.g. data collected or analyzed independently by different researchers); methodological (e.g. multiple techniques); and theory (e.g. from different disciplines). The approach adopted addresses, to some degree, three of the four approaches, with the most major weaknesses being in my role as the single researcher. This applies both to the overall development of the research themes and the more specific concerns about having only a single observer and using a single coder approach (e.g. Boyatzis, 1998). To partially address this concern about the single researcher, various elements of the evolving theory, methodology approaches and data analysis have been presented at a variety of forums, including doctoral colloquia, refereed conferences and journal articles.
3.7
THE RESEARCH WORKPLAN
Figure 3-5, summarises the overall workplan showing the key stages in the project and their interconnection. The next chapter presents the Case Analyses findings.
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Figure 3-5: The Research Project Workplan
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CHAPTER 4 CASE ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION Overview This Chapter describes the five firms that gave permission for the researcher to examine their Knowledge Management strategies and activities and discusses the types of individuals who participated in the interviews as well as the other sources of information made available. It presents the case findings as a narrative, drawing extensively on direct quotations from the interviews, supported by some simple quantitative analysis of the interest expressed by the interview participants towards each of the study Themes. In addition, it describes how counting codable moments is used to determine the level of support for the Theme and for a possible Next Generation implementation of that theme. As each individual case analysis is quite lengthy, the detailed case discussion is presented in a set of Appendices (F-J). This chapter provides a cross-case analysis in four sections, followed by the findings of a set of follow up interviews with industry leaders to further test the findings. The chapter concludes with a summary of the study findings, in order to respond to the research questions, integrating the literature review and bibliographic discourse analysis with the findings from the five cases, a secondary review of other case studies of professional services firms and eight follow-up interviews.
4.1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter provides an integrative analysis of the five cases investigated in this study (with the detailed discussion of each individual case being presented in the Appendices). Each case is a separate professional services firm (PSF). The discussion in this chapter focuses on a cross-case analysis, showing summarized findings, commonalities, and differences across the cases, and drawing on additional fact-finding activities including secondary case analysis and follow-up interviews.
4.1.1 Introducing the Firms As part of the data collection agreement, anonymity was guaranteed both to the firms and to the individuals participating in the study. As a result, the following conventions are used to describe the firms and individuals. The five firms are labeled as: STRATFIRM: One of the world’s leading global management consultant firms, with a strong focus on strategic and other high-end services – detailed discussion presented in Appendix F GENFIRM1: A very large and global professional service firm, providing audit, tax, and management advisory services – Appendix G GENFIRM2: A second large global professional service firm, providing audit, tax, and management advisory services – Appendix H
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ITFIRM: A global information technology professional service firm, providing services in outsourcing, systems integration and consulting – Appendix I LAWFIRM: A large Canadian-based diversified law firm, operating across Canada, with some international links – Appendix G In each case, the data collection was predominantly carried out within the Canadian practices of the firm. However, with the exception of LAWFIRM, this method provided a reasonably global perspective as a large part of the operations of each firm were common across international boundaries and many of the participants had worked internationally within their firm.
Data were primarily collected through interviews and direct observation. Interviews were both face-to-face and by telephone and, with one exception (due to a recording malfunction), were recorded and transcribed. Some access to each firm’s internal documents was provided but, with one exception, permission was not given to extract quotations from or to analyse these documents. Publicly available material on each firm was examined, including that available from each firm’s website and firm-specific articles, both trade and academic, that had been written about each firm and its approach to KM. Each firm did provide a demonstration of its KM or employee portal and of the main tools available to each worker.
4.1.2 The Individuals Who Participated Actual job titles vary across the firms, however, to allow consistent comparison as well as to avoid using titles that could identify the firm or the individual, the following job classifications have been used: Partner (P): Identifies a senior member of the firm with all or most of the responsibilities and authority that would be expected of a partner in a large multinational professional services firm. In practice, such individuals have job titles such as partner, principal, vice president, senior director, etc. Senior Professional (SP): Identifies a professional within the firm with significant work experience and high status within the firm’s professional ranks. Typically responsible for day-to-day leadership and delivery of projects and services to clients, either as the most senior permanent member of a single project team or one of the leaders within multiple projects for the same client. Sometimes is seen as a specific subject matter expert and, in some cases, considered as a future candidate for partner. In a law firm this would be a senior lawyer. Junior professional (JP): Identifies a more junior worker within the professional services hierarchy, typically entry-level or with less than three years experience. In a law firm this would be an articling or recently qualified lawyer.
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Administrator (A): Identifies an individual who is not seen as part of the firm’s professional hierarchy but is a significant supporter of the firm’s professional services. This could include senior administrative assistant, a technology support analyst or other paraprofessional support role.
4.1.3 The Approach Taken to Describe Participants and Attribute Quotations In the detailed data analysis, individuals interviewed in the study are identified by their Firm Code, professional role, and a number. Thus, an individual might be coded as STRATFIRM SP1— i.e. one of the senior professionals within the strategy consulting firm studied. However, when citing direct quotations in this chapter, each level of professional has been aggregated (so they are referred to simply as partner, senior professional, etc). All participants are referred to as male. Where the quotation itself may have relevance but the level or role of the individual making it is not significant, attribution of the quotation is not included.
All quotations are shown in italics and are taken directly from the transcripts with only minor editing to remove such items as verbal mannerisms and duplicate words. Where additional words are needed to clarify or set in context a specific word or concept, such additions are made in (brackets) within the quotation. In addition, where specific words would indentify the firm or its clients, these have been replaced by a more generic term, shown in [square brackets]. Finally, when some words have been excluded, this is shown as three dots (e.g“it’s a BU generated item where (corporate) broadcast it… from the [enterprise portal]”). The elimination of words is done only to remove words that do not relate to the topic at hand or to allow the connection of linked ideas in the same question response from an individual.
Significant findings are identified by summary statements in the narrative, identified by bold letters.
4.1.4 The Structure of the Individual Case Analyses In the five Appendices, the analysis of each firm’s approach to Knowledge Management is presented. A similar format is used for each case: 4.1.4.1
Introduction and Summary of Code Responses
Each case analysis starts with an overview of the firm and the participants in the study as well as a summary table which provides, for each research Theme, a breakdown of the number of coded responses by each level of respondent (partner, senior professional, junior
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professional and admin staff). This is developed from a more detailed summation at the Theme and sub-code level, which is presented for each firm in Appendix E. These represent the number of instances of empirical observation of comments related to one Theme. This helps “identify which themes, ideas, or domains were common and which rarely occurred” (Namey et al., 2007). This count identifies levels of interest in each Theme and sub-code but does not differentiate between diffusion of KM in general and the more specific issues related to diffusion of NGKM. (This is provided later in the case write-up.) 4.1.4.2
Theme-level Discussion
This is followed by a more detailed discussion on each Theme, with an assessment of each Theme’s diffusion presented both through frequency counts of evidence and through rich text quotations selected as useful or representative insights from the interviews. Significant findings are highlighted in each section. As (Eisenhardt, 1989) suggests within-case analysis is a very important part of case research, providing detailed case write-ups as the first stage in data reduction and a necessary precursor to cross case analysis. 4.1.4.3
Theme Diffusion Assessment
At the end of each Theme section, a summary assessment is made of the diffusion of the Theme in the firm. This construct includes a short narrative discussion, which presents the key findings as well as a graph that demonstrates the degree to which the interview comments provide support for the diffusion of the Theme in practice. This graph also shows the degree to which participants provided support for the diffusion of NGKM approaches. An example of such a graph is provided in Figure 4-1, showing the number of empirical observations in support, or in opposition to, the Theme.
Figure 4-1: Example of Support Score Graph
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The scoring framework shows, for each of the two main research questions – the diffusion of KM and the diffusion of NGKM -- the number of comments made that either directly support the diffusion in practice of the Theme (dark shade) or indicate opposition to the diffusion (light shade). Each comment is coded for one of the research questions, thus the two plots are additive to show the overall support for the general Theme. These summaries are then used as a starting point for the cross-case analysis that follows in this chapter, where the individual case findings are collected for each Theme, and integrated with the external findings from other case studies and the follow-up interviews, as well as comparisons with the extant literature to determine the degree of convergence towards the study conclusions (Eisenhardt, 1989).
4.2
CONTRASTING THE FIRMS
4.2.1 Characteristics of the Firms Studied The five participating firms are summarized in Table 4-1. All are substantial firms, in some cases seen as world leaders. Combined, they employ almost 300,000 professionals worldwide. All but one are global in scope, with LAWFIRM being mainly Canadian focused with some international connections. However, only STRATFIRM operates on a truly global basis, with both GENFIRMs operating largely at a national and practice level and ITFIRM having its main focus at the strategic business unit level. LAWFIRM has a high level of local office autonomy. LAWFIRM is involved in litigation and corporate law, including work on intellectual property, with very limited work being done for consumer clients.
In addition to its internal knowledge base, each firm could be seen as using a specific external body of knowledge. In the case of STRATFIRM and the advisory services practices of both GENFIRMs, the body of knowledge is quite varied, drawing on management disciplines such as strategy, operations, finance, human resources, and change management. The audit and tax practices of both GENFIRMs are much more focused on the knowledge needed to qualify as a certified accountant and the associated Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. ITFIRM draws largely on technical bodies of knowledge related to specific application development and operating environments, as well as knowledge of specific business processes. LAWFIRM is strongly focused on very specific external legal knowledge, including the qualifications needed to qualify as a lawyer or legal clerk and a broad range of understanding of the relevant common law and precedents for each practice area.
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STRATFIRM
GENFIRM1
GENFIRM2
ITFIRM
LAWFIRM
Size
2,000+
100,000+
100,000+
±30,000
±1,000
Scope
Global
Global
Global
Global
Mainly Canadian
Org. Focus
Global
National & Practice
National & Practice
Business Unit
Local Office
Body of Knowledge
Varied
Varied & Accounting
Varied & Accounting
Varied Technical
Law
Maister Classification
Brains
Greyhair
Greyhair
Procedure
Brains
Table 4-1: The Participating Firms
Finally, when considering the general types of professional services firm proposed by Maister (1988), STRATFIRM and LAWFIRM fall mainly in the "brains" category, both GENFIRMs are largely "greyhair,” with some procedural elements, and ITFIRM is mainly "procedural."
From this discussion, it can be seen that the five firms that participated in the study provide a wide representation of professional services firms, demonstrating both the common elements expected from a professional services firm as well as a comprehensive variety of strategic and organisational approaches and bodies of knowledge.
4.2.2 Profiles of the Interview Participants Table 4-2 summarises the participants from each firm – 34 in total. Participants were selected by the primary contact in each of the firms. In each case, it appeared that the individuals who participated were quite representative of their role and positions in the organization. The participant group in each firm included one individual who was directly involved in that firm’s Knowledge Management activities, with the possible exception of ITFIRM, where two or three had some more direct involvement.
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As can be seen from Table 4-2, while about two thirds of the participants held senior positions, there was some representation from all categories within the sample. As will be discussed later in this chapter, this did allow some cross-level discussion of attitudes towards knowledge and Knowledge Management and also provide some level of triangulation. STRATFIRM
GENFIRM1
GENFIRM2
ITFIRM
LAWFIRM
TOTAL
Partner
2
4
2
2
2
12
Senior Professional
2
1
2
3
2
10
Junior Professional
3
1
1
1
2
8
Admin or Support
1
1
1
0
1
4
TOTAL
8
7
6
6
7
34
Table 4-2: Interview Participants
4.3
CROSS-FIRM ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION BY THEME
From the 34 interviews, some 2,483 codable comments were identified, addressing all seven Themes. The total number of comments for each Theme is shown in Table 4-3. Theme
Codable Comments
A
Strategic Focus
264
B
Focus on IT
477
C
Better Use of Models
233
D
Effective Knowledge Processes
424
E
Complexity of Knowledge
199
F
Personal & Social Knowledge
637
G
Intellectual Property/Capital
249
TOTAL COMMENTS
2,483
Table 4-3: Total of Codable Comments by Theme
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From this table it can be seen that all seven Themes were addressed in discussion, with three themes showing very high frequencies of occurrence. The most frequently referenced Theme was the Personal & Social Nature of Knowledge, followed by the Focus on IT and Knowledge Processes. The other Themes showed somewhat lower, though still significant, attention. The relative emphasis of the sub-themes will be discussed below in the next section, however three initial points are worthy of note here: In the IT Theme, almost two thirds of the comments related to IT tool use; in the Intellectual Property Theme, about half of the comments related to IP Rewards; and in the Complexity of Knowledge Theme, very few comments related specifically to a recognition of any specific complexity. In the other Themes, comments were more broadly spread between the sub-themes.
In the remainder of this section, each Theme is considered across the five firms, first through general discussion of each Theme, followed by an examination of the overall level of support for the Theme and a review of specific sub-themes. In addition, differences between the firms are highlighted. To amplify the discussion and provide additional insight, the crosscase findings are supplemented by references to a longitudinal literature analysis that looks at 23 case studies of KM in professional services firms carried out between 1998 and 2011. A summary of the cases reviewed is also presented as Appendix K.
4.3.1 Strategic Focus All of the firms demonstrated the existence of a strategic focus on knowledge and Knowledge Management, making 264 codable comments. Some participants had difficulty in separating the sub-themes of knowledge vs. Knowledge Management, but all were able to describe at least the existence of strategies for knowledge and Knowledge Management and most were able to articulate some details of these strategies. To some degree, knowledge strategies were also evident in other strategic objectives. In this study, KM strategies were linked to business objectives (as suggested by Greiner et al., 2007, Swain and Ekionea, 2008).
In every firm, the importance of knowledge to success was clearly recognized. A partner in STRATFIRM expressed this as, “we are all very well aware of the fact that we live and die by our knowledge.” In GENFIRM1, “Knowledge is and has been a core part of our business and our service for as long as we’ve been in business. Which is over a hundred years!” and “knowledge and the use of
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knowledge is within the mission statement of the firm.” In ITFIRM, “we are basically a knowledge business,” and knowledge concepts such as innovation and expertise are clearly expressed in the firm’s core strategic documents. LAWFIRM had seen a significant change, likely driven by its recent merger, from a situation where “we had our KM council…we spoke of the KM strategy.” to a more focused strategy that is “definitely part of a strategic plan” combining more traditional library services with an investment in the development of key precedents.
All of the firms had a specific organizational group with responsibility for Knowledge Management although the structure varied. Except for LAWFIRM, all had a CKO or equivalent senior executive, operating at least at the national level, and, at STRATFIRM, in addition to a corporate CKO, there was a global knowledge council made up of senior partners. In ITFIRM, the Chief Technology Officer has overall responsibility for KM across the firm. Except for LAWFIRM, all of the firms had some level of KM governance in place, with some central functions and distributed KM units within practices.
To a very limited degree, the participants mentioned some measurement of knowledge creation and use, but this was not a significant activity in any firm, with most measures taking place as part of professionals’ annual reviews. None of the firms had specific targets for knowledge creation and use.
Relatively few comments were made opposing or criticizing the various KM strategies, with the exception of LAWFIRM, where senior members of the firm were somewhat mixed in their belief on the appropriateness or, indeed, the reality of their strategy. In GENFIRM2, where significant new KM activities are taking place, “knowledge sharing and Knowledge Management…if we really want to move it to the next level, has to be tied in with our performance management.” Figure 4-2 shows the support for this theme in each firm and Figure 4.3 provides a composite chart across all firms.
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Figure 4-2: Strategic Focus Theme Support
Figure 4-3: Cross-firm Support for the Strategic Focus Theme
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The firm charts show strong support for a NGKM theme in all of the firms except for LAWFIRM. In LAWFIRM, participants described a recent attempt to implement a firm-wide strategy that was abandoned (perhaps because of a recent merger) which was replaced with a more focused initiative.
This theme had the highest proportion of statements with explicit support for NGKM, with only LAWFIRM showing lowest support. In particular, over 50 comments were made that showed strong or moderate support for the presence of a new or renewed strategy for KM; in particular, STRATFIRM, GENFIRM2 and ITFIRM had recently introduced new strategies for KM involving very senior partners or executive teams, reflecting Scheepers et al. (2004) view that KM strategies evolve as firms gain experience.
Even within LAWFIRM, while they had abandoned their corporate-wide KM initiative, their revised strategy also explicitly recognised the need for a strategy for KM – perhaps somewhat different from the strategy adopted prior to their merger.
Despite the widespread support from participants in every firm on the existence and importance of knowledge and Knowledge Management for the firm’s success, there was also a belief expressed by several of the senior participants that an over emphasis on the “management” of knowledge for its own sake was not seen as either productive nor, indeed, attractive to professionals and firms. One GENFIRM1 partner suggested, “probably for the last 4 or 5 years we have downplayed the structure of Knowledge Management with a capital K and a capital M in our organization,” seen as further support of the criticisms of FGKM discussed in the literature review chapter (Call, 2005, Beesley and Cooper, 2008).
4.3.2 The Role of IT As has been mentioned earlier, the IT theme was the subject of many discussions, with more than two thirds of the codable comments related to the use of IT tools. Indeed, this subtheme (IT-TU) was by far the most frequently occurring with 326 mentions – almost twice as many as the next most frequently mentioned sub-theme.
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Every firm made use of a similar range of tools: Some form of firm-wide portal, providing access to a wide range of knowledge related tools. In some cases, this was customizable by business unit or even by individual. This portal consists of discussion and communication tools including voice mail, e-mail and a variety of topic-specific discussion boards. Conference support tools, including both voice and video conferencing, and expert directories allowing professionals to search across the firm for individuals with needed expertise, in some cases also allowing access to skill profiles and resumes. Repositories of client project files, often security protected. Parts of these were often also available in a “sanitized” form, accessible more generally across the firm. In some cases, these repositories were maintained using specialized software tools. More general intellectual capital repositories, including publicly distributed material and a variety of internal documents, sometimes including specific methodologies, frameworks, and templates. Promotional material, including brochures, technical literature, and presentations. Statements of qualifications. Access to external sources of information, often including proprietary databases. In addition, some of the firms also provided: The ability to set up virtual discussion spaces for specific topics or projects. Self-paced education tools. Use of mobile devices, such as “smart” phones. Experimental use of social networking tools. Every participant described useful and appropriate IT tools. As will be discussed later, in the Process theme, there were some criticisms of the effectiveness of some tools, typically related to the comprehensiveness or currency of some of the information stored within the systems. However, in every firm, the professionals felt that the range of systems available to them was both appropriate and effective.
Figure 4-4 shows the support for this theme in each firm and Figure 4-5 provides a composite chart across all firms. Examination of other case studies in PSFs indicates a similar evolution to that identified in the five cases. While early efforts focused almost completely on codification (Edgar, 1999, Dunford, 2000, Werr, 2000, Creplet et al., 2001), as the technology improved so did the adoption of new tools (Sherif and Xing, 2006, Ambos and Schlegelmilch,
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2009, Lai and Taylor, 2011). In general the contribution of IT and KMS was seen as significant but there continue to be concerns about the effectiveness of such tools.
Figure 4-4: Role of IT Theme Support
Figure 4-5: Cross-firm Support for the IT Theme
[Methodological Note: Coding for this theme posed a challenge. The proponents of NGKM claim that a major flaw in FGKM was an overfocus on IT. The implication of this is that any
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new generation would have less of a focus on IT. Thus, in examining the evidence regarding this NGKM theme, it seemed appropriate here to treat discussion and descriptions of the use and importance of IT in KM as a contrarian view. Thus, for the NGKM component of this analysis, but not the importance of the theme, strong support for IT was coded negatively.]
The results in every firm demonstrate strong support for the diffusion and adoption of IT as an important KM tool, showing strong disagreement with this theme from a NGKM viewpoint. IT is seen as a critical element within the KM strategies of all five firms. To some degree, this evidence is generational, with all the firms, except LAWFIRM, describing the implementation of a new generation of KM-related IT tools. In part, this was described as correcting problems from earlier systems, but also taking advantage of new technologies. In GENFIRM1, there was “pretty close alignment in our organization between technology and knowledge” and that “(the firm has) actually striven for both the creation and the evolution of a knowledge environment.”
The professionals appear to take a pragmatic view to the use of these tools. In discussion, they recognized both the advantages and limitations of the tools and, as we discussed in later sections, used both formal and informal processes and models to make the best use of the KM systems provided to them.
Across the majority of the interviews, participants seemed to often consider that the activity of Knowledge Management and the use of KM related IT tools were, if not the same thing, at least very closely related. In GENFIRM2, it was suggested that KM was “owned by the business but deployed by IT.” As will be demonstrated below in the discussion on knowledge models, much of the discussion about knowledge and Knowledge Management takes place in other processes within the firms using a different vocabulary. In ITFIRM, the use of IT tools was seen as a critical part of their “build it and they will come strategy.” Also, the tool use did represent both an effort to both build a “global asset repository, of which there is anything from methodologies in there to source code snippets, with fully functional frameworks” and provide communications tools where “what we’ve done and continue to do is create the collaboration spaces
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that allow people to break out of their silos, if I can call it that, and dialogue more in the social networking space.” In LAWFIRM, “IT has a huge role (in Knowledge Management).”
A supportive picture is demonstrated in examining other cases studies of PSFs. Major consulting firms had doctored, to some degree, early KM strategies, which mainly addressed a codification approach (Edgar, 1999, VonKortzfleisch and Al-Laham, 2000, Dunford, 2000, Creplet et al., 2001) and achieved only limited success (Morris and Empson, 1998). More recent work indicates an evolving perspective that still includes some elements of codification but expands the role of technology to support sharing activities (e.g. the use of portals and other tools to support community (Le-Nguyen et al., 2008)) and broadening their strategies to include consideration of people and processes. However, not all research agrees with this perspective (Lam, 2005, Mezher et al., 2005).
4.3.3 The Usefulness of KM Models While participants made some 233 codable comments related to knowledge models, many of these references were somewhat indirect. Except for those professionals with a KM background, little familiarity was evident with anything other than the simplest KM-related models. In most of the interviews, participants found it difficult to respond to questions related to “knowledge models" and many of the coded comments were provided in response to other questions or in descriptions of how people in the phone “talked about knowledge.” In several cases, the participants suggested that only the staff in the KM support area would discuss or use such models, with one professional in STRATFIRM suggesting that “I would never sit, hey you want to have a chat about knowledge (models).” The KM partner in GENFIRM2 said, “If I walked down the hallway, the day-to-day people do not think about it (KM).” He further suggested that “all of my conversations are mediated by the fact that they know they’re talking about KM guys to the (KM person), I think they change.” Despite this, in all of the firms, the professionals and staff talked about knowledge. However, they tended to do so either in quite general terms or using firm-specific references (consistent with Andriessen and van den Boom, 2007). There was strong consensus across all participants that knowledge was core to what they did and that the creation and use of knowledge was an everyday activity. Rather than talking about “knowledge,” they tended to talk about IC or IP (intellectual capital or intellectual property) or they used terms specific
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to their firm or discipline, such as “tax interpretations” or “precedents.” Very frequently, knowledge was described as “expertise” -- of both of an individual and of the firm. In GenFIRM1, “Yes, there's debate (about knowledge)… what it is, what it should be, how we should use it, how it should be funded, who gets to read it.” Several participants discussed life cycles of knowledge creation and use, particularly within STRATFIRM and ITFIRM. Sometimes this related to the need for processes to ensure that the knowledge was current, and in other cases it seemed to relate more closely to the market demand for specific services – in other words, taking into account the age of a knowledge object when considering its use. Knowledge creation was frequently described in an innovation context. Within STRATFIRM, “we did talk about intellectual capital, now we talk about innovation” and in GENFIRM1, “I don't see them as separate, I think the innovation is more formally dealt with in solution development mode, whereas knowledge would be captured out of the project.” Whereas within ITFIRM, the knowledge model discussion tended to be technical, using terms that are common to both KM and database management, such as taxonomy, repository, or metadata. One ITFIRM consultant said “we’re technical people, when we look at a problem set, we generally tend to look at it from a technical standpoint and from a tool.” In LAWFIRM, “Knowledge would be used yea. But more knowledge of the law, knowledge of the regulations – you wouldn’t hear, they have a body of knowledge, that’s just not something that would be used but (rather) they have expertise in IP, they have expertise in contracts.” Probably the most frequently referenced KM model concept was the tacit/explicit relationship. Participants discussed the capture of tacit knowledge in more explicit terms within repositories and within service delivery methodologies and frameworks. They also frequently commented on the need to consider knowledge in context – recognizing that the explicit knowledge captured was often of lesser value than the opportunity to speak directly to its originator or, at least, to have interpreted by a subject matter expert.
As will be discussed later, knowledge was often seen in personal terms, as something a specific individual might have and around which they might build a professional reputation.
Examination of the sub-themes shows that all the firms do have a clear view as to the nature of knowledge within their firm and how it needs to be used for business success. They do recognize different types of knowledge, but often they do so through their internal processes
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and internal vocabulary. Discussions frequently take place about the nature, development and use of knowledge with their work, again using their own internal vocabulary. Figure 46 shows the support for this Theme in each firm and Figure 4-7 provides a composite chart across all firms.
Figure 4-6: Use of KM Models Theme Support
Figure 4-7: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Models Theme
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An initial inspection of the charts indicates good support in discussion for this Theme, but the numerical results have to be viewed with caution. While they demonstrate that some KM models are addressed in KM discussions and activities, these tend to be the simpler ones (e.g. tacit/explicit conversion).
In reviewing the secondary cases, the recognition of specific KM models by the firms studied was not, in general, mentioned by other researchers in their studies. Even from the perspective of the authors’ own analysis, discussion of knowledge models other than tacit explicit and DIKW was limited.
The more complex models proposed by KM theoreticians appear to be little known and are not applied. NGKM proponents have argued that, while a variety of KM models have been developed and suggested to be useful tools for practitioners, these have not been found to be particularly useful in practice. This appears to be true within the five firms studied. Given that, in general, these are highly educated, skilled and experienced professionals who recognize the critical importance of appropriately used knowledge to their firm’s success, it is highly significant that they do not find it necessary to use such models in their day-to-day business.
Only those individuals seen as KM experts demonstrate any in-depth knowledge of knowledge models and even these individuals expressed caution about using these models outside of their own environment. This lack of visibility of KM models and concepts may be, at least in part, due to the lack of a definitional clarity in the field (Call, 2005, Beesley & Cooper, 2008.)
4.3.4 Processes for Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge With 424 coded comments, discussion on the activities and processes for the creation, sharing and use of knowledge was widespread. In every firm, processes exist to create, capture and share knowledge. In some areas these are highly formal and, in others quite informal. With the exception of LAWFIRM, these processes exist at the local, practice, national and, in some cases, global levels. For ITFIRM, “we have a number of frameworks which encapsulate the knowledge of how we do things.” These are a set of widely available corporate
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frameworks that provide the basis for the firm’s global operations, making quite specific references to knowledge-related objectives.
In practice, participants often found it difficult to separate knowledge-related processes to create new knowledge from those that share existing knowledge, contrary to the arguments of McElroy (2002). Given the nature or professional services practices, the building of new or improved services is part of doing business and, while the knowledge may be new to the firm in the practice area, to the individual professional (or indeed to the client), it may not be new in the sense that it is not known elsewhere. Repeatedly, participants returned to a theme of relevance or “real world” focus and potential use. In all of the firms, new knowledge is created in a variety of contexts and a variety of ways. These include groups or units dedicated to the development of new intellectual capital. Typically staffed by professionals on secondment, these operate at both national and global levels, developing intellectual products that can be used for promotion of the firm hand in new or improved service delivery. One professional in GENFIRM1 described how “I’ll be partially seconded to (the central group) to help build out one of our methodologies probably for 12 months. They’re taking me off the frontline to lead this solution globally.” In ITFIRM, “We have IP teams and we have a framework to manage that. And the IP team has the mandate of the investment program.”
At the working professional level, all four of the consulting firms had end-of-project processes to capture lessons learned and interesting new knowledge products created. In STRATFIRM, there is “an expectation on every project that you capture knowledge at the back end of the project so that’s kind of number one, that’s kind of a given.” In GENFIRM1, “There are certainly processes to capture it (knowledge), which we built into the management of the business.” In ITFIRM, project related knowledge is captured at each stage of the project execution process, covering both project management and systems content – “that’s kind of the work product of doing things day-in and day-out.” However, the efficacy of these processes was somewhat varied across the firms, as the separation between new knowledge creation and knowledge reuse was not always clear. Indeed, as has been discussed elsewhere, there was frequently an expectation that whatever knowledge was retrieved or shared would likely be modified in the context of the new need and not be used in its original form.
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The need to focus on innovation and new knowledge creation varied by the types of service offered. In STRATFIRM and the advisory services areas of both GENFIRMs, there was a strong emphasis on knowledge creation in the form of innovation and both formal and informal processes existed to facilitate this. In the audit areas of the GENFIRMs, the need for and appropriateness of innovation varied, since consistency of delivery is a critical component for many of their services. For example in GENFIRM2, “There is that difference by line of service, so if you put them on a sort of continuum, the audit people are really not interested in innovating at all…” Within ITFIRM, the emphasis was much more on identifying incremental improvement in specific service areas and sharing these, sometimes on a prescriptive basis, across the firm. Often, new knowledge was often obtained for ITFIRM through acquisition – either of other firms or staff acquired through outsourcing contracts. In LAWFIRM, there was much less emphasis on innovation and new knowledge creation, except in the specialized area of precedent development, which was the key knowledge process innovation within their current KM strategy.
Processes also exist to bring people together, either physically or virtually, to share and review knowledge. These processes support the various communities that will be discussed in a later section. Sometimes, these processes included highly structured group activities to share knowledge and provide new perspectives. For example, in STRATFIRM “we would assemble all of the subject matter experts from around the world and we'd say okay pick this apart, ask us questions help us think about other ways of thinking about it, have we tackled all the issues….” In GENFIRM, the existence of local KM specialists integrated within practices was seen as very significant, “if I’m looking for that information I go to the local KM manager and ask her to help me.”
All of the firms had specific processes to train professionals, especially at the entry and junior levels. For most participants, however, this was not seen as a KM activity. For professionals involved in regulated disciplines, such as accounting and law, these processes were seen as essential to certification, either to be a professional or related to their ability to carry out specific professional services within the firm.
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Figure 4-8 shows the support for this Theme in each firm and Figure 4-9 provides a composite chart across all firms.
Figure 4-8: KM Processes Theme Support
Figure 4-9: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Processes Theme
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The specific and combined charts demonstrate both a significant support for the Theme as well as some significant challenges. All the firms demonstrate processes that, in varying degrees, both support innovation and the creation of new knowledge and the widespread sharing of existing knowledge. This demonstrates strong support for the diffusion of the Theme.
On the other hand, this was also the area in which the largest number of comments were recorded with regard to problems within the firms. The Process Problem sub-theme (PROPROB) included more than a quarter of the comments made regarding processes, making it the third most discussed sub-theme. Many of these criticisms related to resource availability – professionals repeatedly referred to the “billing imperative.” In other words, while policies and procedures were in place to ensure capture and sharing of useful knowledge, it was often left to the supervising partner to determine whether resources would be allocated for this activity or the professional was expected to do this in their own time. Another area of frequent concern related to the currency and quality of the knowledge objects available and whether appropriate processes were in place to ensure this.
Junior professionals, in particular, described the challenges in making the effort to capture knowledge and put it in appropriate forms for sharing with others in the firm, since such work is typically not billable and finding the time to do this work can be a problem. In addition, when participants described problems in knowledge processes, they were often referring to the adequacy or incompleteness of the knowledge available in the various repositories.
In the other case study work reviewed, in Appendix K, there was limited process-related discussion in the early cases, but several of the more recent, identified specific knowledge processes – both formal and informal (Le-Nguyen et al., 2008, Ambos and Schlegelmilch, 2009, Taminiau et al., 2009, Hertlein et al., 2010). One study identified them as the most important supportive activity to the firms’ KM strategy (Palte et al., 2011).
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In ITFIRM, since the strategy involves moving away from very localized business activities to more global ones, “we need to make sure that we’re capturing all the innovation that may be happening elsewhere.” Taken in conjunction with the KM related IT systems discussed above the processes in place correspond closely to many of the propositions made by the NGKM advocates.
4.3.5 The Complexity of Knowledge Management With 199 codable comments, this theme occurred with the least frequency in interviews. Given the views expressed in Section 5.3 above – that “Knowledge Management” was not a subject frequently discussed within the firms – this might not be too surprising. Most direct discussion on this took place with the KM-expert participants. The majority of coded comments were statements by participants that covered some element of knowledge complexity, while not being proposed as such by the participant. Indeed, only 21 comments were made in direct discussion about knowledge complexity, with all the rest being revealed during the discussion on other topics (i.e. validation of knowledge claims, levels of abstraction, importance of context and different types of knowledge space).
Those participants who did talk about knowledge complexity were, in general, dismissive of the suggestion that the knowledge environments within the firms were complex. More typically, they suggested that the complexity was in the situational or contextual use of the knowledge. For example, in GENFIRM1, “for us, it's not a complexity issue – we can get carried away (in the use of IT tools), in not viewing the practitioner as integrator of that information.” In GENFIRM2, any such perception was limited to the KM group, where “we are stewards of the content, on behalf of the firm as a whole – our job is to help the firm as a whole, get the maximum benefit from the content as it exists.” In LAWFIRM, KM is “first thought of in terms of precedence” and then “being the sharing of knowledge within the minds of the lawyers here and part of the way.” The reuse of knowledge was closely linked to abstraction: “you wouldn’t use it as a precedent without scouring it and scrubbing it.” Figure 4-10 shows the support for this Theme in each firm and Figure 4-11 provides a composite chart across all firms.
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Figure 4-10: Knowledge Complexity Theme Support
Figure 4-11: Cross-firm Support for the Knowledge Complexity Theme
Although the charts do show some support for the Theme as discussed above, this is, at best, secondary. The participants most frequently discussed the need for processes to ensure the validity of the knowledge being used, along with the need to provide various levels of abstraction of the knowledge to enable its use elsewhere in the firm (described as
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“sanitizing” the knowledge). This is consistent with Firestone and McElroy’s (2004) KM process view. For the participants, abstraction served two purposes: 1) to ensure confidentiality of client data, and 2) to provide a version of the knowledge that was more easily interpretable and reusable (often by including explanatory notes). In addition, these concerns about validity and abstraction were linked to the importance of context. A professional would find it difficult to determine the validity and reusability of the knowledge without some metadata about the context of its initial creation or source. As one STRATFIRM professional described as a typical situation, “I still have to build some sort of a presentation guide to explain what my context is and why I’m asking the questions”
As mentioned above, concepts such as Complexity or Chaos Theory were not discussed by participants and when questioned on this, they were reluctant to accept the relevance to their work. This presents very limited support for either the diffusion of such theories in general or as support for the arguments of NGKM proponents. With one exception (Sherif and Xing, 2006), where complex adaptive systems were discussed, the complexity of Knowledge Management and related series were not discussed in the other case studies reviewed. However, it may also be the case that, when considering Snowden's four domains of KM (Snowden, 2002a), he argues that CAS and Chaos Theory are most significant in two of the domains (which he labels as complex un-order and chaotic unorder) and that these are less likely to be domains in which the firms studied normally operate.
4.3.6 Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge With 637 codable comments (along with 55 related comments in the Data-Driven code regarding knowledge as being part of the person), this was, by a significant margin, the most-discussed topic.
Across all the firms, there seemed to be broadly based cultures supportive of sharing knowledge (Rai, 2011). Providing environments in which that can happen was described as very important by the partners and senior professionals and its existence was mentioned by professionals at all levels. In STRATFIRM and both GENFIRMs, this culture was described as long established and broadly based. As a STRATFIRM partner said, “we are kind of motivated to help one another… People do not hoard IC… we are also not interested in primadonnas.”
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In GENFIRM1, “there are a few people that will hog knowledge because they think that it gives them power but pretty much everybody else will share.” Within ITFIRM, this was described as a more recent phenomenon, at least in its applicability beyond the local business unit. Within LAWFIRM, while the belief that “our culture is a very responsive, interested, and helpful place” is broadly held, it was commented that pockets of resistance to both the need and the practice did exist across the firm and that little pressure was applied to change this. LAWFIRM participants suggested that this was, at least in part, due to the more individualistic nature of some legal practices: “The reality is that even though everyone is together in the organization, they’re all actually sole practitioners.”
In every firm, these policies, structures and procedures exist at corporate (global and national), operating unit (industry or functional practice, geography), and front-line delivery (account, audit, project) level. In some cases these are very formal, in others they are quite informal, organised at the local or even individual practitioner level. In ITFIRM, these are specifically addressed in the corporate frameworks that are published on its website (and are publicly available). In GENFIRM1, “we have a national network of participants, we have networks of sectors participants…all those are linked and there is continuing sharing of different matters” and “they are networking all the time either by phone or by email or by [a firm specific tool]”. In GENFIRM2, the KM partner said, “I’m really interested right now in how it is that a firm can accelerate ad hoc, you know personal networking and what are the mechanisms that a firm could use to improve that.”
With the exception of LAWFIRM, all the firms had policies and processes to set up communities of practice and these are widely used. These communities can include local, regional, practice, discipline and special interest groups. In some cases they are set up by the firm, in others they can also be done at the request of a practitioner – depending on the nature of the group, membership might be by invitation or by request of the individual practitioner. In STRATFIRM, “It’s firm wide, everyone has access and then there are threads for by practice and there are geographic threads, there are threads by practice there are threads by industry so there's all kinds of different categorization.” In LAWFIRM, some communities do exist, mainly at the local practice level.
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The activity in these communities is closely linked to the technology tools provided. While groups do occasionally meet face-to-face, many of these communities exist only in electronic form with directories, discussion boards, email groups and shared repositories. Even "faceto-face" meetings usually allowed members to participate by audio or video conference. Indeed, as a STRATFIRM consultant described it, “the job is mostly on the phone because of the travelling so we do pretty well on weekly conference calls and stuff like that.”
Overall the various policies, structures and procedures used to facilitate the sharing of knowledge were viewed as being successful, with fairly limited criticisms.
Given the culture of sharing and the existence of both formal and informal communities, it is perhaps not surprising that many participants described the importance of informal knowledge sharing to success within the firm.
Recognition of the importance of the individual, as well as the degree to which knowledge is seen as an attribute of an individual as opposed to something more corporate and shareable, was widespread across the participants. To a GENFIRM partner, the consultant was “deploying a combination of their own personal skills and judgment and knowledge base, supported by and enhanced by the intellectual base of the firm.” Just as informal knowledge sharing was seen as a vital component of each firm’s activities, the need to get to a specific individual with the right knowledge was raised repeatedly.
While corporate directories and formal communities were seen as a first step, informal networks and connections were seen as more important. Within STRATFIRM, getting access to and involvement of the “real” experts was seen as vital to the firm's success and is part of the value-add provided to their clients. A junior professional described its importance, “There’s definitely an informal network, so that people become known for something then therefore they are likely the person that people go (to).” Within the GENFIRMs, access to the right individuals and their knowledge was seen as important in preparing to address client challenges, although the active participation of that individual was not necessarily seen as important once they had provided their input. For example, in GENFIRM2, “I think it’s just
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the matter of talking to the right person.” and “The networks, to my mind, work on a who knows what, who knows whom basis.” Within ITFIRM this recognition of the importance of individuals was seen as a more recent phenomenon and, given the nature of their business, tended to be restricted to the senior professionals and technical experts within the firm. For example, “we have one (a community) on technical architecture that [several hundred] of our more senior architects across the firm belong to.” At LAWFIRM, where the practice of law was seen as highly individualistic, there was very close association of knowledge with the expertise of the individual practitioner.
While researchers often suggest a significant differentiation between organizational learning and the concept of the learning organization (e.g. Oertenblad, 2001), it was difficult to see such a separation in the firms studied. Participants would describe learning activities without using the term “learning,” typically describing individual knowledge and building on that knowledge through experience and community, as well as the existence of a body of corporate knowledge, both tacit and explicit, that was embedded within the firm’s practices. Many of the firms’ processes were expected to produce such learning and the development of that learning and experience was key to personal growth and promotion with the firms. This behaviour is supportive of Cavaleri’s (2004) view that OL can be an important part of the KM, however, approaches to learning and knowledge sharing tend to be pragmatic supporting Prieto and Revillas’s contention that learning capability and business performance are closely linked, with the recognition that “deciding which knowledge is relevant” is key (Prieto and Revilla, 2006, p.179).
Figure 4-12 shows the support for this Theme in each firm and Figure 4-13 shows a composite chart across all firms. The charts demonstrate strong support for this theme both in terms of its diffusion and in relationship to the NGKM views.
Within the sub-themes, there was broad support for almost every area, with the most frequently mentioned being the importance of the individual in the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge: 123 mentions of the recognition of the importance of the individual and 55 mentions of knowledge being considered part of an individual.
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Figure 4-12: Personal & Social Knowledge Theme Support
Figure 4-13: Cross-firm Support for the Personal & Social Knowledge Theme
The importance of social and networking activities to effective KM was discussed in a number of the other case studies reviewed. From the beginning to more current studies, formal knowledge sharing was seen as important and largely embedded in the firm’s culture
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(Lai and Taylor, 2011, Taminiau et al., 2009), but several studies did not discuss these topics at all.
4.3.7 Intellectual Asset Management With 249 codable comments, discussion around IP focused largely on IP protection and employee rewards. It was notable that, while knowledge was frequently referred to as IP (intellectual property) or IC (intellectual capital), the recognition that these were assets and something that needed to be invented, measured or protected was not a topic of significant discussion.
When asked to describe how intellectual property was protected, most of the professionals were limited in their responses. With a few exceptions, protection of such assets was not seen as a problem. In STRATFIRM, there was a broadly held view that the IP was not really usable in any competitive manner outside of the firm – “yes we have frameworks, yes we have methodologies, their aids, (but) without the people and the power of the whole organization to understand things and work with things they are useless.” In the two GENFIRMs, there appeared to be greater focus on protection in the audit areas where, in GENFIRM1, “confidentiality of it (the methodologies) and client information is very strictly maintained,” and in GENFIRM2, access to key methodologies was controlled: “We restrict it, you wouldn’t get your computer out of the firm with it on it.”
In each firm the use of embedded knowledge, particularly within frameworks and methodologies, was seen as a significant service differentiator and some of these were protected. Again, however, it was suggested that it was not so much the content as the context of the use by the professionals within the firm that was the true competitive advantage. As a GENFIRM1 partner said, “human assets are the prime assets of the business.”
In general, discussion about intellectual assets within the firms took two forms: 1) the terms “intellectual property” and “intellectual capital” (and their abbreviations) were used widely and quite generically within all of the firms to describe their knowledge and practice supporting capabilities; and 2) when pressed to be more specific, the focus was on explicit artifacts or knowledge objects, such as repositories of project experience, qualifications, tools,
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and methodologies, as well as various thought pieces, white papers and other efforts to demonstrate knowledge in important fields of interest to their clients. However, the participants (and their firm’s strategies) clearly did not recognize the more comprehensive models of IP/IC suggested by its key proponents (e.g. Mouritsen et al., 2001, Sveiby, 2001a). While the knowledge held individually by consultants and collectively in practices and project teams was seen as the firm’s most important resource, participants would not identify this as intellectual capital.
These findings are consistent with the concerns expressed by several authors about the very limited adoption of formal IP/IC management, measurement, and reporting (Marr and Chatzkel, 2004, Chatzkel, 2006, Dumay, 2012).
To a large degree, participants were most concerned about protecting information related their client work and it was in this area that the strongest efforts were made to provide protection through employee agreements, policies, procedures, security protection, and review. For accountants and lawyers, this was seen as part of their mandated professional responsibility, and for the consultants it was seen as equally important. In LAWFIRM’s situation, one participant pointed out that, to a greater or lesser extent, the firm’s intellectual capital (sometimes even including client material) did enter the public domain, either through contractual agreements between their clients and other entities or in court-related filings. In fact, the most important tangible knowledge asset mentioned within LAWFIRM, their precedents, would often be used in court proceedings “Law is actually (full of) plagiarism, people use each other’s things all the time, we use stuff from other firms all the time. No one really considers (this as) something that you can protect,” but lawyers are “trained to protect information for their clients. They are very well trained to confidentiality.
Figure 4-14 shows the support for this Theme in each firm and a Figure 4-15 composite chart across all firms.
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Figure 4-14: Intellectual Property Theme Support
Figure 4-15: Cross-firm Support for the Intellectual Property Theme
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More than half of the codable comments were related to rewards for the creation of new and useful IP. To some degree, every firm, except LAWFIRM, provided rewards in this area. Within STRATFIRM and the two GENFIRM’s, IP contributions formed part of the annual review and promotion process, however, views on the relative importance of this compared to other factors (e.g. sales, billing, or utilization) were mixed. The influence of IP contributions on career success was seen as an additional element that can sometimes be considered, but not as a replacement to one of more fundamental measures. A junior STRATFIRM consultant described this as, “I think winning the [IC recognition] award would looked upon favorably on your review process, (but) it’s not going to get you promoted if you weren't going to get there anyway.” A GENFIRM partner said, “contributing to the firm's intellectual capital base is expected from most people.
So, as part of the annual performance goals settings, there is a dimension of goal setting that relates to firm building kinds of activities, components of which is really the intellectual capital. Similarly, in GENFIRM2, “I think its thresholding. I think if you have enough utilization the other factors become more important.” In LAWFIRM, “You’re assessed on the hours that you billed, whether you’re a financially profitable employee” and while “they do encourage you generally to write papers, there’s not a lot of emphasis on it.”
But, in all the firms, a significant reward for IP contributions was public recognition. Major contributors’ efforts were often publicized across the firms, sometimes on the homepage of the firm’s portal. In ITFIRM, major contributions were recognized with significant financial reward. None of the firms had processes in place to report on their intellectual assets. They did not measure them in any way, either in terms of inventory or new knowledge created. The only situation where measurements were described that related to the tracking of activity on the various repositories, mainly for the use of the IT and TM support staff.
In terms of support of the NGKM Theme, the results are mixed. The importance of IP is certainly recognized but very few of the traditional methods of IP management, whether first or next generation KM, are, in fact, used.
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In the other case studies reviewed, discussion of intellectual assets was largely general in nature with no identification of significant efforts to either measure or report on knowledge assets. Some studies did mention efforts to reward intellectual capital creation and sharing, but also raised concerns about the effectiveness of such programs (Donnelly, 2008, Ambos and Schlegelmilch, 2009, Taminiau et al., 2009)
4.4
ADDITIONAL VALIDATION INTERVIEWS
Once the cross-case analysis, including the comparison to other published case studies of KM in professional services firms, was completed, a series of additional interviews were carried out in spring 2012 with Canadian professional services industry leaders.
This provided data, investigator, and methodological triangulation beyond the initial five cases and helped ensure that the study conclusions reflect as current data as possible. Key objectives were to gain a deeper understanding of the strategic perspective of their firms’ approaches to KM as well as their own views on what KM was and was not in the context of professional services firms.
The Canadian Management Consulting Association (CMC-Canada) agreed to assist in recruiting interviewees. The criteria provided to them were that the candidates should be experienced consulting industry leaders with some involvement in firm strategy and governance. The CEO of CMC-Canada acted as the recruiter and made introductions to seven Canadian-based partners who were willing to be interviewed. All held or had held managing partner positions (office, practice, national, global), and in some cases several such positions. Three were involved in international leadership activities within their firm. All sit or have sat on their firm’s governance committees. One was able to provide feedback from the perspective of two firms, having relatively recently changed firms. In addition, through my own personal network I was able to identify a consultant, specialising in law firms, who had prior experience in senior administrator positions in two law firms and was willing to be interviewed. Thus, the follow up interviewees draw on the perspective of: Two large Global Strategy Consulting Firms, each with several thousand employees (identified as GSC1 & GSC2) Two very large Global Audit & Consulting Firms, each with over 100,000 employees (GAC1 & GAC2) Two medium (200-2,000 staff) Managing Consulting Firms (MC1 & MC2)
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One medium (2,000 employee) national Audit & Consulting Firm (MAC1) One large Global Human Resource Consulting Firm, with several thousand employees (also GSC1) Several major Canadian Law Firms (CL1) The study also included three partners from mid-size professional services firms, who provided additional insights that are complementary to those of the larger organizations.
Each took part in an approximately one-hour semi-structured interview, which was recorded and transcribed. The interview framework is included in Appendix C. First, interviewees were asked to comment on each of the Themes reviewed in the initial case studies. Then, they were asked to describe how their firms innovated in new services in general and what their experiences had been, if any, in offering KM-related services. Finally, going beyond the Themes and addressing some issues that had been identified in the case review and most recent literature examination, they were asked to provide a perspective on the KM discipline and the skill sets expected from their professionals and support staff.
4.4.1 Strategic Focus The findings were highly consistent with those of the five case studies. Some additional insight was gained by the inclusion of the mid-sized firms as well as additional guidance on current global firms’ strategies for KM.
In all of the large firms, KM was built into their general strategies and was seen as a key element. In one accounting and consulting firm, about two years ago, they revisited both their business and knowledge strategies to improve their global competitiveness. They established a global KM support organization because “if we didn’t get significantly better at the way we manage knowledge as a global organization, we knew it would be come a challenge for us,” with the intent of moving key knowledge beyond national practices to make it available globally. The knowledge leader appointed had the responsibility of providing “strategic leadership to the firm in terms of where we should be taking this, how we should be evolving it.” This individual leads expert full-time resources mobilized to help practices around the world, appointing professionals within the team to work on the service delivery practice with the global KM team. The partner (GAC1), who managed a global practice, commented that he had two Knowledge Management professionals reporting within his global management structure linked to the central KM team.
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In the second global accounting and consulting firm, GAC2, they are also taking major steps to rebuild and extend their consulting practice and, in this new structure, Knowledge Management “is going to be part of the business, it’s going to be part of everything we do.” Although they brought in a knowledge leader to help build a strategy, they expected full support from all of the lines-of-business leaders – for the leaders and their staff, “it’s going to be part of their goals, it’s going to be part of the evaluation”. In GS1, the partner commented that while the firm had Knowledge Management as an explicit part of the firm’s strategy, it was not always well executed and that “the best mechanisms that I’ve seen from disseminating knowledge and firms are the informal ones.” Successes occurred when there was “a business owner who owns a practice (organized) around a set of principles and they seem to do a better job of controlling and expanding the knowledge.” The other strategy firm partner, GS2, who led a global functional practice, described the existence of both a global KM support team for the firm and a global knowledge team within his own practice. He emphasized that KM “is definitely a CEO and executive committee level topic at [his firm]”, describing a matrix where there was a central organization under the direction of a CKO, with the functional delivery areas having their own KM team working in coordination with the global knowledge function.
Within the medium-sized firms, while the importance of knowledge was recognized, formal commitment varied. In the smallest of the three, MC1, there was a limited formal business strategy and no formal KM strategy. The partners in the firm were described as a coalition of “independent practitioners, who jointly are responsible for all of the practice.” The other two medium-sized firms indicated that KM was strategic concern but that it was relatively undeveloped. The largest of the mid-size firms, MC3, which has a strategic objective to grow rapidly across the country, is “just initiating a Knowledge Management effort” to address an identified strategic gap and have hired a senior individual to help develop a KM strategy to support the firm’s growth strategy. In the middle-sized of the three firms, MC2 individuals, also describe KM as “part of a strategic plan… a move towards (developing) internal knowledge and expertise” as part of a “rather significant internal restructuring.” In this firm, which makes extensive use of associate consultants to deliver their services (with more than 700 independent consultants working with their own full-time professionals), key KM initiatives relate to expert identification and communication.
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The smallest firm, MC1, had the least formal approach to KM strategy, but designed its office space to encourage community and knowledge sharing. They moved from having individual offices with doors to a much more open plan office with community space – in essence creating Nonaka’s physical “Ba” (Nonaka and Konno, 1998) – and found that, while before the redesign there was often little sharing, “the reverse of that is true now, you're always talking to somebody about something… the learning happens all the time.” In contrast, the law firm consultant indicated that recent years had seen a significant retrenchment in KM approaches within the large Toronto law firms and the KM strategies and KM function “still exists but scaled down. In every single big firm (in Toronto) compared to 5 years ago, I would say the departments are half the size they were.” But such firms, although large in the Canadian market place are relatively small in the global scale, and he did feel that this retrenchment might not be matched in some of the larger firms in Europe, where “all firms are much more into knowledge management.”
4.4.2 The Role of IT Again, the findings were highly consistent with the initial case studies, with all of the participants indicating that effective IT systems were key to successful KM. Even in the smallest firm, MC1, where this was still fairly informal, IT-based knowledge sharing and communication were seen as key in day-to-day operations. All the firms had established repositories of material – one described it “(as having) a content management system, document management system, all the technology piece”. In the global firms, it was seen as a necessary part of the overall solution; in GAC1, “I think we’ve got our heads screwed on straight right here, I think IT is the enabler… the frustration can be, if IT is not the enabler, that becomes the barrier.” Several described their global and IT organizations working closely with the KM function, but only in the law firms was KM sometimes seen as a possible sub-function of IT.
In every firm, IT-enabled communication was important, with participants describing the use of e-mail, as well as some form of discussion forum (in all the larger firms, formal communities were established), as part of their KM strategies. One or two experiments with social media were mentioned but these were not seen as widely used.
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In the global firms, there has been significant and continued investment on the KM support infrastructure: “everyone has access around the planet, so that’s common infrastructure, we can do without it” (GAC2).
4.4.3 Knowledge Models and Complexity Consistent with the non-KM specialists interviewed in the five case studies, none of the participants were comfortable in talking about the more theoretical aspects of KM. They were asked to comment on the perspective of what knowledge was and how the professionals in the firms might talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management. One global strategy partner suggested that “no, I haven’t heard it (knowledge) explicitly or really talked about” and, while “we (the partners) might talk about our own knowledge strategy, the average practitioner out there might not”. When pressed for definitions of knowledge, typical statements were “it is almost an active definition… the exchange of ideas amongst the partnership and the folks at the firm”(GSC2) and that, while talking about knowledge was significant, “for a client service person they might take it more in the context around managing the knowledge related to the client relationship.” Several were more comfortable in talking about knowledge in the form of a taxonomy of the firm’s own terms and business functions, “unless they are immersed in the KM, otherwise it's just me talk about intellectual capital, we talk about how we pull things together that we need to use. I mean generically it could be called Knowledge Management but I don't think that they are too specific beyond that” (MAC1).
While several of the partners were familiar with the concept of complexity and complex adaptive systems, they found it difficult to relate this to their KM activities. Consistent with some partners interviewed in the five case studies, they saw complexity in how they dealt with their clients challenges, but commented that this was not a term or concept that would relate to the way they used knowledge internally. For example (GSC1), “I think it can be made complex but I think probably that when it is effectively used, it’s fairly simple,” and “for it to be effective in a business sense for a consulting firm, it has to be simple,” or “the nuts and bolts of what is done is actually fairly simple and repetitive.”
One area that did create some fruitful discussion, that went beyond the perspective obtained in the original case studied, was a general agreement that “corporate knowledge” did exist
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within the firm, as a complement to the personal knowledge that was seen as critical to service delivery. For example, “everybody recognizes there are those elements of knowledge that we want to have captured and include as part of a corporate body” (GAC1) or “we are migrating from what was more individually based to more corporate base” (GAC2). Indeed “clearly the brains are captured and methodology, the brains are captured in leadership, the brains are captured and deliverables and then we share it” (GAC2). One global firm partner (GSC1) saw this as a question of scale: “there’s a kind of critical mass of people in a company who have the same beliefs around a set of ideas or set of knowledge.” Another global firm partner (GSC2) commented about the importance of corporate knowledge in helping a new hires, because “people typically start working in consulting firms without necessarily a wad of years of industry experience, the assumption is that from the very first day that you start serving clients by bringing the firm’s knowledge to the client.” In this way only the consultant spends time gaining experience, “(building) your own personal knowledge and experience to layer on that (corporate) base over time”. Several saw corporate knowledge as methodologies, aggregates of individual knowledge in repositories, and also as “corporate memory which is the people who are here long enough to remember how we got to this point, where we are, who can tell the story” (MC2). This quite closely matches quite closely the concept of collective knowledge suggested by Hecker (2012).
Overall, participants’ discussions on the nature of knowledge in their firms corresponded quite closely with the view of Guzman (2009, p.89) who discusses “Practical knowledge… focused on specific context that can be temporal, emergent and social.”
4.4.4 Knowledge Processes Knowledge processes were seen as vital and important, but there was a distinct separation of the major processes involved in doing project/client work from those with an explicit KM element. Virtually every activity carried up by a consultant or lawyer uses knowledge in some form, however only some of these processes are seen as part of KM and indeed (GSC1), “[my firm] was coming out with (specific) processes for creating knowledge and to me that was a sign that the firm was becoming a little bit too introspective. We spend time worrying about knowledge and not worrying about what could be practically commercialized with clients.” Also, “I was in a fairly significant debate just recently, where it was on knowledge sharing processes or slowing down
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the way we needed to do what we needed to do… there’s value in being more structured and more disciplined, but if you can’t share it readily it defeats the purpose” (GAC1).
The two mid-size firms with growth objectives, which were developing KM strategies, were making significant investments in knowledge processes.
4.4.5
The Social and Personal Nature of Knowledge
While the specific topic of Knowledge Management was often seen as a fairly limited and constrained activity, participants frequently referenced the importance of knowledge for their firm’s success and believed that it was closely tied into the individual capabilities of the professionals and their ability to work together. One of the global partners (GAC2) explained the relationship in talking about the firm's knowledge: “it's the brains of every single individual that resides in the firm. When you share the brains and experiences of people, there’s technology and there’s mechanisms to enable knowledge sharing, so we can leverage each others' knowledge and each other's experience to be able to bring value to our clients.” The same partner went on to say, “you often start with a piece of knowledge that’s existing, but you make it better by getting the contribution of multiple brains.” He mentioned the importance of creating diverse teams with varied skills and cultural background and diversity of thought and experience to drive client value. The expectation of knowledge sharing was universal and seen as an attribute for success: “the ones that succeed the most are the ones who share the most… so that’s the culture we want.” Several mentioned the importance of bringing in their right expert, whether in person or through the use of technology such as video conferencing. While support tools, such as expert directories, were mentioned as being important, informal networks were vital in one strategy firm (GSC1): “the best mechanisms that I have seen for disseminating knowledge are the informal ones.” The other strategy firm partner also said, “in [his firm] the informal network is a very important one. We still operate very much around networks of people as opposed to a lot of standardized processes and systems to capture knowledge. We have those definitely both the formal and informal are important.” Most mentioned communities of interest (using a variety of terms) – some formal and some informal. In one of the global firms, “we have communities of interest, some are mandated… some are more free format if you want a community of interest… we let people do it.”
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4.4.6 Intellectual Asset Management Again, findings were highly consistent with the five case studies. The terms “intellectual property” and “intellectual capital” and the abbreviations of IP and IC were well recognized and widely used in all of the firms. Most had a fairly narrow definition of IP/IC, with conversation focusing on explicit knowledge objects. For example, it might include (GAC1) , “tools, methodologies of different kinds” as well as “functional methods, and maybe datasets, if we have exclusive benchmark data and things of that nature.” IP/IC was also seen as something to be used in the sales process and in client agreements; for example, “we talk about it in every single proposal” and “our terms in conditions that we ask clients to sign… user has protected words around intellectual property”(GAC2). There was also some recognition that the IP/IC captured had limited unique value and “the intellectual property we have has a limited shelf life” (GAC2), and “if you are fighting your competition on defending your right to prevent them from using your IP, you’ve probably lost the battle already” (GSC1).
Giving rewards or recognition for the creation of IP/IC was discussed briefly and, while several firms do have some form of recognition, this was not seen as something of major importance. For example, a strategy partner (GSC1) suggested, “where a partner gets evaluated on completing all of the steps of the project, including the IP capture, some IP gets captured, whether it’s good or bad.” Even though creating IP/IC might form part of an annual review, performance in other areas would likely be more important. “If someone was below on all those (other) numbers, but doing a huge contribution at intellectual capital, there’s always a question mark.” On the other hand, if a consultant met sales and utilization numbers, “Commercial viability actually buys a lot of license” regarding failure to produce IP. Participants did not think of the consulting professionals as part of the firm’s IP/IC, while “I think everybody recognizes that people are where all the knowledge resides… this is still the people and the relationship business no matter how we cut it” (GAC1).
4.4.7
Other Issues Discussed
Considering KM as a service area: The partners were asked to comment on KM as a consulting service. None of them described this as a service currently provided by the firm, nor could any of them recollect the firm doing so. (In fact, GAC1 was formerly a well-known provider of KM related services, although it had not done so for about eight years.). One of the global partners suggested, “would I call it something that is built in as a fundamental line of services? Not that I’m aware of, but in the course of doing work, particularly transformational nature
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… elements (of KM) might be included” and that, “I would not see it as a separate line of service” (GAC1). In a more reflective comment, one of the mid-size partners (MC2) suggested that, if he did such a project,” a KM assignment would eventually end up being an assignment on culture, trust and collegiality.” Considering KM as a discipline: In each interview, the concept of Knowledge Management as a discipline was discussed. Most partners felt that there was not a widespread understanding of the details of Knowledge Management within their firms; rather, this was limited to the KM specialists. A strategy partner (GSC2) commented, “it’s a very specific kind of mindset and filter. I’m not sure that it would fit into the role of the generalist”. This partner also suggested that “you know, it is often linked to IT, so I could see those two being practically linked together.” The firm’s KM leader was expected to recruit appropriate specialists to provide support, although it was suggested by some that practitioners could be trained to be part of such knowledge support. For example, “some are recruited from inside, from the consulting tracks some are recruited from outside.” At the practitioner level, they did not see it as a discipline or subject area that might be core to providing specific client services (as might be the case for such subjects as strategy, accounting, business processes, change management, etc.), and not something that would typically appear in job specifications. Some suggested that specific abilities to share knowledge would be amongst the fairly basic skills expected of every consultant. In a global firm, “I think people are trying to embed the principles of Knowledge Management in each of our professionals” (GAC1).
4.4.8 In Summary The follow-up interviews demonstrate a high degree of consistency with the findings from the five case studies and the secondary case analysis presented in Appendix K. In the next section, the findings from each of these sources are brought together with the results of the earlier literature review and the bibliographic discourse analysis.
4.5
COMBINING THE FINDINGS FROM ALL SOURCES
Consistent with Abrahamson’s (1991) framework, this study has examined the literature in the field, including a literature review and bibliographic discourse analysis, followed by a diffusion analysis within professional services firms. Drawing from five case studies, this study reviewed 23 reported cases and interviews with eight senior professionals. The
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findings from each of these activities are summarized in Table 4-4 and they will be discussed in more detail in the next section. Interest in Academic Publications
Interest in Industry Publications
Diffusion Support from Case Studies
KM in General KM Is seen as a continued topic of interest in discussion and practice. At times, it seems difficult to differentiate the concept of managing knowledge from the importance and use of knowledge in organisations
High and sustained In comparison to many other management innovations, KM continues to be a topic of considerable interest to academics, from a broad range of disciplines
High and sustained Interest in knowledge and KM continues to be of interest to management, although there is some evidence of the continued concern about relevance and success and a possible recent decline in interest
Strong support KM is seen as an important issue in all the firms studied. Significant resources are committed to KM activities and the importance of knowledge is recognized at all levels
Strategy KM Is seen as a topic of strategic interest, more likely to be embedded within the firm’s strategy than a standalone activity. KM org. structures tend to be small and specialised
Medium high and sustained Discussion tends to focus on the strategic importance of knowledge, rather than strategic approaches to KM. Variety of approaches to KM strategy are presented, with some recent interest in governance structures High and sustained Discussion on IT and KM continues as a significant proportion of the literature, much of the work focuses on the planning, design and implementation of Knowledge Management Systems
Medium and sustained The focus is more on the strategic importance of knowledge, rather than the need for a specific KM strategy. Concerns continue to be raised about the effectiveness of KM activities
Strong support In every firm, KM is seen as an important part of their business strategy. CKOs have been appointed and sit at high levels with the firm. Strategies exist to support both codification and personalization approaches. Small specialist units exist to provide KM support Strong support In each firm, KM is closely linked to IT. Several generations of IT to support KM were identified, starting with knowledge capture and repository activities and evolving into more widespread communications support
Processes Processes to support knowledge activities are widespread and key to the firms’ success. Processes to specifically support KM are more limited and sometimes challenged
High and sustained Academic interest in KM processes emerged early and has remained high and sustained the level over the last decade
Medium and sustained Industry has shown an early and continued interest in KM processes
Use of Models KM models, as discussed in the literature, are generally not discussed or recognised in the field, with the exception of the tacit/explicit dimension
Medium and sustained The early literature developed and presented a wide range of models, with later work largely limiting discussions to the simpler ones such as
Low Knowledge models received limited interest in industry work, other than in disciplinespecific areas, such as IT and library sciences
Theme Findings
Role of IT IT is at the core of formal KM in all the firms, but is seen as a supporting function to knowledge activities
High and sustained KM-related systems and services are widely mentioned in industry literature, typically associated with tools and service offerings from industry suppliers
Strong support Participants differentiated between processes that used knowledge and processes for KM. Many activities carried out by professionals involved knowledge in some form, but these were not necessarily seen as KM processes. KM-specific processes were often limited to those that enabled the capture of knowledge objects or the setup and use of communications tools Low support Other than discussions of tacit/explicit knowledge, participants were not familiar with KM models nor, in general, did they articulate knowledge
Diffusion Support from Secondary Cases Strong support A wide range of studies demonstrates strong interest and activity in KM over a 12-15 year period, with firms adopting KM practices and implementing a range of supporting processes and systems Strong to medium support Many of the reported cases discuss specific KM initiatives, rather than the firms’ specific KM strategies, however KM is seen as strategically important in many cases Strong support IT is seen as a key element of KM in most cases studied. An evolution from early codification activities to more widespread and flexible activities is evident
Diffusion Support from Interviews Strong to medium support Within large firms, KM is seen as an important issue, requiring significant resources to support. Support for KM in smaller firms is likely to be more limited and informal, but, as firms grow, a need for greater KM formality is seen Strong support In the large firms, KM is seen as an integral part of their strategic planning and significant investments are being made. Small specialist units exist to provide KM support. Smaller firms are less likely to have formal strategies Strong support KM is seen as closely allied with IT however, in large firms IT is recognized as a supporting activity and not the deliverer of KM. In smaller firms, IT and KM are largely seen as synonymous.
Strong support KM related processes were widely discussed within the studies, particularly in more recent work
Strong support Specific processes were identified within the large firms related to the capture and sharing of knowledge, in the support of service delivery. Knowledge specialists existed and were integrated within practices. Smaller firms tended not to have formal processes
Low support Other than the tacit/explicit dimension, knowledge models were seldom discussed in the case
Low support Other than discussions of tacit explicit knowledge, participants were not familiar with KM models nor, in general, did they articulate knowledge models for the
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Theme Findings
Interest in Academic Publications
Interest in Industry Publications
and some differentiation between information and knowledge Complexity of Knowledge Arguments for the consideration of KM activities as Complex Adaptive Systems or for the implications of chaos theory are not recognized in the field and have raised only limited interest in publications
tacit/explicit and DIKW Low Other than the work of the NGKM proponents and a limited follow-up interest in this work, these concepts are not widely discussed in the KM literature
None No evidence was found in the industry literature of support for these concepts in a relationship to KM
Personal & Social Knowledge The individual is at the heart of all significant knowledge. Even when specific knowledge objects are used, it is the interpretation of that knowledge in context that makes it viable. Knowledge Communities are seen as critical to the success of the firm. Organizational knowledge exists independent of the individuals that is part of each firm’s culture and approach to their work. Intellectual Asset Management The use of terms such as IC and IP is widespread, as is the recognition of the importance of intangible assets. However, IC/IP measurement or reporting is seldom done
High and sustained Significant interest on supporting knowledge communities and the sharing of knowledge. Strong recognition that the personal knowledge of individuals is, perhaps, the most important resource and needs special consideration
Medium to low Quite limited discussion
High and sustained Significant discussion of alternate models of IP/IC. Strong focus on the need for IP/IC measurement and reporting, both externally and internally
High and sustained Industry publications tend to discuss IP/IC, but at a very general level, in the context of the value of intangible assets
Other – KM as service The widespread provision of KM-specific services by firms was a short-lived phenomenon, lasting only a couple of years
Brief peak of interest Early papers did identify such services and reviewed specific tools developed by consulting firms
Other -- KM as discipline The status of KM as a discrete discipline is still evolving. Academic perceptions are quite varied and industry seems to see this as a specialist function
High Interest OL/LO and IC/IP see their fields as distinct from, while linked with KM. KM authors typically embrace these fields as part of KM
Brief peak of interest Provision of KM services was discussed in the late 1990s, but this soon disappeared, with the exception of the work of a few boutique consultants, with close associations with the KM community Medium Interest Very little discussion of a KM discipline or field of study, except in some IT publications
Diffusion Support from Case Studies models for the firm Low support This was not a concept that resonated with the study participants, who exhibited little familiarity with the concepts. KM and knowledge use within their businesses was seen as a relatively simple activity. Complexity, if it was seen to exist, related to the work they did for their clients Strong support In every case, participants repeatedly referred to the importance of the individual in the firm’s creation sharing and use of knowledge in client work. All describe significant effort to support individuals and put individuals together in communities to better serve clients To many, the key value for KM is leveraging knowledge objects through the informed interpretation and application of the individual professionals Medium to low support Firms typically have a much narrower definition of the terms IC and IP than those discussed in the literature and do not do any measurement or reporting. The most frequently mentioned activity was employee recognition for IP contributions Low support None of the firms studied offer specific KM services. They could envisage situations where Knowledge Management discussions might form part of a wider project. None saw a need for specialist KM consultants Medium support KM specialists are seen as distinct from general consultants, with a distinct vocabulary and perspective. There is a significant need for experts who can link KM concepts with practitioners
Diffusion Support from Secondary Cases studies
Diffusion Support from Interviews firm
Very low support Only one of the cases reviewed mentioned Complex Adaptive Systems. Otherwise complexity issues were not discussed
Low support In general, the participants were not comfortable in discussing these issues in connection with KM
Medium support Most of the later case studies make specific reference to the importance of individual knowledge and the creation of knowledge sharing communities
High support Participants emphasized the importance of the individual as the centre of the firm’s knowledge, providing personal knowledge and interpretation of explicit knowledge acquired accessed through their firms systems and processes. They did, however, also recognize the existence of corporate knowledge, over and above that held in knowledge objects
Medium to low support Other than general references to IP/IC, most comments related to rewards for IP contributions
Medium to low support Fairly narrow definitions of IP/IC, no concept of measurement or reporting
Limited support Early studies did mention such services
Low support None of the participants offered specific KM-services nor can they remember having offered such services
Low support Limited discussion
Low Support Difficulties in seeing KM as a discrete discipline either in terms of service area or a consultant skills set. An internal need for KM specialists In the larger firms
Table 4-4: Summary of Study Findings
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4.6
GENERAL DISCUSSION
4.6.1 Considering the Primary Research Questions The primary research questions were: 1. To what degree do the Knowledge Management strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that Knowledge Management is a sustainable business innovation and not a management fashion? 2. To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledge-intensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that a “next” generation of Knowledge Management is in place or is being implemented? 4.6.1.1
Question 1: To what degree do the Knowledge Management strategies of knowledgeintensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that Knowledge Management is a sustainable business innovation and not a management fashion?
The findings of the five case studies, as well as the external case analysis and follow-up interviews, demonstrates the importance of knowledge to all the PSFs studied, and the existence of strategies, organisational units, policies, and business processes to facilitate the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge across each firm.
Thus, in general terms, the findings in individual and cross-case analyses supported by the follow-up work demonstrate a broad level of diffusion and adoption of KM within the firms studied. Therefore, these findings have demonstrated that the practice of KM appears to be a sustainable business innovation, but the detailed examination carried out also demonstrated that the levels and nature of this diffusion vary considerably within the seven Themes examined.
Four Themes stand out as having a broad level of adoption in practice, consistent with the literature: The need for a Strategic Focus Recognition of the Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge The Use of IT The Importance of Knowledge Processes
One Theme had broad recognition as an important concept, but the practical diffusion seems to lack many of the characteristics that KM proponents argue are necessary:
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ďƒ˜ The Management of IP Finally, there was very limited support for the diffusion of two Themes: ďƒ˜ The Use of KM Models ďƒ˜ The Complexity of Knowledge Table 4-4 shows the consolidated support of the study findings for each of the seven Themes. From the review, three Themes stand out in the overall level of interest expressed by participants in the cases and the follow-up interviews: the personal and social nature of knowledge, the use of KM processes and the use of IT. This level of interest in interview discussion was supported by detailed descriptions of the diffusion of the Theme and commentary on specific successes and limitations. In many of the comments, all three Themes were linked.
For the participants from all of the firms, these Themes were part of their daily work activities. They carried out many of their professional duties following processes, both formal and informal, relating to knowledge assets whether those of their own firm or their clients. In some cases the processes were highly formal and often embedded in the quality assurance processes (e.g. in audit procedures or legal filings). Frequently, they described a close affinity between knowledge processes and IT systems. IT systems were seen as part of most major processes, whether as repositories or as communication tools.
Throughout the interviews, participants repeatedly returned to the importance of the individual. In STRATFIRM, this was seen as an essential part of their market differentiation; the specific skills and expertise of the experienced professional combined with access to available intellectual assets (processes, repositories and other professionals). Even in ITFIRM, which was highly procedural, there was an increasing recognition of the importance of personal contributions and staff structures, as well as cross-organisation teams and processes that had been implemented to make sure that this personal element was included. Expert directories, as well as informal network contacts, were seen as key to success by most participants. Participants frequently mentioned the need to get to the right expert to serve their clients. All of the firms had strategies and processes in place to facilitate the formation
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of formal and informal communities of practice – very much along the lines caused by Brown and Duguid (1991). The need for experts also supports the arguments of the NGKM proponents that successful KM required this personal element and, without it, IT systems could provide only limited benefit.
To a large degree, the high level of diffusion of these three Themes is a reflection of a strong interest in KM at the strategic level. At a strategic level, the case analyses demonstrate the diffusion of a number of specific strategic recommendations across all of the firms: all have appointed chief knowledge officers (Earl and Scott, 1999), and all include KM in their strategic planning (Grant, 1996). These strategic plans reflect the approaches advocated for a resource based view of strategic planning (Grant, 1991). Earl (2001) proposed seven Schools of Knowledge Management in three categories: Technocratic, Economic and Behavioural. The KM strategies adopted by the five firms studied seem to draw on all of these three categories (specifically, the Systems School, the Commercial School and the Organizational school). There is an interesting parallel here with an earlier work on strategic schools. Mintzberg, in describing 10 schools of strategic thought, concludes with the argument that all 10 might be used at various times in a firm’s strategic planning processes (Mintzberg et al., 1998).
The case analysis, as well as the secondary case analyses, does, to some degree, refute the widely cited work of Hansen et al. (1999), who argued for consulting firms to choose either a personalization or codification strategy. In their work, they closely associated the codification strategy with the extensive use of IT systems, suggesting that firms who follow a “strategy of reuse” should adopt the codification model with extensive and formal IT systems, while those who are expected to “create a highly customized solution to a unique product” should follow a personalization strategy with a lesser focus on IT. In examining the KM strategies of the five firms, although more elements of a personalization strategy are visible, STRATFIRM and ITFIRM exhibit many of the elements of the codification strategy, which demonstrates this is clearly not an either/or situation. All of the firms are highly dependent on effective use of IT systems for effective knowledge sharing, and all of the firms, to some degree,
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recognize the need for culture and tools to share knowledge and access the personal knowledge needed to serve the client.
Hansen et al. suggest the need for an 80-20 split either way, suggesting that, “Executives who try to excel at both strategies risk failing at both” and “Management consulting firms have run into serious trouble when they failed to stick with one approach” (Hansen et al., 1999, p.112). In hindsight, their paper seems to be an attempt to correlate two concepts that may be more dissimilar and less connected than they believed. Of course, the types of technology and experience in technology use have changed considerably during the last decade. By combining the different nature of the services offered by different types of consulting firms with poor experiences in implementing KM-related IT systems, their arguments may be more reflective of that time (the late 1990s) than of the fundamental strategic issue.
Examination of the Intellectual Property Theme produced some quite mixed results. Declarations of the importance of IP were widespread, both within the firms’ official documents and in the interview discussions. However, the concept of intellectual property was largely discussed at an abstract level. Terminology varied, with intellectual property (IP), intellectual capital (IC), and intellectual assets being mentioned frequently, as well as firm-specific terms related to the topic. None of the firms appear to measure or report on their intellectual property, whether in terms of knowledge inventories, knowledge creation, or knowledge use (although they did do some monitoring of the use of KM IT systems).
In most cases, while they may have had employee agreements that addressed the topic of confidentiality, this did not seem to be a concern in practice, with the exception of ITFIRM. Typically participants were more concerned about client confidentiality and about misuse of the own intellectual assets. Nor did they consider areas such as methodology development and staff training as Knowledge Management activities. This largely contradicts the views of proponents of an intellectual capital perspective on KM, such as Mouritsen et al. (2001), Stewart (1997b), and Edvinsson and Malone (1997).
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The two Themes that might be considered to be the most theoretical -- Better Use of KM Models and the Complexity of Knowledge – proved to be of very limited interest to the participants. Indeed, as has been discussed earlier, the majority of the codable comments were somewhat indirect references to the theme focusing on, interpretations by the researcher as opposed to direct commentary by the participants. In addition, the majority of the theme-specific comments were made by the KM-expert professionals. In general, professionals were familiar with the concept of tacit explicit knowledge and of the need to access knowledge at various levels of abstraction, as well as the usefulness of metadata, which can help set the context for the use of retrieved knowledge objects.
While participants were unanimous in recognizing the importance of and practice of various aspects of Knowledge Management within their firms, there was a significant degree of reluctance to treat much of what they were doing as “knowledge management.” Despite the fact that these are knowledge intensive and knowledge-dependent businesses, the professionals did not demonstrate a great deal of knowledge regarding the discipline of KM. It was notable that the KM professionals interviewed as part of the study frequently described attempts to downplay the concept of formal Knowledge Management.
In summary, the fieldwork indicates that Knowledge Management is a widely recognised practice and specific elements of the KM discipline are broadly diffused within all of the firms studied. KM was seen as a subject of strategic importance in all the firms and extensive investments had been made, with reasonable success, in KM activities. More detailed examination, however, identified some significant differences in levels of interest and practice within the various Themes identified in the KM literature as being important elements of the discipline. The implications of this varied diffusion will be discussed more fully in the conclusions chapter. The next section of this chapter examines the specific diffusion of the theory of NGKM, developed in the early 2000s.
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4.6.1.2
Question 2: To what degree do the Knowledge Management Strategies of knowledgeintensive enterprises, as reflected by professional service firms (PSFs), support the proposition that a “next” generation of Knowledge Management is in place or is being implemented?
The discussion in the preceding section demonstrates that, in the five firms studied, KM practices are widespread, supporting a view that KM is a sustainable business initiative innovation and not a management fad or fashion, with some variation in the levels of support for each of the seven Themes. Additional analysis is now presented to determine whether, in response to the identified limitations of the first decade of Knowledge Management, a new and different approach, a “Next Generation”, is emerging, and to what degree this might link to the specific elements of NGKM proposed by its advocates.
Based on the preceding review and the analysis of codable comments, support for the various concepts of Next Generation Knowledge Management is somewhat mixed. Participants were able to provide both historical and current perspectives on the use of knowledge and approaches to Knowledge Management in each firm. Some comments supported a number of the criticisms of FGKM expressed earlier in Chapter 2 and described an evolutionary change in their firms’ approaches to Knowledge Management. Explicit recognition that this evolution was a significant change – that a new generation was needed – is less obvious and is not supported by a review of the literature published following the NGKM claims, as these studies make little reference to the new generational concepts while reiterating many of the criticisms raised by NGKM proponents.
Chapter 2 provides a review of the claims of NGKM made by its four leading proponents, demonstrating how these claims could be consolidated into the seven Themes tested in this study. In this section, the study findings are reviewed to identify the presence of evidence to support the more specific views of each of the NGKM proponents.
With the possible exception of LAWFIRM, the Strategic Focus of the firms studied does demonstrate many of the concepts presented by the NGKM proponents. Evidence of Wiig’s (2004) four tactical and one strategic elements were present, and in all the firms there was good evidence of the linking of key KM initiatives to business strategy, as suggested by Snowden (2004). There is also some evidence of Firestone & McElroy’s (2004) “governance-
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based” approach. While participants did indicate that each firm managed the three types of intangible resource (people, internal structure, external structure) suggested by Sveiby (2001), it was less obvious that this was a specific KM strategy. Each of the five cases and several of the follow-up interviews mentioned multiple efforts to improve their KM strategy
To a large degree, the NGKM proponents’ arguments related to the Role of IT were negative in nature, describing failures in, or an over-focus on, IT’s role in KM. The study’s findings indicate very clearly that, in all five firms, IT is still central to their KM strategies and processes and, overall, is viewed as making a successful contribution. However, they also provide some additional commentary on the various authors’ contrary views. For both McElroy (2000, 2002) and Snowden & McGuire (2002), FGKM had an over focus on IT as a tool for content management and frequently did not produce successful results. Participants in all five firms, while describing some problems in the content management elements of their KM related IT systems, provided many stories regarding successful use of the repository-based systems within their firms. It is, however, the nature and range of the IT tools being provided and used that indicates the biggest difference to previous criticisms of FGKM, demonstrating that, for all the firms, IT is seen as a much more comprehensive set of capabilities than simply acting as a repository. Current practice does seem to align more closely to the view of Wiig (2002), who identified IT as one of four tactical areas to be addressed within “comprehensive KM.” Yet it does seem, as will be discussed further below, that KM strategies in the firms do correspond to all four of his areas. It also seems that current implementations of IT systems do provide the capability to support “the primary intangible resource: the competence of people” (Sveiby, 2001)
The IT-related criticisms of both McElroy and Snowden are closely related to the Usefulness of KM Models theme, where proponents argued that the KM models proposed in FGKM did not appear to be very useful in the practical opposition application of KM. Their IT criticisms include questioning the validity of Nonaka’s SECI Model, which argues for the cyclical conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and back again. In particular, IT related interpretations of this model were seen as suggesting that important tacit knowledge can always be converted to explicit knowledge and that this should be the focus
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of KM IT strategies and systems. Participants in the case studies seem to recognize, often intuitively, Polanyi’s (1958) argument that all knowledge is, to some degree, tacit. They recognized that explicit knowledge stored in repositories was incomplete without metadata related to its development, experiences in its use, and the context in which it was and might be used. They used professional experience, networks, and a variety of communication tools and social structures to make effective use of repository content. McElroy (2002) argued that FGKM was too supply-side driven, with a focus on knowledge capture and storage rather than an NGKM demand-side approach in which Knowledge Management focuses more on managing processes for knowledge production and knowledge integration, initiated by problems in the business process. The study findings do support, to a degree, his concept that NGKM combines “knowledge processes and knowledge sets.”
The study findings suggest that, with the possible exception of KM specialists, KM models are just not of relevance to practitioners. Indeed, it might be argued that, while the majority of such models are useful tools for researchers to examine concepts and approaches that professionals use in organisiations through different lenses, it is only when these models can be translated into viable and meaningful strategies and tools for organisations do they become relevant for the practitioner. To a large degree, models are seen as tools for the researcher and not the practitioner. This does support some of the arguments expressed by the NGKM advocates: that the models proposed in the first generation were not useful. But the study participants did not raise this as a concern, choosing not to express any need for new models to help them understand KM concepts in the implementation of new approaches.
This apparent indifference to the theory of knowledge models is also evident in the Complexity of Knowledge Management theme. The majority of codable comments indicated specific instances of practices that might be seen to support the complexity view: validation of knowledge claims (McElroy, 2002), different levels of abstraction (Snowden, 2000), and situation – or context-specific knowledge tasks (Wiig, 2003).
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However, the study findings do not support the view that the KM strategies and behaviours within the firms take into consideration any of the principles of complexity or chaos theory suggested by NGKM proponents. It may be that the five firms studied do not operate in all of the "Cynefin Domains” described by Snowden (2002), yet it could also be argued that the different types of firms studied may also have an impact here, with perhaps LAWFIRM and ITFIRM operating only in the known and knowable domains, STRATFIRM operating more frequently in the complex domain, and the GENFIRMs also occasionally in the complex domain. Professional service firms may be much less likely to be retained for work on projects in the chaos domain.
However, while NGKM proponents make a significant effort to distinguish between Using Existing Knowledge and Creating New Knowledge (KM processes) and the linking of this knowledge creation to innovation, this separation seems much less clear within procedure and processes of the firms studied. The FGKM criticisms are often linked to the overall focus of tacit/explicit conversion and repository capture. The findings across the firms did not provide support for McElroy’s view that “accelerating production of new knowledge” is more valuable than qualifying existing knowledge. Rather, the processes is in place in these firms recognise the importance of each and, indeed, that codification (or at least capture) of knowledge objects was an important first step in developing new ideas and services for their clients. Snowden’s (2002) view that the use of existing knowledge may be inappropriate in complex chaotic states, because the context is unstable, is also not supported (perhaps, as discussed above, because the firms studied may not typically operate in the chaos-related domains). On the other hand, there was strong evidence to support the view of Wiig (2003) that people do use existing knowledge or create new knowledge within specific situations using mental reference models.
Indeed, this recognition of the contextual use of knowledge and the existence of mental reference models was strongly evident in the Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge Theme. All four authors argue for the existence of knowledge at both the individual and organisational level, with McElroy (2002) describing containers of knowledge as both agents (individuals or groups) and artifacts (such as documents of computer systems), which was
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very evident across all the firms. Individuals were seen as important sources of knowledge both through direct participation in client work and as contributors of both content and opinion. Much of the effective knowledge sharing and new knowledge creation took place at this level, often through informal communities or processes, supporting the views of Snowden (2003), as well as those of Sveiby (2008), who emphasises the need for a “collaborative climate” – a characteristic of all five firms. The firms’ approach to KM seems to align with Snowden’s view that knowledge has to be volunteered by individuals and recognises that the identification of useful knowledge is often triggered by circumstance. Significant efforts are made in the firms to bring people together in formal and less formal settings to address issues related to practice, industry, consulting service and client efforts. This combination of individual knowledge, community building, and shared corporate knowledge seems to be fundamental to the way in which these firms do business.
Recognition of the importance of intellectual capital provided strong support for some elements of the Intellectual Asset Management Theme, but, in some ways, the evidence is paradoxical: while the creation and sharing of IP and IC is fundamental in the ways in which the firms work, there seemed to be relatively little effort in protecting it, cataloguing it or measuring it – all of which are common elements of the theme, especially in the view of Sveiby (2008). McElroy, Sveiby and Wiig all saw knowledge structures and processes as part of the intellectual assets of the firm, which is very evident from the earlier discussions on KM processes and social structures.
In summary, perhaps the most significant of these findings is the very significant lack of support for the view that IT has been given too much importance in FGKM and is not delivering expected benefits. In all the firms, IT is seen as having critical importance for their KM strategies. Indeed, for a number of participants, KM was closely aligned with IT.
For the other six Themes, while overall responses indicated some tendency toward support of the views of NGKM ( with stronger support most evident for the Strategic Focus and Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge themes), participants’ views and the KM practices
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in the various firms do not provide compelling arguments that a NGKM has been adopted or is needed.
4.6.2 Considering the Subsidiary Research Questions The subsidiary research questions were: 1. To what degree do PSFs demonstrate an explicit or implicit recognition of the role of knowledge in their businesses and how is this incorporated in their business strategies and cultures? 2. How do professionals and other staff in PSFs talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management? 3. Is there a consistent or coherent discourse about knowledge in PSFs and does this discourse correspond to that taking place more generally in the KM field? 4. Are there differences in the Knowledge Management Strategies in place in different types of PSF? 5. Does Management Fashion Theory provide a suitable framework to examine KM diffusion in PSFs? Each of these is discussed below. 4.6.2.1
Question 1: To what degree do PSFs demonstrate an explicit or implicit recognition of the role of knowledge in their business and how is this incorporated in their business strategies and cultures?
As a partner in STRATFIRM said, “We are all very well aware of the fact that we live and die by our knowledge.” All five firms demonstrated a very explicit recognition that having the right knowledge was the core to their business success. While they used a variety of terms and concepts to describe the needed knowledge, all the firms had strategies and procedures for the creation, sharing and use of knowledge. Knowledge management was seen as an important task in every firm, addressed by both strategic statements and specific organization units devoted to the Knowledge Management function.
This is probably the least surprising finding from the study. The characteristics of knowledge-intensive firms have been well-known for at least 20 years and, as the work of Schein (1973) and Schön (1983) have demonstrated, professional services firms have, for a much longer period, deployed a variety of strategies to ensure that the appropriate knowledge was brought to bear in professional development and on client projects.
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With the exception of LAWFIRM, the strategic focus of the firms studied does demonstrate some of the concepts presented by the NGKM proponents. Evidence of Wiig’s (2004) four tactical and one strategic elements were present and in all the firms there was good evidence of the linking of key KM initiatives to business strategy, as suggested by Snowden (2004). There is also some evidence of Firestone & McElroy’s (2004) “governance-based” approach. While participants did indicate that each firm managed the three types of intangible resource (people, internal structure, external structure) suggested by Sveiby (2001), it was less obvious that this was a specific KM strategy. 4.6.2.2
Question 2: How do professionals and other staff in PSFs talk about knowledge and Knowledge Management?
The paradoxical answer to this question would be “not very much, but all the time.” They talk a great deal about knowledge but each firm uses different words. While those involved in the various professional disciplines (including management consultants, accountants and lawyers) might use the term “body of knowledge” to describe the knowledge and skill sets that they are expected to understand and operate within as a qualified professional, this was typically seen as a pre-requisite to entry to the profession and their firm, and not as something that the firm could use as a particularly useful differentiation. After all, the professionals in competitor firms likely had an equivalent grasp of the same body of knowledge. There was even a reluctance for some participants to describe training and development activities as knowledge sharing (again, this was seen as a given). Furthermore, other than in ITFIRM, participants typically did not even think of knowledge as being present in their various methodologies and frameworks – perhaps this is why they did not show any great focus on protecting them.
They would often use terms like IP and IC to describe knowledge and this was seen as very important to all. In general, however, this IP/IC was seen as existing throughout the firm and in many forms – typically not recorded, tracked or inventoried in any formal manner.
To most, the “real” knowledge existed in a combination of repositories and people. Again and again, when discussing knowledge (by whatever name) they would describe needing access to project and service delivery knowledge objects by using discipline- or firm-specific
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terminology (e.g. “qualifications”, “project reports,” “audit files,” “source code,” and “precedents”). They would quickly identify the need to find the right people through directories and informal networks. Once they had found the right people, they asked them to help find the right knowledge products, to provide guidance and input on work to be done, and even to become part of the team doing the work.
While knowledge, by whatever name, was talked about it was much less likely that the participants would talk about Knowledge Management. Senior professionals, especially partners, would describe a Knowledge Management strategy and make reference to whatever organisational unit helped deliver that strategy. More junior professionals did not typically talk about the KM activity, although they would describe their use of KM tools and of KM specialists (if such existed). 4.6.2.3
Question 3: Is there a Consistent or Coherent Discourse about knowledge in PSFs and does this Discourse Correspond to that taking place more generally in the KM field?
As described above, discourse about knowledge and about KM was largely done in discipline-, industry- and firm-specific terms. While the KM specialists appeared knowledgeable in and used KM discipline terms, most of the professionals expressed little interest in doing so – or, indeed, in having much familiarity with the discipline. Participants discussed the need to have appropriate knowledge available to practitioners when they delivered services, to be innovative, to create new knowledge (both for the client and in service delivery), and to ensure that such knowledge was valid and relevant. However, typically they did so using terminology appropriate to their discipline and their firm, not that used within the KM field. This supports the view of Alvesson (2004), who, in speaking of PSF workers as language workers, argues that rhetoric is key to the firm’s image, market position, culture and self-identity.
For most participants, the topic of Knowledge Management was closely related to information technology tools. To the degree that they had opinions regarding any generational element of KM, they saw this as efforts to make better use of IT in KM for better management, better tools, and better implementation.
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4.6.2.4
Question 4: What are the similarities and differences in the knowledge strategies and Knowledge Management strategies in place in different types of PSF?
The preceding analysis demonstrates significant similarity in the knowledge and Knowledge Management strategies in place in all the firms. All had adopted formal strategies for knowledge sharing and Knowledge Management activities, all have set up KM support teams to help in both capturing and accessing knowledge, and all have made significant recent investments in IT support for KM. In this, they support the argument of Fosstenlokken (2003) who suggests that “remarkable similarities� exist across PSFs in their treatment of knowledge, regardless of the type of firm.
LAWFIRM does exhibit some different characteristics, where the pre-merger effort for a comprehensive KM strategy, with a supporting team, was eliminated and replaced by a more focused strategy involving precedent development and specialist library resources. In part, this may be a reflection of the "long tail" that follows many mergers before new strategic choices are clearly defined, or it may be more fundamental, related to the more individualistic nature of law practice. It may also reflect the belief, discussed in Chapter 4, that many law firms are later adopters of KM-related practices as well as what may be a localized Toronto effect, where a follow-up interviewee suggested a scaling back of KM initiatives. This is also the most localized of the findings – different results might be found in examining law firms in, for example, the UK, where one participant suggested KM was given greater visibility. 4.6.2.5
Question 5: Does management fashion theory provide a suitable framework to examine KM diffusion in PSFs?
Unlike the previous research questions, the focus of this question is methodological rather than being fieldwork-focused. Management Fashion Theory proposes the examination of significant business innovations through a combined framework of literature discourse and diffusion analysis. This chapter has presented the findings related to the diffusion analysis of KM and NGKM practices across the seven Themes developed in the literature review. The use of Management Fashion Theory has presented an interesting and useful lens to examine KM, providing a structured framework to examine and compare the evolution of discourse on the topic, with its actual diffusion providing a new perspective on KM. While its application included some basic quantification techniques, such as bibliometric counts, it
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is a largely qualitative approach presenting a rich examination of the concepts in the field, helping this study provide useful insights. In the next chapter this is considered further from the perspective of Institutional Theory.
This study has also extended the use of Management Fashion Theory by demonstrating the importance of separating a major topic into subtopics and examining each of these separately. Through this method a more detailed and insightful picture can be established. The majority of other Management Fashion studies have focused on the discourse and not the diffusion. By doing so they may have produced an incomplete picture of the situation, as has been the case in previous Management Fashion studies of KM.
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CHAPTER 5 THEORIES, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Overview This chapter considers the literature review and fieldwork findings in the context of the related theories and develops some final conclusions from the fieldwork and analysis. It demonstrates that Knowledge Management is not a faddish management activity, but rather an enduring strategy seen to be of importance within the organisations studied. It also identifies very limited level of support for a Next Generation reinvention of KM, and discusses a significant gap between KM research and education activities and the needs of management.
5.1 INTRODUCTION This research has grown out of my prior experience as a management consultant whose practice focused on new and innovative services, frequently with a technology component. I became involved in Knowledge Management as a practitioner consultant and continued this interest once I became an academic.
My academic interest in KM as a researcher and teacher during the period between 2000 to 2005, raised personal questions about the contribution of the KM discipline to business success. It was becoming apparent that the compelling arguments raised in the 1990s regarding the importance of knowledge for competitive success in the 21st century did not seem to be translating into any clearly articulated vision as to how to manage knowledge processes and assets going forward.
5.2 RELEVANT HISTORY My consideration of the phenomenon of KM starts with Rogers Theory of Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 2003), which describes a rationalist view of innovation, whether planned or spontaneous, with specific innovations being proposed to meet particular needs and the adoption of the innovation being based largely on the benefits and implementability of the innovation. This was certainly the paradigm that I followed in my consulting work.
My initial examination of KM followed this same perspective: I saw KM as a management innovation that evolved from the rational consideration of the challenges being faced by organizations – something that promised improved ways to compete successfully in the
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global marketplace. However this initial review identified significant concerns in how KM was evolving and, despite a level of continuing interest, a number of respected observers were suggesting that new approaches were needed for KM to deliver on its promises, while others were questioning whether KM was a valid discipline, suggesting it might be little more than a fad with no long term benefits. Abrahamson’s work on Management Fashion Theory (Abrahamson, 1991) provided a new perspective to examine the phenomenon. This theory has been used to examine a significant number of proposed innovations in the workplace. In these studies, highly consistent results and preliminary examinations of KM (Scarbrough and Swan, 2001, Fincham and Roslender, 2004) produced some evidence that KM was following a similar path.
5.3
EXAMINATION OF KM AS MANAGEMENT FASHION
The recommended framework (Abrahamson, 1991) for investigating a management fashion has two parts: a bibliometric discourse analysis and a diffusion analysis. In this study, the bibliometric discourse analysis of KM was presented in Chapter 2 and the results of the diffusion analysis represented in Chapters 4 and the Appendices. Seven major Themes within KM were developed and examined and the summary results of this analysis are presented in Table 5–1. The first two columns in the table examine the bibliometric discourse within the academic and the practitioner literature, the third column summarises the diffusion analysis for each theme as evidenced by the case studies, and the last column demonstrates the level of specific support for the Next Generation of KM proposed by a number of its proponents.
In both the bibliometric discourse and the diffusion analysis, there is strong support that the general field of Knowledge Management. While following the initial three stages of a management fashion (a period of latency, a period of rapid growth, and a plateauing in interest) there is no evidence of a subsequent decline in interest or practice. Rather, the interest has been broadly sustained over the last decade or so. When compared to many other management innovations that have been examined over the last 20 years using the management fashion perspective, KM demonstrates a significantly different pattern than most. By comparison, it is an enduring fashion.
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Theme
Academic Discourse
Industry Discourse
Diffusion of Theme
Diffusion of NGKM
High & Sustained
High & Sustained
Strong Support
Limited Support
Medium High & Sustained
Medium & Sustained
Strong Support
Strong Support
KM & IT
High & Sustained
High & Sustained
Strong Support
Very Low Support
KM Processes
High & Sustained
Medium & Sustained
Strong Support
Strong Support
The Use of KM Models
Medium & Sustained
Low
Low Support
Very Low Support
KM & Complexity/Chaos
Low
None
Very Low Support
Very Low Support
Personal & Social Knowledge
High & Sustained
Medium to Low
Strong Support
Strong Support
Intellectual Capital
High & Sustained
High & Sustained
Medium to Low Support
Medium to Low Support
Knowledge Management KM Strategy
Table 5-1: A Summary of the Discourse and Diffusion of KM Concepts
The evidence collected suggests that KM is not presenting the characteristics of the short term popularity that some critics (e.g. Williams, 2004) had claimed were typical of fads and fashions – i.e. relatively transitory collective beliefs along with bell-shaped popularity curves. This research demonstrates continued interest in knowledge and Knowledge Management within the professional services firms studied. The topic is considered to be of strategic importance and significant organisational assets are devoted to its practice. Indeed, the responses of the participants would support the view of Davenport & Prusak (2003): simply because an idea may be considered vulnerable to “faddish” practices does not mean that it is without merit. In contrast, it is interesting to note that – although several of the firms studied had, in the past, provided professional services in Knowledge Management – none of them currently do so. Clients did not come to them for Knowledge Management projects, nor was Knowledge Management seen as a specific discipline that should be brought directly to bear within their consulting projects. Thus, it can be argued that, to the degree that KM was advocated by consultants for market advantage and to sell services, this is no longer a significant factor. This indicates that the brief window for specific services in the KM area has disappeared, at least from the perspective of major service providers. Thus, the provision of KM-related consulting services was a short-lived fad. This is a key finding when considering diffusion of KM in organisations other than PSFs and will be discussed further later in this chapter.
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However, the more detailed Theme analysis produces a more varied picture and each of the Themes is discussed below.
5.3.1 KM and Strategy KM continues to be a topic of strong interest for both academics and practitioners. This is demonstrated by the literature reviews carried out in the discourse analysis as well as the findings from the field work, including the five case studies, the secondary case analysis, and the follow-up interviews. All the firms studied recognize the importance of knowledge to their business success and had developed strategies for KM that represented a significant element of their business strategies and strategic intent. While the specific strategies adopted did vary somewhat between the firms, there were a number of consistent elements in each. Explicit strategies for KM were present, sometimes embedded within the firm’s wider strategies, and senior executives had responsibility for KM. Organizational units had been established to support KM activities in each firm.
From the fieldwork, five significant elements were identified: There was a blend of central and local responsibility for KM. The major firms all had central executive responsibility, possibly supported by a knowledge council, to provide organisational wide guidance and governance, along with distributed responsibility embedded within geographic offices and specific practices. Local practice activities were supported by embedded specialist KM support groups often containing a combination of KM specialists and management consultants. The scope of KM was somewhat limited, focusing on KM specific processes, IT support and some elements of IP management. The recognition of knowledge as a critical resource was also addressed in other parts of the large firms’ strategies. Smaller firms were much more informal in their KM strategies, but those in growth mode recognize the need to improve formal KM management as part of the growth strategy. There have been multiple efforts to develop KM strategies in each of the major firms, reflecting a degree of dissatisfaction with the KM strategies implemented.
5.3.2 KM and IT From both the bibliometric discourse analysis and the case studies, it is also evident that a continued focus on IT is a dominant theme within KM. The fieldwork presents widespread use of IT to support KM. The case studies also demonstrate, that, in most cases, this is not
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the sub optimal "single community focus" criticised by Swan and Scarbrough (2002) and Binney (2001). Rather, much more coordinated efforts are visible, with a strong focus on user needs and the recognition that the use of such systems is voluntary and should support other activities rather than being seen as an end in itself. To the degree that much of the IT implementation for KM during the early years focused on building of repositories in which to store explicit knowledge, the fieldwork indicated a much increased importance of a variety of communication tools, mixing the presentation of explicit knowledge with the views and experiences of the professionals in the firm. To some degree, the evidence in the cases indicates not only a continued focus on IT but a common view that the function of KM was very closely tied to the management of the various types of IT tools provided for its professionals. While some criticisms of the effectiveness of these tools were present, overall there was strong support for the usefulness of the IT tools for each firm's knowledge practices.
5.3.3 KM and Processes A similar picture emerges when examining the role of KM processes. There is strong academic interest and a solid level of practitioner interest demonstrated in the discourse and this is strongly supported in the fieldwork. While it is reasonable to argue that knowledgeintensive firms, such as the PSFs studied, have always had processes to deal with knowledge creation and knowledge transfer, the emphasis has changed over the last 10 to 15 years. Firms have established formal processes to support knowledge creation and transfer, along with the introduction of and support of less formal processes across the firms. These processes address both the capture of knowledge and the establishment of tools, techniques, and communities to ensure its share.
Interview participants tended to differentiate the major activities and processes within the firm that made significant use of knowledge (e.g. in client projects) from the processes that support the creation, capture, and sharing of knowledge. The former were seen as part of the firm’s core activities, the latter as part of KM.
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5.3.4 Use of KM Models In contrast, the findings demonstrate a significant contradiction between the discourse and diffusion regarding knowledge models. The literature review has indicated a broad range of views as to the nature and use of knowledge models with critics identifying ontological differences, discipline differences, and a general lack of evidence on the validity of models presented or indeed of their usefulness in practice. This study indicates that, in this area, little has changed. In general, the practitioners had little knowledge of the field of Knowledge Management, other than that which related to their own professional discipline. Most of their discourse about knowledge and Knowledge Management used discipline- or firm-specific concepts and terms. Only those professionals with specific responsibility for KM demonstrated any familiarity with these concepts and, in general, they reported a reluctance to use these terms within the firm.
During the interviews, participants often described situations that could fit a specific model from within the KM field, but, with a few exceptions, they did not identify them as KM concepts. Indeed, when KM-specific terms were used during the interviews, participants often asked for a definition or interpretation of the term. Their most frequent reference was to tacit/explicit knowledge conversion.
All the firms have hired KM professionals who are expected to bridge the gap between the firms’ internal models and practices and any relevant theory from the KM field.
5.3.5 KM and Theories of Complexity Chaos Outside of the work of the NGKM proponents, the application of complexity or chaos theory in the KM field saw limited interest within the academic and the practitioner discourse. In the fieldwork, this proved, by far, to be the most difficult area to discuss during the interviews. Other than from general knowledge, most participants demonstrated little knowledge of the underlying theories and were reluctant to see them applied to their KM activities. Those who were willing to take part in such a discussion tended to emphasise that they saw KM as a relatively simple activity.
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5.3.6 Personal and Social Knowledge Within the discourse analysis, this Theme demonstrated a high and steady level of interest from the academic community and a significant, though lower level, interest in the practitioner literature.
The five case studies, some of the secondary case studies, and the follow-up interviews demonstrated strong support for the diffusion of this theme. In all firms and at all levels, the role of the individual in creating, sharing, and understanding knowledge was seen as highly important. Even when discussing explicit knowledge, often addressed in methodologies or repositories, the need for the individual to interpret or to modify knowledge according to the context of use was consistently emphasized. Significant efforts were made to establish formal and informal communities of practice to allow individuals to share and mutually develop useful knowledge.
5.3.7 The Role of Intellectual Assets/Capital To some degree, the findings in this area are paradoxical. In terms of citation counts, the discourse in both academic and practitioner publications is at a high-level over a long period. The academic discourse is rich, involving a significantly different set of terms, which often makes recommendations quite prescriptive on how such assets should be developed and managed. By contrast, the practitioner discourse is more general, making frequent reference to the importance of intellectual assets and capital but seldom addressing more specific issues. In addition, in the diffusion analysis, while terms such as intellectual property (IP) and intellectual capital (IC) were frequently used as general terms to describe the firms’ knowledge assets, the firms demonstrated very limited use of some of the key techniques proposed to protect and manage such assets.
Indeed, the most frequently referenced activity related to IP/IC was the various forms of recognition for the individual practitioner in developing new IP/IC, whether in terms of immediate reward or consideration during annual reviews. IP was also seen as something to be identified and described in market marketing activities, and firms would attempt to
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differentiate by describing specific elements of their knowledge, including research centres, methodologies, and function specific content developed internally
5.4
DOES NEXT GENERATION KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT REALLY EXIST?
The preceding discussion indicates that, independent of any view of Next Generation Knowledge Management adoption, an evolution has taken place to respond to many of the criticisms widely raised at the beginning of this century about the early experiences of KM’s first 10 years or so of widespread recognition and use. In the discourse analysis and the cases studied, the fad view is largely discounted, the use of IT tools for KM has improved, and concepts such as usefulness, validity, and context are clearly evident within the Knowledge Management practices studied. Although they see knowledge as a critical differentiator in how they approach the market, none of the firms offer professional services directly related to Knowledge Management. KM is seen as a support function within the firm, not as a specific discipline to be brought to bear on client problems.
Given the evolution described above, the question remains: Does the collective evidence of the five case studies demonstrate that a new or next generation of Knowledge Management is now present? This question really has two parts: 1) Is the phenomenon being described as “Next Generation” KM a major shift from the so-called “First Generation,” and; 2) Does the diffusion analysis represent support for the concept?
5.4.1 What is a “Generation”? The use of the generation metaphor to describe evolutionary stages of social activity and of business concepts is widespread and has broad acceptance as a technique to explain the growth and evolution of idea and approaches. In demographic terms, for example, North American marketers often use generational categories to identify groups with different characteristics of social, economic and market behaviours – commonly using such categories as Baby-Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y, etc. (Foot, 1996). Over the last 20 years or so, the generation metaphor has become particularly widely used in relation to information and communications technologies, where multiple generations of product families are well established. Examples might include video games (now in their 6th generation), wireless
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networks (3rd generation), programming languages (4th generation), and the World Wide Web (Web 2.0).
Implicit within the generation concept are a number of other metaphors. The concept of life cycles within each generation is common – with stages of creation, growth, maturity, and decline (and even “death”). Typically, each generation is succeeded by a new generation which, while similar enough to be seen as the same overall concept (i.e. species), demonstrates visible changes from the previous generation, usually (but not always) seen as improvements. Generations often overlap and can be visible in parallel.
So, for a new generation of something to exist, we might look for all or most of the following to be present: 1. The existence of an established field of interest – discrete, definable, and easily recognized by someone familiar with the field. 2. Some evidence of a life cycle – whether in concept/product evolution or in use. 3. Problems, weaknesses, or limitations have been identified within a given generation and the new or next generation is seen as improving or resolving these. 4. Experts have made specific recommendations for improvements to be provided in the next generation. 5. Observers have actually identified characteristics of changes that have happened between generations.
5.4.2 Is Generation Support Evident for a Next Generation of KM? The earlier discussion in Chapter 2 demonstrates broad support for conditions 1, 2, and 4. Chapter 2 also presented support for Condition 4, but this mainly exists within the work of the four authors from which the Next Generation theory was developed, which is being tested in this research. These claims for the next generation were largely developed and expanded by the authors in the period from 2000 to 2005. A review of publications since then has demonstrated limited further evidence to support (or disprove) their views. In Management Fashion terms, the proposed re-invention of KM has not received significant discourse support.
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The fieldwork also presents strong additional support for Conditions 1, 2, and 3. KM is recognized as an emerging discipline and an important topic by all five firms, the professionals within the firms, and by the KM organizations and KM staff in each firm. Significant problems in earlier efforts to adopt KM strategies and techniques were identified. There is some limited evidence that Condition 4 is satisfied. In some areas, study participants described attempts to “reinvent” their approach to Knowledge Management and, in a few cases, made reference to NGKM concepts. 5.4.2.1
Areas of Strong Support for the NGKM Themes
In three themes, the fieldwork produced strong support for NGKM concepts and practice: KM and Strategy: NGKM views were strongly supported here. Many of the participants, including the partner level, in discussing the current strategies, described previous efforts and the need for a more comprehensive approach to KM, going beyond previous, often repository-based, approaches. KM & Processes: All the participants described the importance of knowledge-related processes within their professional activities. These existed both formally and informally and were viewed as critical to the individual firms success. While NGKM proponents tended to separate processes to create new knowledge from those that existed in order to share existing knowledge, to most study participants this was not always a particularly meaningful division. While recognising the need for new and current knowledge to meet their clients needs, it was equally important that their firm’s experience be brought to bear, modified as needed to meet a specific client situation. The Personal and Social nature of Knowledge: Likely the most supported of all the themes, participants frequently returned to the personal element – emphasizing that even codified knowledge needed interpretation and, often describing the benefits of access to either the experts who had created that knowledge or who were able to provide expert commentary on it. Knowledge sharing activities, both formal and informal, were described in every firm (although to a much lesser degree in LAWFIRM). 5.4.2.2
Areas with Limited Support
Two themes within NGKM received very limited support: KM Models: NGKM Proponents had identified a significant lack of use or benefit from KM models being developed within the KM community and argued that new models were needed. To some degree, each of the NGKM proponents identify areas in which new models might be adopted (e.g. new process models, new governance models and new conceptual models). In practice, the lack of practitioner interest in any KM models identified during a first generation appears to have continued, with participants describing very limited need for such models.
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KM & Complexity/Chaos: In essence, the NGKM interest in complexity and chaos is part of this same phenomenon. These are new conceptual models offered to provide a better approach to understanding successful KM use. There was no direct support for the concepts during the interviews. 5.4.2.3
Two Areas of Paradox were Identified
In two themes there were significant contradictions to NGKM concepts: Intellectual Assets: The terms Intellectual Property and Intellectual Assets were widely used in all of the firms and, therefore, might be argued to be strongly supportive of this theme. However, in practice, the majority of the recommendations made by NGKM proponents for specific action in these areas were not demonstrated by any of the firms. KM & IT: The one area in which some generational discussion has taken place is on the role of IT in KM. As has been discussed earlier, many early KM efforts were ITfocused and much of the criticism of KM has been on that focus. Ironically, while the NGKM proponents argued for less of a focus on IT within KM, the reverse has happened. Increasingly KM is being seen as a strongly IT-related phenomenon and is seen as producing successful results. This last point is worthy of some further discussion. In the last two or three years, following the publication of the calls for a NGKM, we have also seen a fast-changing perception of the role and use of the Internet. Thus the reluctance to fully endorse IT approaches may be a result of NGKM proponents not fully considering some of the implications of these new applications and uses. As the use of the Internet continues to proliferate and has become a part of almost every organisation’s operations (whether private or public sector), we have also seen the emergence of a phenomenon in Internet applications and use, often described as Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005).
In this new generation of the Internet, the applications are seen as largely social in nature and involve the emergence of strong communities using new forms of software platform, and have become part of the daily lives for many people, especially with the young. Its impact on social life is already significant, though it is not as clear how it is being or will be used by organisations. The generational view is also presented in work related to improving IT-based KM. For example, Davies et al. argue that the next generation of Internet applications – “the semantic Web,” with its extensive metadata capabilities – will provide increased support for Knowledge Management. (Davies et al., 2005)
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Web 2.0 applications are also changing the way that many people address knowledge sharing and acquisition. The rapid rise of Wikipedia, a socially-developed online encyclopedia using a not-for-profit volunteer model, has dramatically changed how basic “knowledge nuggets” are acquired and shared. While many academics continue to disparage the use of Wikipedia as a trusted or referenceable academic source, it seems clear that, for most Internet users (including researchers at universities), a combination of Wikipedia and a Google-based search is often their first attempt to gain access to needed knowledge. Indeed the verb “to google” has already entered the popular vernacular, as has the verb “to blog.”
A few organizations, including some of the study participants, have taken the “Wiki” concept and are using it as a tool for knowledge capture programs in their businesses. Beyond Wikipedia and Google, other key applications in the Web 2.0 environment have specific knowledge-sharing impacts. These include social networks such as Facebook (www.facebook.com), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), and Twitter (www.twitter.com).
Thus, it might be argued that the concerns raised by the NGKM proponents related more to the capability and the use of the IT tools available during the early years of KM implementation than any fundamental failure. Since many of these new tools relate to communication, sharing, communities, and even knowledge validation, they appear to provide a necessary functionality, as well as a recognition that involving individuals more directly and reducing the importance of repository or object-based KM produces better KM results. In summary, an assessment of the NGKM concept is presented in Table 5-2, using the 5condition framework developed for assessing the existence of a “generation” within a subject or discipline. In this study, some life cycle uses of elements of KM were demonstrated, showing evolutionary use and testing of new ideas. Some elements of maturity in KM use were evident. A range of problems related to the effective use of knowledge were identified and changes were described that had or were intended to resolve these problems. However, the
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general discussion about needed improvements in KM did not, in general, substantiate any claim that dramatic (as compared to evolutionary) changes were needed to reverse or replace current practice. Thus, the fieldwork did not generate significant support for Condition 4. With regard to the primary focus of this research question – to test for Condition 5 – the prior discussion in this chapter, along with the more detailed theme analysis presented in the preceding two chapters, provides only limited evidence that would indicate the satisfaction of this condition. Generational Test Conditions
Where Tested/Demonstrated
Support for KM NGKM
1
The existence of an established field of interest, discrete and definable, and easily recognized by someone familiar with the field.
Section 2.6 of Chapter 2 (Literature Review)
Very substantial – KM is a wellestablished discipline
2
Some evidence exists of a life cycle – whether in concept/product evolution or in use.
Section 2.7 of Chapter 2 (Literature Review)
Somewhat supported. Various concepts have been presented/evolved
3
Problems, weaknesses or limitations have been identified within a given generation and the new or next generation is seen as improving or resolving these.
Sections 2.8 of Chapter 2 (Literature Review)
Very substantial and welldocumented
4
Experts have made specific recommendations for improvements to be provided in the next generation.
Section 2.8 of Chapter 2 (Literature Review)
Argued by key KM authorities, not widely discussed by others
5
Observers have actually identified characteristics of changes that have happened between generations.
This Fieldwork
Limited evidence, except in ITrelated KM
Table 5-2: Determining the Existence of a Next Generation of KM
In the fieldwork, direct and strong visibility of a distinct next generation existed only to a limited degree. Fewer than 300 of the comments provided strong thematic support, with most of this support being in the Strategic, Process, and Personal, and Social Nature of Knowledge Themes. However, the classification of almost 50% of all the comments as either neutral or negative support in relation to the Next Generation concept seem to fall well short of widespread support for the existence of a visible next generation, as demonstrated by the opinion of an informed observer. This is further supported by the detailed discussion presented for each Theme within each firm. Many of the supportive comments came from the KM specialists. For the rest of the practitioners (outside of the strategic theme, where participants at all levels and identified some generational elements), they adopted a much more pragmatic and practical view towards KM. They clearly described the importance of knowledge to the business. They described progression and improvement in key elements
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of the firms’ approaches to knowledge, particularly in knowledge processes and community level efforts for knowledge development and sharing.
Overall, participants described evolutionary change rather than any dramatic change in either perception or action. Thus the actual responses of the interview participants, of observers intimately involved in each firm’s knowledge activities, and the analytic assessment of the researcher demonstrate very limited support for Condition 5.
5.5
SOME ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS FROM INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
As Management Fashion Theory has its origins partly in the seminal work of Meyer and Rowan (1977) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983), who established the beginnings of the broader field of Institutional Theory, it seems appropriate to conclude this discussion of the study findings by adding a perspective from Institutional Theory.
5.5.1 Rational Choice or Isomorphic Behaviour? DiMaggio and Powell (1983) examined how innovation spreads in an organizational fields: “those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products“(p.148).
Aligning with Abrahamson (1991), they recognised that the rationalist perspective was inadequate to explain why certain organizational practices were accepted and others rejected. While early adopters of organizational innovations appear to be driven by the rationalist objective of improving organizational performance, later adopters of the innovation do so to achieve “legitimacy.” As a result, a process of isomorphism becomes a constraint that forces “one unit in a population to resemble other units that faced the same set of environmental conditions” (p.149). Competitive isomorphism is a rational process where institutional change occurs to match the market situation, while institutional isomorphism is driven by the desire of organizations for legitimacy and acceptance, thus contributing to their long-term survival (Meyer and Rowan, 1977).
Three mechanisms of institutional isomorphic change are identified:
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Coercive isomorphism: Formal and informal pressures driven by political influences and desire for legitimacy Mimetic processes: In times of uncertainty and ambiguity, organizations model themselves on other organizations Normative pressures: Largely caused by the impact of professionalism and work of professionals within the organizations, as professionals are also subject to isomorphism from the formal educational base and their professional networks. DiMaggio and Powell (ibid) see coercive and mimetic influences from “major consulting firms, which, like Johnny Appleseeds, spread a few organizational models throughout the land” (p.152). Professional services firms, particularly from the regulated professions such as accounting and law, also provide strong normative pressures.
In more recent work, some modifications to the isomorphic mechanisms were suggested with Scott (2001) proposing three pillars that provide a base for legitimacy: Regulative: “rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning activities” Normative: “a prescriptive, evaluative, and obligatory dimension” Cultural-cognitive elements: “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and the frames though which meaning is made” (Scott, 2008a, p.428) Scott sees PSFs as institutional agents, “Professionals…are - I believe - the most influential, contemporary crafters of institutions. In assuming this role, they have displaced earlier claimants to wisdom and moral authority - prophets, sages, intellectuals - and currently exercise supremacy in today’s secularized and rationalized world” (Scott, 2008b, p.228). This is strong support for Abrahamson’s view of consultants as privileged fashion setters. Professionals often work as normative agents, providing prescriptions for organizational behaviour, including initiating change. Highly regulated “monopoly” professionals, such as accountants and lawyers, can often bring coercive or regulatory pressures, while consultants’ influence is more often normative or cultural-cognitive. A more amorphous group are the “carrier professionals,” including educators, librarians, and consultants, who diffuse institutional innovations.
These isomorphic pressures translate into institutional logics, “the socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which
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individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality” (Thornton and Ocasio, 2008, p.101).
5.5.2 Institutional Adoption, Resistance and Change While much of the early work in institutional theory focused on convergent change processes causing isomorphism, Oliver (1992) and Scott (2001) discuss how changes to institutions emerge and introduce the phenomenon of deinstitutionalization (the processes by which institutions can disappear).
Dacin et al. (2002) expand on the phenomenon of changing institutions by discussing institutional entrepreneurship, where “Institutional entrepreneurs serve as agents of legitimacy supporting the creation of institutions that they deem to be appropriate and aligned with their interests. These agents have the resources and hence the power to shape the character of institutions and institutional change” (p.47). Management consultants are seen as institutional entrepreneurs who can manipulate the institutional structures that they inhabit to ensure their legitimacy, reputation, and management of their client relationships, thus giving them a competitive advantage (Reihlen et al., 2010).
While much of the institutional entrepreneurship literature suggests that these entrepreneurs are weakly embedded with limited influence, others have identified elite, privileged, firmly embedded actors who can challenge institutional arrangements and are largely immune to institutional pressures (Greenwood et al., 2002, Reihlen et al., 2010). Professional services firms are examples of such elite actors. Further, while the regulated professions such as accounting and law are subject to some isomorphic pressure from their regulators and professional associations, management consultants are largely free from many of the isomorphic pressures that other organizations might encounter. However, their elite exposure to major clients and industries allows them to influence institutional arrangements that affect their institutional strategies (Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006). Consultancy firms with strong market positions “can raise to the status of an institution those practices, procedures and products in which they have competitive advantages” (Reihlen et al., 2010, p.329) In this context, they can create management fashions that, at least temporarily, institutionalize new concepts or practices, which, despite being weakly institutionalized, can,
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at least for their short life-cycle, be regarded as standards in their area of practice. In this context, the creation of management fashions can be seen as “the collective achievement of non-orchestrated, widely distributed agents that resemble a social movement (p.333).
Greenwood et al. (2002), in their work on institutional influences on professional services firms (in particular, accounting firms) and drawing on Tolbert and Zucker (1994), discuss stages of non-isomorphic institutional change that are very similar to a Abrahamson’s (1991) stages of management fashion. They describe precipitating jolt causing deinstitutionalization and a period of pre-institutionalisation leading to theorization, which, if successful, is followed by diffusion and re-institutionalisation; or, if the diffusion is weak with little impact, is considered a fad or fashion.
Oliver (1991) identified three major pressures on institutionalized norms and practices: Cultural pressures which arise from perceived problems in performance Political pressures resulting from shifts in power and relationships Social pressures caused by differentiation of groups All of these pressures can be seen to impact the day-to-day activities of the consulting firm, where performance assessment is constant at all levels within the firm including individual professionals, practices, offices and groups.
Oliver also discusses how resistance can influence the adoption of an innovation, describing responses of acquiescence, compromise, avoidance, defiance, and manipulation.
5.5.3
The Relevance of Institutional Theory to this Study
As has been argued by many of its proponents, KM is still an emerging field that has not yet evolved into a mature state, or declined as a management fad. Thus researchers and practitioners in KM are, in essence, fighting strong isomorphic pressures in attempting to create institutional change. Considered as institutional entrepreneurs, they might be seen to adopt manipulation strategies that have the potential to shape the rules of their institutional environment. These can include “co-optation, lobbyism, membership, standardization and influence” (Reihlen et al., 2010, p.321).
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In this context the initial promotion of KM as a consultancy service, demonstrated by this research to have been a fairly short lived fad, helped give KM a prominence that, while it has not disappeared from management attention, has not become strongly institutionalized at large. In contrast, consultants as internal practitioners of KM, along with the early practitioner gurus, such as Sveiby, demonstrate the early adopter rationality described by DiMaggio and Powell (1983) and are often seen as exemplars of KM.
Thus KM can be seen as an example of “Institutions that have a relatively short history or that have not yet gained widespread acceptance (that) are more vulnerable to challenge and less apt to influence action” (Barley and Tolbert, 1997, p.98). Given the continuing strong academic interest in various aspects of KM, along with the mixed success in facilitating the adoption of the KM practices proposed, one possible explanation for the lack of diffusion might be institutional effects. Just as some practitioner fields (like sales, production, advertising, accounting) tend to adopt institutional norms, academic departments in a university are also somewhat institutionalized as are the wider fields in which academic researchers might participate and publish. While there appears to be little research done in this area, it could be argued that academics (other than a few “gurus”) are relatively weak institutional entrepreneurs. Thus they will have difficulty in facilitating acceptance and adoption of changes in institutional practices. In addition, given that KM is a new and emerging and multidisciplinary field, it is also fighting the isomorphic pressures of the various “home disciplines” in which the researchers may be members. In pursuing their interest in KM, they are, perhaps, resisting the normative and mimetic pressures that are seen as essential for academic success.
Given the role of management consultants as elite actors capable of exerting strong isomorphic pressures on their clients, it should be a matter of concern to KM practitioners and researchers that consulting firms did not adopt KM as an enduring service area or a management innovation that they should be offering to their clients. Consulting firms have a relatively low resistance to the (at least temporary) adoption of new innovations within their services. Senior interviewees in the case studies and follow-up interviews indicated that there was good support for the introduction of management innovations in services,
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driven both top-down by the firm’s strategy and bottom-up by the efforts of individuals or small groups of practitioners. The elite firms have research groups devoted to the identification and exploitation of new management innovations that could be of interest to their clients. They were, however, very clear that such innovations had to be seen to translate fairly quickly into business success for the consulting firm. In general, except for a very few “gurus,” academic researchers exert low isomorphic pressures on organizations. Thus, while the internal behaviour of the large consulting firms indicates very clearly that knowledge has strategic importance for them, and that strategies and processes for KM are important internal activities, they are not significant influencers on KM practices outside of their own firms. Hislop (2010), in considering this disconnect between consulting services in KM and continued academic interest, comments that Abrahamson and Eisenman (2008) have identified that the swings of management fashions are not necessarily symmetrical and may not demonstrate the classical bell shaped curve: “it could be that interest in it (KM) will decline over the next 10 years and that in the long term it may become regarded as a (transient) management fashion, although one with a distinctive and non-typical shape to it” (Hislop, 2010, p.787)
5.6
THE CHALLENGES FACING AN EMERGING DISCIPLINE
5.6.1 What is a Discipline? A discipline is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a branch of learning or scholarly instruction.” Abbott (2001), in his book the Chaos of Disciplines describes the evolution of disciplinary fields and suggests that the social structure of academic disciplines, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, has seen very little change over the last 60 to 80 years. In describing a strong duality of the Department and the Discipline – within which the member must fit to ensure hiring, tenure and advancement – he describes this as “dual institutionalization.” These disciplines also have a major role to play in defining the undergraduate and graduate curricula. For recognition as a discipline, researchers often look for the endorsement of core disciplines, well-established journals, and conferences with a high reputation, as well as possibly, the existence of learned societies in the discipline.
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As Krishnan points out, “Disciplinary boundaries exist because they create some coherence in terms of theories, concepts and methods that allow the testing and validation of a hypothesis according to agreed rules. These rules are different from discipline to discipline making them to some extent incompatible“ (Krishnan, 2009, p.19). Thus researchers, if they wish to be published in the major journals of their chosen discipline, are expected to conform to the norms of their particular discipline.
Applying Biglan’s (1973) classification framework for disciplines (a 2x2 matrix – hard/soft, pure/applied) would suggest that KM is a soft/applied discipline. Soft/applied disciplines, typical of the social sciences, can be functional and utilitarian, concerned with enhancements of professional practice and resulting in protocols and procedures (Gorsky et al., 2010).
While interdisciplinary studies are emerging as topics of interest in many university communities, they stil seem to be the exception rather than the norm. Such studies might be particularly attractive for researchers whose objective is relevance to the practitioners in their chosen field (those who choose to follow “Mode 2” research in management; (Gibbons et al., 1994, Worrall, 2008). A frequent response to interdisciplinary applied studies is the establishment of research centres, an academic structure that is often independent of departments. Such centres often have as their mandate an objective to work with leading organisations and practitioners in the field.
5.6.2 The KM Challenge As Su et al. comment, “despite KM’s relative age, its very status as a discipline is still in dispute. In fact, much of the literature after 2000 is about what KM is” (Su et al., 2007, p.1), and this is certainly a concern for both researchers and KM specialists. As an example, a three-year study of a community of practice of KM practitioners in the aerospace industry discovered that while the stated motivation was “to cultivate a community of practice for learning KM techniques, this forum instead became primarily a hub for legitimizing the KM discipline itself”(Wilensky et al., 2009, p.1).
The proponents who argue that KM is an emerging discipline agree that its integration into academia has lagged popular interest and that its body of knowledge has not been widely
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adopted into the undergraduate curriculum, even in business/IT programs (Grossman, 2007). Michael Stankosky, an enthusiast and champion of KM as a discrete discipline, argues that “KM has significance and that it must be elevated to its own academic discipline, with the accompanying theoretical constructs, guiding principles, and professional society to serve as an evolutionary thrust,” but also recognises that it “has been both a wild success and a wild failure” (Stankosky, 2005, p.3). Serenko and Bontis (2010), in a scientometric analysis of the KM/IC field, suggest that “The eventual goal is to establish a unique identity of KM/IC as a scholarly field and to gain recognition among peers, university officials, research granting agencies, and industry professionals. However, as an academic field, KM/IC is still considered to be in its embryonic stages, with much more growing up left to do.”(ibid, p.3) However, they also point out that writings in the field are very diverse and multidisciplinary, concluding that “Overall, there is a great danger that KM/IC may lose its practical side and become a pure scholarly discipline. Even though scholarly relevance and rigor are a must, the needs of the KM/IC industry should also be considered” (ibid, p.17). This is clearly a major issue if KM is indeed a soft/applied discipline.
The fairly structured perspective offered by Abbott (2001) illustrates the challenge facing the evolution of KM as a discipline, with impact in the field. As has been widely discussed, researchers come to the topic from a variety of disciplines (strategy, sociology, psychology, IT, and accounting, to mention a few). Practitioners recognize the term and have a loose understanding of the general subject matter, however, very few have been exposed to any formal education in the field. Senior managers, while often lacking a clear understanding of the discipline, are dissatisfied with what is being done within their businesses (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2011). While there are exceptions, very few academic departments exist across the world with Knowledge Management as their central field, and traditional applied undergraduate degrees such as those in business and IT typically do not have courses that relate to KM. A relatively small number of KM-focused programs exist in universities. Saito (2007), in a global study, identified 61 programs, most of them at the Masters level. The most significant exception is a long established applied discipline, that of “the library sciences,” which is seen, at least in some universities, as having a “rebranding” to include a KM component with an evolving curriculum (Sutton, 2007). Some successes are seen and critical
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masses of research activities have been achieved in a number of key and focused research centres established in North America, Europe, and Asia.
It might be argued that the lack of a solid disciplinary base may be one of the reasons for the relative lack of visibility and prominence of KM, both in university communities and in the field.
5.6.3 Evaluating KM as a Field/Concept In discussing the emergence of new “concepts in the organizational sciences,” Reichers and Schneider (1990) (drawing on Kuhn’s (1970) work on the evolution of scientific paradigms) suggest a three-stage lifecycle evolution of concepts and constructs, from introduction of the concept to its mainstream acceptance. Their model can be used to examine the state of Knowledge Management as a concept. KM appears to have gone through the Stage 1 (Introduction and Elaboration) from about 1992 to 2002. The beginnings of Stage 2 (Evaluation and Augmentation) are evident from about 2000 and appear to continue to the present-day. There is little evidence of the emergence of Stage 3 (Consolidation and Accommodation) – a condition that might be expected for for a soft/applied field intending to meet the current demand in the market place.
5.6.4 Perhaps Less is More? Examining the diversity of KM publications and the continued contradictions between research areas and the confusion in the marketplace, perhaps presenting KM as an allencompassing field will condemn it to continued low impact in practice. As Griffiths and Koukpaki (2010, p.8) suggest, “KM can be seen as intimidating by its sheer breadth and scale, caused by the variety of disciplines it encompasses, from social science to artificial intelligence” and “because of this diversity of influence, KM, much like knowledge itself, is difficult to define.”
Perhaps the scholars and practitioners should come together to develop some more pragmatic guidelines that would assist other practitioners in both educating their organizations and identifying methods to provide productive contributions within their
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businesses. Again, this could be a key role for KM-focused research centres, as they already provide links between research communities and the outside world.
5.7
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The discussion in this chapter has demonstrated strong support for the claim that Knowledge Management is not a passing fad and has, indeed, developed into an enduring management fashion. However, the examination of the discourse in popular and academic literature, taken in conjunction with the fieldwork carried out in the cases, demonstrates varying levels of interest and practice within the various Themes identified for investigation. Only limited evidence has been found for the emergence of a Next Generation of Knowledge Management.
Indeed, while confirming the strategic importance of KM and the development of processes supporting IT to provide KM capabilities within the firm’s study, the research has also identified an increasing divide between the academic discourse and practitioner discourse and practice. Management are looking for recommendations that will help them make the best use of their knowledge competitive advantage, however, there appears to be little consistency in the guidance emerging from much of the research in the field. KM appears to be in the middle of Reichers and Schneider’s (1990) second phase of field evolution (evaluation and augmentation) and needs to move toward the third phase (consolidation and accommodation) to have more impact in practice.
The next and concluding chapter provides some provisional recommendations for action by practitioners and academics, considers the contribution of the study to the field, discusses limitations, and concludes with a personal commentary on the study.
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CHAPTER 6 REFLECTIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS & LIMITATIONS Overview This chapter presents reflections on some final implications and conclusions from the fieldwork and analysis, including a strategic “prescription” for practitioners that suggests they consider a more focused view of KM than has be recommended in the past. It raises some questions for researchers to consider on how to make their work more accessible and relevant to practitioners in the field. It discusses the generalisability of the research and the limitations of the work carried out and identifies the contribution that this study has made to the body of knowledge on the strategic use of KM, to the discipline of KM, and to the use of Management Fashion Theory to study proposed innovations. It concludes with a personal refection.
6.1 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 6.1.1 Reflections on the Research Findings The thematic analysis presented in this study, which has examined popular and academic publications on KM over a 20-year period, as well as the study of actual KM practices inside major professional services firms, suggests that Knowledge Management has been a relatively pervasive and enduring innovation throughout an extensive period of discourse and has had a significant level of adoption in practice. As an applied discipline drawing on a wide range of perspectives, KM has caught the sustained attention of both practitioners and researchers. The fieldwork has demonstrated that a number of the core concepts developed in the discourse have been widely adopted in the field, at least within PSFs. The firms studied have strategies for KM, processes, and information systems for knowledge development and diffusion, and recognize the importance of the individual in the effective use of knowledge in practice. The patterns of discourse and adoption correspond closely to those described in management fashion theory – a period of latency, a period of rapid growth, and a plateauing of interest, but with no significant evidence of a decline. However, the study has also demonstrated quite different behaviours than those identified in other Management Fashion studies. Within the broad definition of KM, a number of significant themes were identified in the discourse that are not matched by any high degree of adoption. The diffusion of KM concepts has been selective.
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Some of the topics that have drawn interest from both the original management fashion setters and the academic community seem to have little lasting impact in the field; in particular, those related to knowledge models and to the formal management of intellectual assets. Even well-educated and informed practitioners, such as those in professional services firms, have only limited understanding of the concepts and theories developed within the KM discipline. It appears that much of the research discourse is not widely disseminated and, while some of the work is targeted at practitioners, much of the discourse about KM topics appears intended to be shared mainly within the academic community.
Just as the bibliographic discourse analysis identified a growing divide between practitioner and academic interest, the diffusion analysis identified a degree of disconnect between researcher and practitioner. This could be argued simply to be further confirmation of the Mode 1/Mode 2 debate on the relevance of management research, however it does provide some additional insight. Management Fashion Theory argues that managers have a propensity towards innovation, which is satisfied by the activities of management fashion setters. Management Fashion Theory also argues that, over time, researchers will recognize that managers are interested in a new innovation and then begin to study that innovation, often continuing to do so after the innovation has faded from the managers’ interest. Further, academic researchers may not always be as objective as they attempt to be. Just as managers need to be seen to innovate, academics need to publish. It might be reasonable to suggest that, because of its wide-ranging nature, the field has attracted researchers from multiple disciplines, many of whom may not see management as a target recipient of their work. In their pursuit of new knowledge within an academic publishing system that, in general, emphasizes the importance of rigour, it may not be surprising that that much of the academic discourse has not impacted activities in the field. As Pettigrew (2001) has pointed out, from an academic perspective, “management is not a discipline, but represents a confluence of different fields of enquiry,” often focusing on “what is” knowledge, a perspective that does not attempt to actually influence management behaviour. He suggests that future academics should foster a climate where “how-to” knowledge is given a higher research priority.
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Nowotny et al. (2001) argue that knowledge transfer should not just be from academe to society but should be two-way and interactive. They described this as “context-sensitive” science. Perhaps KM researchers and traditions need to return to the earlier days of KM when such interactivity was more common.
This study is influenced by my own background: I am a management consultant becoming a researcher. Both disciplines are knowledge-based, and both aspire to have a positive impact on society, albeit under somewhat different systems of recognition. Examining Knowledge Management through the lens of Management Fashion Theory has allowed me to undertake an in-depth analysis of KM practice. Consultants are management fashion setters, and are likely to have influence over management behaviour – while often portrayed negatively by the academic community (Jackson, 2001), they do operate in the context-sensitive environment proposed by Nowotny et al. (2001). As a consequence, the interaction between researchers, management advisors, and managers is worthy of additional study.
6.1.2 Implications of the Study Conclusions New ideas in business that achieved rapid and widespread recognition are often, as has been discussed in this report, considered to be fads or transient fashions and, in most cases, they largely disappear after their “moment in the sun” (e.g. present value accounting and zerobased budgeting from the 1980s). Others become established parts of mainstream business thinking and, over a period of many years, can be seen to have developed and evolved through a number of distinct stages. These ideas may become disciplines or sub-disciplines that are researched, or subjects of programs that are taught within business schools. The evolution of IT from the support of back office processes to its pervasive position in today’s organizations is a good example of such an evolution. Some proposed innovations fall somewhere between these two situations. After a rapid rise to significant visibility at the highest levels of organizations, often causing major change to take place, over time they become less strategic and more operational. In essence they become part of the environment, having changed the way in which organizations and individuals approached the specific topic. For example, even if business process re-engineering can be argued to have been a fad in the mid-1990s (Kieser, 1997, Thawesaengskulthai and Tannock, 2008), this has produced a continuing focus on business processes as key organizational activities that persists today.
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Given the study conclusions that 1) Knowledge Management has been demonstrated to be an enduring fashion, 2) that the existence of a next generation has not been demonstrated, and 3) that the adoption of specific KM-related techniques has been quite varied in both diffusion and levels of success, it would be reasonable to consider what advice might be given to managers and researchers on effective ways to deploy KM in organisations. Two interventions are discussed: 1) developing KM governance and strategy approaches, and 2) using maturity models. In addition, some challenges facing the emerging KM academic discipline are discussed.
6.2
A RECOMMENDED APPROACH TO DEVELOPING KM STRATEGY
Based on the findings and conclusions developed in this study, KM is a strategically important issue for organisations and executives within these organisations are looking for guidance in how to develop appropriate KM strategies. The discussion in Chapter 5 suggests that a more focused approach could be useful. Thus this section presents some recommendations on developing such a strategy. This is consistent with the design school view of a theory as a description, explanation, and prescription (van Aken, 2004).
This design school perspective begins with the recognition that KM should be a significant element of a Business Strategy. Organisations, particularly those that are knowledgeintensive, should consider the inclusion of knowledge elements within their strategy. The KM component of the business strategy should address, at minimum: The role of knowledge within the business strategy, related to key services, processes, and knowledge assets Setting up the needed support structures The ways in which business projects should address their knowledge components Approaches to both personalisation and codification There are some topics that may not be addressed specifically within the KM strategy, but have strong links to KM, and the interrelationship between them and the KM strategy must be considered carefully. These include: Strategies for Innovation Strategies for People Development, Learning & Training
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Strategies for IT, especial for communications applications Given that practitioners appear not to be well versed in KM theory and concepts, KM strategies should be supported by a KM function with responsibility for:
Ensuring that the firms’ strategy addresses knowledge and KM appropriately
Providing guidance on (and perhaps running) the firm’s KM support services
Maintaining links with current research and practice in KM.
Drawing on the literature for KM strategy and government, a tentative framework for KM strategy and governance is presented in Figure 6-1.
Figure 6-1: A Framework for KM Strategy Development
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This is derived from the views of researchers who have examined KM strategy and governance and the lessons learned from the case studies. It provides a possible structure for developing a KM strategy, along with some authors whose work could help operationalise the various concepts. The framework has four elements.
The first is scope definition, which sets KM within the specific context of the firm. Included in this would be the appropriate definitions for knowledge and Knowledge Management within the firm, general linking of the KM mandate to the firm's own mission and organization structure, and recognising relationships to the firm's core competencies. Ideally, while defining the scope, a vision and mission for the role of knowledge and Knowledge Management within the firm would be developed.
As a starting point, the following generic definition for KM is proposed: Knowledge Management provides strategic, tactical, and operational support for the creation, sharing and use of individual and corporate knowledge within the firm. It considers culture, processes, knowledge assets, and the appropriate supporting use of information technology. The second element is establishing specific links between the KM strategy and business strategy. In some organizations, this would include the development of a distinct functional strategy for KM, and for others KM might be incorporated within the overall business strategy. An important element would be the specific relationships between the KM strategy and the firm's goals and objectives, and the specific business and functional strategies. In particular, the KM strategy should be developed with consideration of any strategies developed by relevant functional areas such as IT and HR/Training.
The third element is establishing an appropriate governance model. The governance approach should be chosen to fit within the firm's wider governance model and business structures. Larger firms might adopt a federal model, with some central and some distributed functions – the relative allocation between the two depending on the specific firm. At a minimum, the central function would likely include assigning an executive role to oversee KM activities. This might be a CKO or a specific duty assigned to another senior executive. In addition, establishing a central executive advisory group or council should be considered here. In many cases, there would also be the need for some central specialist resources to set
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corporate objectives, oversee large-scale projects and support corporate or firm-wide research initiatives. Distributed functions might be under the control of the central group or be part of the business unit or department, possibly staffed by a mixture of specialist KM and business unit staff. Giving the importance of appropriate IT systems to support KM, the KM management should also have a role in the governance activities of the IT function.
The fourth element addresses the specific activities and processes that should exist within the firm to support KM. These would likely address four types of activity: 1) a process for the development and review of KM strategy; 2) processes for the planning, approval and implementation of KM-related projects; 3) KM operating processes, at least reflecting the work of the key and specialist groups, should be in place; and 4) there should be some form of performance assessment, using both operating and financial measures. In addition, it would be useful to have access to a benchmarking capability, possibly using alignment or maturity concepts.
6.3
THE POTENTIAL USEFULNESS OF MATURITY MODELS AND ALIGNMENT APPROACHES
Given that KM is an enduring fashion and one that appears to be evolving with a considerable (though varied) body of knowledge of both theory and experience it is be useful to consider how organisations can identify and adopt good practices that have been generally well received elsewhere. While they cannot be demonstrated to be “best� practices, they could help organisations understand their current approach and position in comparison to others.
Since the findings of this research project indicate that KM has evolved from its rapid growth period into a significant level of adoption (if not maturity), organisations would be able to better develop the organizational units, processes, and relationships that are needed to achieve success in the creation, capture and sharing of knowledge if they were able to compare their own evolution and the level of maturity to other firms. A wide variety of maturity models exist for this type pf analysis including product life-cycle models.
One of the most significant areas of research and practice in maturity is the work done on the Capability Maturity Model, originally developed at Carnegie Melon in the late 1980s
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(Carnegie-Mellon, 2010). Originally conceived as a tool to evaluate maturity in software development organisations, it has now evolved into more comprehensive approach to Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and addresses multiple elements, including processes and people. The basic model identifies five levels of maturity: Initial (largely ad hoc or chaotic) Repeatable Defined Managed Optimised This conceptual model, frequently used in efforts to define maturity in business activities, may have some relevance in the KM field. The detailed analysis of each Theme carried out in this study indicates a definite evolution towards a more mature environment with less focus on ad hoc or single discipline elements of KM, but little work has been done in applying the maturity model concept to KM. Additional research building on the early work of Kulkarni and St. Louis (2003), Feng (2005), and Kenny (2006) could prove valuable to practitioners.
Another concept linked to maturity models is that of alignment, more specifically alignment with business strategy, which is considered when determining whether a specific element of a business’s operation is being carried out appropriately in the context of the firm’s overall business strategy. One example of this is the work by Luftman (2003) that combines the concept of the capability maturity model with six specific elements of assessment – communications, competency/value measurements, governance, partnership, scope and architecture, and skills – to determine the degree to which a company’s IT strategy is aligned with its business strategy.
To date, little focus has been given to these concepts of maturity and alignment within the strategic KM literature. Given the findings of this study, more detailed investigations of appropriate levels of maturity (corresponding with the types of business and the business strategy) may prove to be an interesting and productive next step, perhaps building on the
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early work of Kulkarni and St. Louis (2003) and Kenny (2006) using elements of the conceptual framework of Luftman (2003) discussed above.
6.4
CHALLENGE FOR THE KM ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
The study findings and reflections raise some challenges for the KM academic community. KM is seen as an emerging discipline. It has achieved significant visibility and some levels of operationalisation in the field, however, it could be suggested that it is “stuck in transition” between emerging and mature status. The field draws researchers from many disciplines, some of whom have a management focus and others do not. For those with a management focus whose intent is to produce work that is relevant and useful in the field, they might wish to consider more Type 2 research, perhaps with a design school approach, intended to develop prescriptive guidance in order to advance current perceptions and use of effective KM. Participating in fieldwork, action research and case studies would be ways to increase presence in the field.
An issue of equal significance is the availability of appropriate educational experiences for KM professionals. The case study participants, particularly the senior executives in the follow-up interviews, indicated quite clearly that they saw the need for KM specialists within their firms to provide appropriate support, and these individuals’ skills would complement and go beyond the KM skills of their professionals. This begs the question: who will provide the appropriate education for these KM specialists? The number of courses and programs offered is quite limited and, given the lack of status that KM has in most traditional university departments, it is not clear how appropriate and relevant KM courses would be incorporated into typical undergraduate and graduate programs. The two disciplines most likely to be developing KM specialists are the Information and Library Sciences departments, and the IT departments. Academics should give consideration as to how they can influence the introduction of appropriate courses with considerations for the appropriate curriculum content in these disciplines.
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6.5
THE VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, GENERALISABILITY AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH
As I have discussed in Chapter 3, this research operates close to the boundary between the Functionalist and Interpretivist paradigms – developing a priori theory then testing it with largely qualitative methods. This raises some interesting challenges in discussing validity, reliability, and generalisability.
A number of authors, often drawing on Lincoln and Guba (1985) argue for the replacement of the positivist criteria of internal validity, external validity, reliability and objectivity with new terminology such as credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. Others, more aggressively, suggest that these criteria have little meaning or relevance for qualitative research.
In this study, however, I have adopted the position of Remenyi et al. (1998), who argue that "the fact that the criteria for evaluating validity, reliability and generalisability were developed for positivist research designs does not mean that they are not valid quality checks to impose on non-positivist research," while "the yardsticks differ from those used in positivist research."
Table 6-1 presents criteria commonly used to validate research projects and summarises the approaches I have used in the study to address them.
It also includes representative sources that describe the concern, issues, and possible solutions. These criteria and the methods used to address them are discussed in more detail below.
6.5.1 Validity Creswell (2009) suggests that qualitative validity "means that the researcher checks for the accuracy of the findings by employing certain procedures." Citing Yin (2003) and others, he suggest that it is important that qualitative researchers document the procedures for the case studies, using a detailed case study protocol and database.
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Table 6-1: Validity, Reliability and Generalisation Considerations
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The theory to be tested was developed from the literature review, from general criticism of FGKM, as well as the consolidated views of four leading authorities in the field. It has also been presented and critically reviewed on three occasions (an EDAMBA doctoral symposium and two conferences) and published in a journal (Grant and Grant, 2008).
The nature of the case studies as well as the related confidentiality agreements with each firm and individual professional has made the interviews the most significant sources of data in this study. Although some access to documentation was limited, I was allowed to inspect the IT tools in use in each of the firms, which served as personal confirmation to support the views expressed in the interviews. In two cases, significant documents were made available and, for three of the firms, there are external publications that relate to those firms approaches to and use of Knowledge Management. However these cannot be directly used or cited without revealing the identities of the participating firms.
Thus, triangulation of sources was carried out at two levels. Within each firm, I conducted multiple interviews involving a range of personnel from junior to very senior professionals, also including some administrative and technical support staff. In addition, five separate cases were investigated from a theoretical replication perspective. (There was also a form of literal replication, since both GENFIRMs had very similar characteristics.)
Researcher bias was addressed both in the development and use of semantic coding to examine the interview transcripts. I derived the primary codes directly from the theoretical models in association with the development of the interview protocol. The use of the coding scheme in conjunction with the transcription and computer supported analysis of the interviews reduced the potential for selectivity in my interview analysis. In addition, in the reporting of each individual case, significant emphasis was given to using the direct words of the participants wherever possible. Obviously, the selection of particular passages of representative quotations to use within this narrative still represents the subjective view of the researcher.
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Given their importance as the primary data source, addressing potential bias within the interviews was of critical importance. The first and most important step was the assurance of anonymity for both the participating firms and the interview participants. Participants in every firm, at all levels, showed a strong interest in participating in the studies, and were willing to speak frankly, often critically, about the organisation and its approach to Knowledge Management. The semi-structured approach to each interview was useful in showing that each topic was covered, with the design also providing the opportunity for individuals to respond to questions and engage in storytelling, revealing topics that might not have been otherwise covered.
Controlling my own bias, as the sole interviewer, was a significant challenge. As a former partner in two of the firms (or their predecessors) I had some prior knowledge of aspects of their operation -- although this was between eight and 18 years out of date. In four interviews, I knew the participants, with one being a close personal friend. In addition, the participants were all aware that I had more than 20 years of consulting industry experience before becoming an academic. Thus, prior development of the interview protocol and close observation of its use was a critical element of the approach. As part of the interview preamble, I did ask participants not to make assumptions about my knowledge of the firm or of professional services in general. In addition, as part of the competency development programme that formed part of the Henley DBA, I made significant efforts to investigate both theory and practice related to listening skills and to improve my own skills through training and practice. The addition of the secondary case analysis and follow-up interviews demonstrate additional effort to address this challenge.
6.5.2 Reliability In a qualitative study, the concepts of reliability and validity are closely linked, with many techniques contributing to both. The use of multiple methods for triangulation purposes is a significant element here, as was the evolutionary development of a case study protocol. The initial research theory, proposed case study approach, and data collection techniques were presented at a doctoral symposium (Grant, 2005) with useful feedback being provided, which resulted in improvements to the proposed approach.
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The interview protocol was then tested in a single interview within the first case. The interview participant was a close personal friend and long-term professional colleague of mine, who, following completion of the interview, was able to provide constructive and informed feedback on the interview framework and process.
To complete the pilot study, interviews were completed with the other participants within this first pilot case and an initial data analysis carried out to determine whether the instruments being used provided a suitable approach for the analysis and investigation of the research themes. It was at this stage that I decided to adopt a more structured approach to the data analysis and developed the formal framework for thematic analysis, based on Boyatzis (1998), which I presented in Chapter 3.
Following the completion of the pilot study, the remainder of the interviews across the other cases were carried out over a period of approximately two years (from 2007 to 2009). During this time, a number of text analysis software tools were evaluated and HyperResearch was chosen as the most appropriate tool. The initial coding of each interview was done manually using transcripts. Subsequently, the electronic transcripts were annotated and used in successive cycles to produce the final coding analysis presented in this report.
As a further effort to improve reliability, after the initial case analysis had been completed, each codable comment was scored to determine its level of support for the Study Themes and for NGKM. This combination of an evolving and well-documented research protocol in conjunction with both quantitative and qualitative analysis provides to some degree, what Gioia and Pitre (1990) describe as a cross-paradigm “meta-triangulation.�
The most significant limitation with regard to reliability is the use of a single observer. In the end, the interpretation and classification of the interview comments reflects my subjective decisions. While such a limitation is common to most doctoral work, and given the considerable resources that would have been needed to employ multiple-coders and establish tests for multiple-coder reliability, this does emphasise the importance of having a clearly expressed case study protocol as well as a visible and inspectable audit trail showing
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the links between the case study themes, the interview questions, participant responses, and the coding activities that preceded the case analysis presented in this report. The use of secondary case analysis did provide some additional perspective, however, doctoral research is a largely solitary activity, I might suggest that the approach followed in this study is "well in line with the tradition of qualitative research, in which the personality of the scientist is a key research instrument" (Gummesson, 2000).
6.5.3 Generalisability While the traditional view of qualitative research is that its focus is particularity rather than generalisability, a number of proponents of qualitative research argue that levels of qualitative generalisation are, indeed, possible. Specifically, Yin (2003) argues for a generalisation from case studies, based on reputation logic. The five cases studied to investigate a multiple embedded case design provide insight into commonalities and differences across the four types of study.
The two GENFIRMs studied are actually reflective of the KM strategies of more than 100 PSFs operating in a wide variety of jurisdictions across the world. STRATFIRM and ITFIRM are both significant players in their specific market segments operating on a global basis. LAWFIRM is a much more limited case, where its approaches to KM have, to some degree, been influenced by its recent merger. For the consulting firms, however, the fieldwork (the five initial case studies, the secondary case analysis and the follow up interviews) provide a level of consistency that would present an argument for some level of generalisability, at least within the management consulting field.
In terms of generalisability of use, observers from other PSFs would likely need to carry out detailed analysis of the study findings and related narrative, in order to set those findings in context for their own situation.
As Chapter 2 demonstrated, knowledge intensive firms and, more specifically, PSFs are uniquely positioned as places in which to study Knowledge Management. As "test beds" to search for NGKM, some argument can be made that if NGKM is not present within them, it is not likely to be present in other types of organisation. However, the more specific
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responses to the themes demonstrate the particular situation of PSFs and of their knowledge workers with professional bodies of knowledge; along with the specific social and personal approaches to knowledge within each firm, these findings may not be applicable more generally.
6.6
RESEARCH AUDIT TRAIL
One useful technique to enhance trustworthiness in qualitative studies is the development of a Research Audit Trail, which is “a simple but useful strategy for determining the trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry” and helps researchers in “explaining research decisions and activities, thus increasing research transparency” (Carcary, 2009). A research audit trail for this study is presented in Figure 6-2.
Figure 6-2: My Research Audit Trail
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6.7
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THIS RESEARCH
This research project has made a significant contribution to the Knowledge Management field, particularly in the area of KM strategy. First, it provides a comprehensive look at the evolution of thinking about knowledge and Knowledge Management from their early beginnings to the current state. Next, it has provided substantial evidence to support the belief that KM is an important strategic initiative that cannot be treated as a fad or fashion. Subject to the limits on generalisability discussed above, it provides a rich description of the approaches to Knowledge Management within a range of professional services firms, which may prove useful to practitioners in the field. This study provides evidence to support the view that KM is a maturing but is not yet a mature discipline whose ideas and techniques are becoming increasingly embedded within business operations. It provides only a very limited level of support for the arguments raised at the beginning of this century: that a new generation of Knowledge Management is needed and was emerging. Instead it found that, in practical terms, strategies, processes, and relationships for knowledge creation and technology sharing continued to evolve and make significant contributions to the success of organizations, but that practitioners had little interest in (or uses for) many of the models and theories developed by KM researchers. Indeed, they indicated a dependence on their own KM specialists to assess the more esoteric elements of the discipline to determine whether and how these might be translated into practice with in the organization.
While its primary purpose was not to investigate knowledge models, it does provide some additional insight into the tacit/explicit debate and on the importance of combining personal and corporate knowledge. It provides good support for an emphasis on “knowing” other than on “knowledge,” building on the seminal views of Polanyi (1958) and does raise some doubts about the reality of the SECI cycle proposed by Nonaka (1994).
The study has identified a challenge for the KM community, both academic and practitioner on how to develop appropriately skilled practitioners to provide the necessary support to succeed as PSFs do not see KM as a discipline in which their profession needs to be educated/trained. This study also provides solid evidence that, while KM is not simply
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about IT, IT is an essential and very significant component of KM strategies within large knowledge intensive firms.
Finally, it demonstrates a useful application of Management Fashion Theory, adding to the body of knowledge in using the theory by demonstrating the importance of deconstructing the subject area into significant themes. This approach was developed from a detailed analysis of the discourse, and then used these themes to examine the actual diffusion in the field. When compared to several other management fashion studies on KM it has shown that fads and fashions cannot be properly determined by single phrase counts and that, without a matching in-depth examination of diffusion, the results from such studies can be misleading.
6.8 A FINAL PERSONAL REFLECTION My own perspective, as a management consultant turned researcher, has changed during this work, reflecting the cultural transition and need to change from a management lens to an academic lens, facilitated by the experience of the doctoral program as described by Simendinger et al. (2000). Throughout the study, I was able to draw on my prior experience in the management consulting industry. This was both an advantage and a challenge. The advantage was that I brought a significant depth of experience and understanding of the subject area to the study. My prior role gave me access to firms and the ability to gain additional insight during my interviews.
The most significant challenge is the danger that I might allow my prior experience to bias my interpretation of the findings. I needed to take special care to ensure interviewees had full opportunity to express their views in their own words and to interpret the findings from their words. This was one of the reasons that I adopted such a formal approach in coding, a computer-aided analysis of the interviews, and also reported the findings using the words of the interviewees wherever possible. This is a well-recognized challenge in any qualitative research, and I found extensive advice on handling these issues in the research guidance materials (discussed in the methodology chapter from which I developed my methodology and analysis approaches). I believe I found an appropriate balance between being the “complete detached observer� and an active participant.
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I was also able to bring some additional insight from my more recent career as an academic. As the director responsible for the establishment of a large-scale IT management school, I was, from the very beginning, involved in detailed curriculum discussion in the development of some of the new courses required in the degree program. One of these courses, for which I had direct responsibility, was a course in Knowledge Management. Thus, I was able to gain some direct experience in considering how to present key KM concepts to business students.
Given that Management Fashion is concerned with management innovations and, in part, the role that management consultants play in their identification and promotion, the study provided me with additional opportunity to reflect on my own career experiences seen through the lens of an academic researcher. My own career success was based quite significantly on providing consulting services in areas that could be considered to be potential management fashions. I was responsible within my firm for several such initiatives, the most significant being the development of an early practice in “office automation� (starting in 1980) and a subsequent global practice for eBusiness (starting in 1997). Indeed, my first academic paper was an invited paper to launch a new academic journal, the Office Systems Research Journal (Grant, 1982). Interestingly, the key theme of the paper was a call to avoid the uncritical adoption of this new concept. Thus, I have found aspects of this research to be particularly useful as a reflective exercise in gaining a better understanding of the interaction between the academic world and the world of consultancy and their relative impact on organisations. This will likely be the subject of significant further research for me. I have been asked by the Canadian Management Consulting Association to share my study findings with their members and, possibly, to carry out further research with them.
One of the most important lessons I have learned is that of reflexivity and the advantages of following reflective cycles in all my work. I have found this learning so useful that I now incorporate reflexive activities in all the graduate classes that I teach.
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In conclusion, this research has been a personal voyage of discovery. Thanks to the cooperation of the managing partners and the professional participants within the firms studied. I have been able to build on my years of practitioner experience and gain knowledge of the use of a variety of research techniques in a way that will improve my work as a researcher and as an adviser to consultants and consulting firms. Early in my doctoral journey, one of my advisors at Henley Business School suggested that my prior industry leadership position provided me with "privileged access" to potential case study subject firms. I can only say that, at the conclusion of this work, I still feel privileged.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX A USING CRAWDAD FOR KM JOURNAL VISUALISATIONS
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APPENDIX A – USING CRAWDAD FOR KM JOURNAL VISUALISATIONS
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APPENDIX B EXAMPLE CONSENT FORMS
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APPENDIX B – EXAMPLE CONSENT FORMS
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APPENDIX C INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE
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APPENDIX C – INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE
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INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS I am carrying out these interviews to test and validate findings from my prior work in studying KM strategies in professional services firms. (These include strategy firms, accounting/consulting firms, IT-focused firms and lawyers.)
In your responses, I’m interested in both the situation in your current firm along with any experiences in prior firms or any more general observations.
I would like to cover four areas: KM strategies KM services Some Specific KM concepts Innovation in consulting services To open, a couple of general questions: 1. First, can you tell me something about the size of your firm, its market focus and locations? Its ownership structure? 2. Next, If you were asked to define knowledge in the context of your firm, how would you do it? 3. Is KM seen as an important challenge in your firm?
KM Strategy 4. How does your firm address KM in its overall business strategy? 5. Is there a specific KM strategy? 6. Do you have KM specific department or support group? 7. Is KM a service offering from your firm? Was it in the past?
KM Services Let’s talk about Knowledge Management as a service area: 8. Was it considered? 9. Offered? 10. In general, what are the incentives and barriers related to new practice creation?
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Some Specific KM concepts I am going to raise a number of topics related to KM and I would like your perception of their relevance to your firm: 11. Corporate vs personal knowledge 12. Knowledge and its management is a complex issue 13. Knowledge models 14. The role of IT in KM 15. KM processes 16. The importance of IP/IC 17. And the need to manage it?
Innovation in Consulting Services I would like to wrap up with a couple of more general questions on Innovation in firms and your views of KM as a subject or discipline: 18. Where do service innovations come from? 19. How easy is it to champion/create a new service? 20. Can you differentiate between innovation in the client environment (i.e. helping the client innovate vs innovation with your firm? 21. When we think of the body of knowledge required of a management consultant, some specific disciplines come to mind that are often closely tied in to services offered. Examples might be strategic planning, logistics and HR management. Do you see KM as an equivalent discipline? 22. Consultants also are expected to bring some more generic skills to their work. Financial analysis, process thinking might be examples. What expectations might you have for KM? 23. If you look back over your career as a consultant, would you say that attitudes or behaviours toward knowledge or Knowledge Management have changed? If so, in what ways? 24. TO wrap up, given the range of things we have discussed over the last hour or so, do any other thoughts come to mid on the topics of knowledge or Knowledge Management In consulting firms. Thank you
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APPENDIX D STUDY THEMES AND SUPPORTING CODES USED FOR DATA ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX D – STUDY THEMES AND SUPPORTING CODES USED FOR DATA ANALYSIS STUDY THEMES AND SUPPORTING CODES DESCRIPTION
THEME CODE Theme A: The Organization has a Specific Strategic Focus for KM SF-ESK SF-ESKM
Explicit Strategy exists for Knowledge Explicit strategy and organization exists for Knowledge Management
SF-EOKM
Established organization exists for Knowledge Management
SF-ESI
Explicit strategies exist for innovation
SF-INS
Knowledge management issues addressed within other of the firm’s strategies
SF-EPM
Explicit performance measures exist for the use of knowledge within the firm
SF-TA
Performance targets for the use of knowledge are being achieved
SF-GEN SF-NEG
Strategic approaches to Knowledge Management have changed Example of opposition to use or criticism of KM strategy
Theme B: The Role of IT is not as important as in First Generation KM IT-ITLK
IT (and the CIO or equivalent) leads in Knowledge Management
IT-NOIT
KM is managed separately from IT
IT-KEY
IT is key for firm's knowledge practices
IT-SUPP
IT supports but does not lead knowledge activities
IT-TU
Tools Use exists
IT-TS
Tool success is claimed
IT-TSD
Tools success is defined
IT-PROB
Problems are reported in the usefulness of IT Tools for KM
IT-TKMS
IT Tools are chosen and implemented as part of a KM strategy
IT-GEN IT-NEG
Use of IT in KM changed in recent years IT seen as not important for KM
Theme C: Earlier Problems with the Use of KM Models have been resolved The firm has an established view on the nature of knowledge within the firm and how it needs to be used to achieve business MOD-KV success MOD-KVP
The firm recognizes different types of knowledge e.g. content, narrative, context
MOD-DIA
The firm has an ongoing dialogue about knowledge and innovation
MOD-KLC
Processes reflect some form of knowledge life cycle
MOD-IV
The firm has an established view on the nature of innovation within the firm and how it can be used for service differentiation
Theme D: Effective Processes exist both for the creation of new knowledge and the sharing of existing knowledge PRO-CCS
Processes exist to codify, capture and share knowledge
PRO-CAN
Processes exist to create or acquire and share new knowledge
PRO-CAO
The firm has specific objectives for new knowledge creation
PRO-CAOS
The firm is successful in the creation of new knowledge
PRO-IK
A link exists between innovation and knowledge within the firm
PRO-PROB
Problems have been identified in achieving the knowledge–related objectives
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PRO-PROBR
Problems have been identified in achieving the knowledge–related objectives and these have been resolved
PRO-GEN PRO-NEG
Things have changed in the last few years KM Processes not seen as important
Theme E: The Firm Recognises the Complexity of Knowledge COM-DIA A dialogue exists within the firm on the complexity of knowledge COM-CON Context is seen as an important element of Knowledge Management and use COM-SPA Knowledge creation and use reflects different types of knowledge space COM-ABS Knowledge creation and use reflects different levels of abstraction COM-VAL KM approaches demonstrate effort to validate knowledge Theme F: The Firm Recognises the Personal & Social Nature of Knowledge PS-ShP
The firm has specific policies designed to facilitate the sharing and development of knowledge?
PS-ShO
The firm has specific organization structures designed to facilitate the sharing and development of knowledge?
PS-ShC
The firm has specific procedures and communities designed to facilitate the sharing and development of knowledge
PS-ORG
policies, structures and procedures operate at the organization level
PS-GRP
These policies, structures and procedures operate at the group, level
PS-IND
These policies, structures and procedures operate at the individual level
PS-HOW
A process exists to develop and implement these policies, structures and procedures
PS-SUC
These policies, structures and procedures are successful
PS-SHA
The firm has a culture supportive of sharing of Knowledge
PS-INF
Informal processes exist to share knowledge
PS-PK
The firm’s knowledge strategies and policies recognize the personal nature of knowledge
Theme G: Intellectual Property is Managed IP-POL
Specific policies and procedures exist for the management of intellectual assets/intellectual property, intellectual capital
IP-PROT
Firm sells Intellectual property
IP-SEL
Firm has policies and procedures to protect IP
IP-REW IP-NEG
Staff are rewarded/recognized for IC /Knowledge creation IP Not seen as important for firm
Theme I: Data-Driven Codes DD-PPL Knowledge seen as part of person DD-EXT Use of links to external sources of Knowledge DD-BAD Barriers to sharing Knowledge DD-GSTOR A good Knowledge-use story DD-BSTOR A bad Knowledge-use story
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APPENDIX E DETAILED THEME ANALYSIS BY CODE AND SUB-CODE FOR EACH CASE
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APPENDIX E – DETAILED THEME ANALYSIS BY CODE AND SUB-CODE FOR EACH CASE
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APPENDIX F STRATFIRM CASE ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX F – STRATFIRM CASE ANALYSIS STRATFIRM 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM
STRATFIRM is a private global management consultant firm providing a wide range of strategically oriented services to its clients. Its clients are generally large-scale international corporations, both publicly and privately owned. It is normally considered to be one of the “Tier 1” firms that are viewed as the elite of the management consultant field, commanding high visibility and high fee rates.
The firm has a long history and currently employs several thousand professionals. Professionals are based in specific geographic offices but operate on a global basis, often forming part of industry or functional services practices. Junior professionals typically start as generalists and evolve towards more senior positions in either functional or industry practices. Partnership involves equity participation. Eight individuals were interviewed within the firm: Two partners
Two senior professionals Three junior professionals One administrator 2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES
Table F-1 shows an occurrence chart, demonstrating the number of codable responses that were identified for each of the thematic codes, a total of 527 across the eight interviews. It also indicates the level of support for the Next Generation theory, based on a classification of each codable response. In the following sections, the participants’ comments related to each theme are discussed and an assessment of the level of support for each theme is presented.
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Table F-1: STRATFIRM Code Summary Chart
2.1
Strategic Focus
All the participants had contributions to make on this topic. With some 50 coded comments, responses were obtained for all the code categories. In most cases solid information was provided for each sub-topic, however the few responses related to be measurement of KM achievements simply indicated that this was not done in STRATFIRM.
In response to specific questions, participants did not typically differentiate between strategic initiatives for knowledge and for Knowledge Management. However, in more general discussions, strategies for knowledge that might be seen as independent from formal Knowledge Management were occasionally addressed. One partner expressed this as “we are explicit (in our knowledge strategy) in the sense that we know knowledge is what causes us to be successful,” while also pointing out that, beyond a need to focus on clients and on the staff in the firm, that the firm would become a “real deadly, dull and boring place to work” if it didn’t keep investing in ideas. Another partner indicated that, “we are all very well aware of the fact that we live and die by our knowledge.”
To some degree, all indicated that the strategic focus on knowledge and Knowledge Management was both discussed explicitly and was embedded within the firm’s behaviour. A partner commented that “there’s a part in (our overall business strategy) that talks to Knowledge
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Management” and that direct discussion of KM was a frequent topic at the partner group level. Such discussion often took place on the “IC agenda” (partner) or as a recognition that “the big focus this year is to build intellectual capital into the following areas…” (junior professional). Senior professionals commented that “I don’t know if I would say it’s explicit or published, it’s certainly known” and “I think everybody would recognize it ” and that “innovation agendas usually referred to it.”
Strategies for KM exist at the corporate level and within individual operating units. At the corporate level the firm created a Knowledge and Innovation Council to provide direction, while knowledge initiatives are also driven by the various practices within the overall IC agenda, where the “interest is in identifying the key issues for the clients, new models and emerging innovations in their fields.” Indeed this overlap in discussion between knowledge, intellectual capital and innovation was common in all the interviews. As one partner put it, “from an innovation perspective, we have what we call intellectual capital” and within the focus on IC development, “the emphasis is on service practices as being the source of intellectual capital development.”
The existence of a specific group to take leadership in KM was mentioned by all participants, although one junior professional expressed this rather vaguely as, “at the top of my head, I would say we got to have one” and other juniors described their individual contact at the local level.
There was general agreement that there were no corporate or unit level targets of measurements regarding knowledge creation and use. As will be discussed later, such measurement as does take place is related to individual performance assessment. While no specific targets were set or measurements made regarding KM performance, general progress in this area is reported on a regular basis through newsletters and monthly and annual awards to contributing professionals.
As might be expected, the senior participants were more able to provide a prospective on the evolution of a generational thinking of KM within the firm, while the juniors had not
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been with the firm long enough to comment. One participant compared the firm’s strategic approach to that of a well-known competitor widely respected for its approach to KM, suggesting that recent initiatives within STRATFIRM indicate a more strategic and somewhat different approach than in the past, closer to that of the competitor where “such things are more deeply embedded.” This new strategic focus was seen as being driven by the passion expressed for KM by the firm’s new managing partner. Several participants described a variety of approaches towards KM and suggested that “senior partners are committed to creating more of the knowledge culture.” Criticisms were also raised about the strategic focus, much of it centring on the challenge of balancing KM needs against sales and utilization challenges that face the firm from time to time. Concern was also expressed that a traditional approach to KM was not always in the firm’s best interest and that, while “an easy solution is to have a CKO, sometimes CKOs see things at cross purposes to the consultants,” and that, “at a higher level, the firm has not yet made changes in the way that the business can make use of knowledge in truly innovative activities.”
Figure F-1 summarises the findings for the Strategy Theme for STRATFIRM.
STRATFIRM: Strategic Focus KM represents a key strategic initiative for STRATFIRM. To a large degree, these strategies are embedded within the firm’s wider business strategies. Recently, there has been an increased focus on KM, including formal efforts at the executive level and new IT-related initiatives. Overall, this demonstrates a high level of support for the diffusion of this Theme, along with strong support for the NGKM view. Figure F-1: STRATFIRM Strategic Focus
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2.2
The Role of IT
Some 70 responses were made in this area, the third largest number in the case. Most comments focused on three areas – most commonly IT tool use, along with discussions on both successes and failures in the use of these tools. Participants had no significant comments regarding IT management and KM and very few comments related to the links between KM and IT strategies.
For all the participants, the use of IT tools was seen as a fundamental and necessary part of the use of knowledge within the firm. Much of this related to easy access to important information. For example, “it is one thing to create lots of intellectual capital, but if people can’t access it, can’t find it in a meaningful and timely way, the value becomes severely limited.”
Much of the IT-related discussion focused around seven sets of tools, accessed through a recently-developed corporate portal: Discussion tools, including a wide range of facilities ranging from broadcast e-mails to topic-specific discussion boards. Expert identification and contact. Sales support, including resume building and engagement descriptions. Engagement repositories, including project descriptions, specific project deliverables, client results and lessons learned. This is accessible in a “sanitized” form, preserving client confidentiality. Intellectual capital repositories; both of publicly distributed material (e.g. white papers) and of internal documents. Newsletters and other communications related to the creation of new knowledge within the firm, including the publication of winners and activities related to IC awards. Access to external sources of information, including proprietary databases. One senior respondent suggested that these IT tools might be summarized as providing access to “three storage silos -- experts, engagements and documents,” along with a wide range of communication tools.
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Much of the IT-related discussion referred directly or indirectly to the firm’s recently introduced knowledge portal, where all these tools were brought together, accessible through the professional’s workstation.
With some reservations, participants were generally supportive of all these tools finding them to be useful in their day-to-day work. The most frequent mentions related to the ability to find the right person with the right knowledge. This is closely tied to the firm’s knowledge-sharing culture, which will be discussed later. When searching for usable knowledge, participants typically described similar processes.
One junior professional expressed it as “you do your search and the Knowledge Management system pulls up three sets of results” -- which identify work that has been done; a list of people who have an affiliation to the topic; and related discussion board postings. While access to data base contents may be sufficient to meet some needs, for most important work professionals quickly reach out to others in the firm for specific aid using expert identification, engagement repository and discussion boards, as well as personal networks to ask for assistance.
This search might be done on a broadcast basis, where “you are sending an e-mail message to the world … and you are kind of relying on people to actually respond to the message” (junior professional). This combination of tools and the culture generally produces results -“…people, when you ask them -- will always take five minutes out of your day … to send you what they have” (junior professional). While strongly supportive of the usefulness of these systems, the participants also identified some problems in the role of IT supporting Knowledge Management activities.
Figure F-2 summarises the findings for the Role of IT Theme for STRATFIRM.
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STRATFIRM: Role of IT In STRATFIRM, IT has a significant place in its KM strategy. Its professionals depend on technology to support their daily work in several ways. They need access to a variety of documents and databases and, more importantly, need to be able to identify and communicate with colleagues across the world. While recognising the limitations of the explicit knowledge available to them and that some of their systems have inadequacies, the use of technology was seen as vital for the firm's success. While providing strong support for the diffusion of this Theme, this is in contradiction to the views of NGKM. Figure F-2: STRATFIRM Role of IT
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models
Although there were 49 coded comments, the usefulness of KM models proved to be a challenging area of analysis in the interviews. Except in very general terms, the professionals did not often discuss knowledge in the context of specific models or concepts. In essence, except for one senior professional who was expert in the KM area, none of the others used “traditional” KM model concepts or terms. The “models” they did mention were largely informal and based on STRATFIRM’s own internal language and culture. As one junior professional put it, “I would never sit, hey you want to have a chat about knowledge, let’s talk about information sharing, at least not in any of the groups I’ve been in.” This was supported by the KM-expert senior professional who observed that, “At STRATFIRM, there is not as much discussion about knowledge as a topic as there is at [Key Competitor].”
Frequently, concepts related to common KM models came up indirectly in discussion on the use of knowledge within the firm. This pragmatic view of knowledge was expressed by the KM expert senior professional who observed “a difference between the perspectives of consultants vs. researchers, with the consultant’s view of KM being more hands on.”A junior professional added that the firm addressed Knowledge Management “always with a very practical approach in terms of how it will help us to solve a project or how it will help us to deliver on a specific project.”
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Thus, while they did not use KM discipline-specific terms during the interviews, participants described a variety of KM model concepts in use, including: knowledge as innovation; knowledge life-cycles; knowledge embedded in processes and methodologies; the dimensions of tacit and explicit knowledge.
A partner suggested that “we did talk about intellectual capital, now we talk about innovation, it’s essentially the same thing, I think,”arguing that, in STRATFIRM, Knowledge Management was often seen in the context of innovation. Two additional partner comments re-enforce this: “It (innovation) can and should mean a lot of things. It can mean building a provocative point of view about something. It could be what really drives value creation” and “The half life of any good idea is pretty short and our competitors are going to figure out that our clients are smart and they’ve got people going to business schools and they’re going to come out and say they could do that themselves.” So innovation is seen as the need to create new knowledge (or at least a new perspective on knowledge) for competitive reasons.
Indirectly, this is recognition of a life cycle model of knowledge, positioning STRATFIRM’s use of knowledge early in that life cycle. The administrator, in describing a specific need for expertise in staffing a project, commented that where IC is being reviewed for a project, it “needs to be updated because some of it is kind of dated,”recognizing that the currency of knowledge was key to client service. A junior professional also commented on the need to look at different sources depending on the degree of currency needed, giving an example of the use of the discussion boards, rather than the repositories, to obtain useful knowledge “because it tends to be very current” and a partner suggested that “one of the reasons that we put emphasis on developing new IC is because you gotta keep it fresh.”
When asked about the use of the word “knowledge” a partner commented that much of what might be considered to be a knowledge asset using a traditional view of KM would not be considered that way in STRATFIRM -- “when we talk about Knowledge Management we'd be talking about intellectual capital not, for example, training and core skills and things like that - we wouldn't consider that Knowledge Management” and that basic consultant skills development and training in methodologies was not seen as part of KM. As the last comment illustrates,
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STRATFIRM’s use of methodologies (embedded knowledge) was also not seen as part of KM, though their enhancement and application in the field might be. A partner commented that while other firms might treat methodologies as IC, for STRATFIRM, these were just tools.
The participants clearly saw the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge, with the administrator saying “the firm probably feels the knowledge is mostly in people's heads and struggles to get it to something where it can be used. Like how do I get out of your mind everything you know so that it can be spread out amongst 20 people around the world,” going on to say “people would say, have you done the IC on that project or is there any IC on that,” again showing the use of intellectual capital or IC as the term for knowledge, as well as identifying the need to convert core knowledge to an explicit and searchable form.
This need to combine very explicit knowledge with embedded and tacit knowledge for key business activities was frequently mentioned, recognising the importance of each and emphasizing the need for expertise to apply/use explicit knowledge. Thus, a junior professional in describing an initial search for explicit IC on a specific topic hears from another professional, “let me fire you the (presentation) deck on what we did at this client related to that, you'll find it interesting” and another adds, “here's a written down version (methodology) of that approach (which) is useful, but I’m also looking through the experiential side. I might understand the academic construct, such as the framework, but not be really sure how to apply it, or all the nuances are and they can’t write all those nuances into it.” He goes on to say that “part of it (application of the knowledge) would come through structured sessions of experts.” This view of methodologies as just a beginning point in the use of the firm’s knowledge was re-enforced when a partner suggested that “we go out and use that methodology and the next project that we do, we enhance it again so you'll work with how that last project worked with it, or some combination of a couple of projects, its not like a standard methodology.” In discussion, participants also recognised the existence of different types of knowledge, beyond the tacit/explicit dimension. Sometimes the perceptions related to its use, one partner differentiating “between the engagement work itself and then the qualifications which is also (a) form of knowledge,” as well as the “external knowledge that we’ve talked about, which is the sort
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of secondary research that we do” along with other searchable artifacts such as “discussion documents, white papers, surveys, articles” and contrasting this with “intellectual capital development (including methodology development), that’s another sort of component of knowledge.” The way knowledge of one type evolves into another, often through the addition of metadata (for example from field experience) was also mentioned, such as “you know client work translates into methodologies and result qualifications.”
The importance of providing useful and focused knowledge was seen as key to growth and promotion (as will be discussed later in the IP rewards section). Advancement (especially at the senior levels) was seen to happen based on a “platform” – a set of skills, experience and success based around a core capability.
A junior professional expressed this as “you become an expert on something, you choose a platform and you focus around it, the more you become a person with a platform the more you are able to develop specific insights,” while at the same time another junior recognized that, at their level, junior professionals were more users than creators of intellectual capital and that the ability to find such IC (and sometimes, under senior guidance, to create it) was critical to their early career success. Knowledge, of itself, was not seen as the key component for a successful career. Rather, the platform was based on above normal performance across a range of business parameters, based around a specific knowledge base. Figure F-3 summarises the findings for the Usefulness of KM Models Theme for STRATFIRM.
STRATFIRM: Usefulness of KM Models Knowledge in a variety of forms is seen as critical to STRATFIRM’s success, but its professionals seldom use knowledge models to describe what they do. Use of any models that might be recognised as being from the KM field is largely implicit. The most frequently used term is IC (Intellectual Capital). Creation of new knowledge is frequently seen as “Innovation”. There was little support for NGKM views on KM models. Figure F-3: STRATFIRM: Usefulness of KM ModelsProcesses for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge
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With 120 coded comments, this was a heavily discussed area. The activities and processes related to the creation, capture and sharing of knowledge are core to consulting practice and the discussions with the professionals reflected this.
Processes to capture and share knowledge exist throughout the firm and at both firm and group levels. Groups might be geographic location, but were more likely to be functional or industry practices.
At the project level, there is “an expectation on every project that you capture knowledge at the back end of the project so that’s kind of number one, that’s kind of a given” (partner). This is seen as having variable value by both senior professionals -- “I mean there's certainly the project where there's nothing new that needs to be captured if it’s a standard offering we've done a million times (there’s) not a lot of value…” The more detailed process was described by a junior professional as “for every project we have, there should be a minimum that goes into the database, saying this project happened with this client, at this time, this basic description of the scenario, the problems, what was the issue, what we were trying to solve, what did we do to solve it, and what was the result? Is there anything new or different you learned about either that client or this kind of work or that kind of place to work?” The junior also felt that this was seen as important and that the views of juniors were considered – “I can definitely say we are asked, is there anything you think would be good IC to capture, because sometimes it’s not visible to the most senior partners on a project.”
Allocating time and resources to do this project-level knowledge capture was widely seen as a challenge. While “on the large team projects usually somebody on the team is identified as the sort of IC go to person,” in other projects “it very much depends on how much time is left if a team -sometimes you know you are rushing, you are delivering your last deliverable on the last day and then the whole -- the next day in those occasions, it’s very very hard to make it happen.” Another junior suggested that it also depends on the partner responsible for the project, “(for) some partners that’s seen as very valuable and they'd probably go out of their way to make it happen. Other partners, I’d suspect that they think it’s nowhere near as valuable (compared) to getting me staffed again and getting me off their project costs [at the end of the project].”
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At the practice level, knowledge is captured and shared both through the technology tools (repository and discussion) and through “sharing at a practice meeting” (partner). Knowledge is also shared through scheduled conference calls, sometimes at the partner level, but also, as a partner described it, “we decided that it would be really important to get a lot of people involved not just partners and principals but we have managers and associates. The call today was with two guys who have done some really interesting work for [Client X] on account planning, cross-selling, and lead generation. I had no idea that we were doing this work and I’m part of the [Client X] account team.” Another senior professional commented that practice calls “have a couple of segments that are dedicated to IC so we will spend half an hour, 20 minutes, talking through IC.”
For some key areas of practice, individuals are tasked with maintaining useful knowledge bases for the discipline practitioners. As an example, for one major service area, “there's one woman who tracks [important data] … you can always send her an email she'll send you the data or she'll tell you so and so (to contact)… there's, I think, a huge amount of knowledge (stored) in that group.” In other parts of the firm “there is a gatekeeper, a person who you send your files to and he/she uploads them onto the database I guess to make sure it’s catalogued properly and it functions.”
One key process is a structured team method of developing proposals and solving client problems through a pre-sharing of well-structured data about the client/problem followed by an assembly of experts (in person and by remote access) in a short intense discussion with specific targeted outcomes. One partner described this as “we would assemble all of the subject matter experts from around the world and we'd say okay, pick this apart, ask us questions help us think about other ways of thinking about it, have we tackled all the issues….”
There is a significant emphasis on the creation of new knowledge (as discussed above, this is frequently mentioned in the context of innovation). Typical partner comments included “we put probably more emphasis on the new than on the codifying” and the need to keep the firms IC base current because “we put emphasize on developing new IC because you’ve got to keep it fresh so you know we put a lot of focus on continuing to refresh and/or come up with new ideas.”
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Professionals are often tasked to develop new IC and put it in forms that are easily accessible, with one senior professional describing this as “anybody that’s working on some intellectual capital certainly their job is to codify is or capture our standard format, submitted through into our research group so it gets entered into the database; we encourage people to go beyond just throwing it into the database and make sure with the right people that the knowledge is out there.” While new IC creation is part of many processes, there are also specific funding processes for larger projects “for a more involved lengthy piece of work we would get approval from our profit centre … here's essentially a budget that I’ll use to do the work once I have that … then I can go through our normal staffing procedure and get resources assigned to the IC development project.”
A partner described how IC is used for both firm promotion/marketing and to improve client service. A lot of time is spent making sure that others in the firm know about this work, “if they write a white paper, it’s a reason for people to send it to their clients, (another) kind of another reason is to allows [client partners] and [client] teams to take new ideas to the clients.” Investments in IC development often appear to have the expectation that it could turn into a breakthrough service or at least have “commercial applicability.” As one partner said “I believe fundamentally that there has to be a really strong commercialization portion especially with a firm like ours.” At the junior level this was described more pragmatically as “partners will sometimes identify an area where we've done a bit of work, it’s obviously a recurring issue here, we should develop an answer to that question.”
Most processes for knowledge creation, capture and sharing involve a day-to-day interaction between small groups of professionals, both formally and informally, using repositories and communication tools. A junior professional described how they might deal with a specific problem saying “(we) try and identify a bunch of people who worked on similar industries, projects, concepts, geographies, whichever is appropriate, get them all on the phone call.”
A set of processes exist at the project and staff review level that include references to IC creation and capture. A junior professional said that, at project level, “it’s actually part of our engagement performance evaluation, each project is evaluated against a matrix and then one of the dimensions is the capture of intellectual capital.”
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Some references were made to evolution in processes in recent years. “It’s evolved, I would say it seems more formal than when I first joined the firm” (partner).“I think [leader] has been instrumental in waves of how we look at knowledge … I think there have been waves of it and right now there is a current new wave” (professional, with long term experience). A junior professional was more critical of this, suggesting that while “we have a renewed focus on Knowledge Management and so on, but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty much the same.”
Among the problems mentioned with knowledge processes was losses of knowledge when people leave -- “when somebody leaves the firm it can be a big loss. I think we are getting better at finding ways to make sure that all of that doesn't walk out the door, but inevitably a lot of it does walk out of the door and I think that makes us vulnerable at times” (partner).
Also, despite the various methods to capture and share knowledge, staff at all levels still had the concern that it was not always possible to get at knowledge they “knew” had to be there -- “there are a lots of really great ideas being developed, there are a lot of people trying to as much as they can to develop IC but we don’t (always) have a place to go to really get it” (partner) and “people have found it frustrating, they say ‘I know that somebody has done this already, how do I get my hands on it and how do I find out who's done it before’” (junior professional).
From the view of more junior staff it seems that “billable work takes precedence over anything else” or that, if no funds are available at the end of the project, “the partner has to try and convince me that I should do (IC capture work) on the weekends” and “its mandatory to do it (capture IC), at the same time we don't give the time to consultants to do it, sort of like I would have to do it this weekend.” This was also expressed as the view that “I think the firm could probably do a better job of creating an opportunity for the consultants to do that, whether it was a one day investment at the end of every project.” This time pressure was also expressed as “(the) big challenge here is to actually getting the consultants to upload their intellectual capital.”
Figure F-4 summarises the findings for the KM Processes Theme for STRATFIRM.
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STRATFIRM: KM Processes Processes, in varying degrees of formality, exist to create, capture and share knowledge. Some of these focus on explicit knowledge, others are designed to bring people together, either face-to-face or virtually to provide a more tacit or experiential flavour to the sharing of knowledge. Some concerns were raised that the processes were unevenly applied and also that the usefulness of some of the knowledge capture was not always clear. Overall this demonstrated strong support for the diffusion of the Theme, while some NGKM was visible, but not typically recognised as such, within the firm. Figure F-4: STRATFIRM KM Processes
2.4
The Complexity of Knowledge Management
With 81 codable comments, this theme was quite frequently referred to by participants, but this was often done in a tangential manner. (i.e. the professional did not describe KM or knowledge models as complex but their narrative provided examples of such complexity.)
The need for abstract application of specific knowledge was widely discussed. In a specific case, “in the project I was just on, I build a model in Excel…my manager and I talked and we decided I’ll build a generalised version of that because it will be useful for somebody else getting into a similar situation, where you just plug in some names, some values, have a general construct in place so you don't have to figure out the construct, will then actually be useful for anybody.” By contrast, a junior described a problem that “all of (my) insights are around a specific scenario, which makes it a bit difficult to pull back up from that and mutate into some probably applicable knowledge (for others).”
The importance of abstracting knowledge for key services and client situations is seen as a major challenge, “if there's not the time to abstract something to make it more universally applicable and then put it into the system…” vs. “whereas (if) I have one that is generalised and regularly available, it probably would have been useful to all of those projects.” However there was also the
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feeling that only “good” or “innovative” things should be put in a higher level (abstracted) form.
Abstract approaches to knowledge also exist in key processes. As an example in describing how they would organise a structured review of a business proposal or a client problem, a junior professional said, “I still have to build some sort of a presentation guide to explain what my context is and why I’m asking the questions and there is no formalized set structure for that, the structure of the panel and the protocol of the panel are not formalized, but the intent and purpose of it are thoroughly understood.” One professional suggested “there's a lot of IC related work just embedded in the sort of consulting development activities,” while another argues that “when a project is completed, if it did something new or different or that is recognized as a sort of significant step forward, then there's usually an attempt to capture that best thought or best process.”
Efforts to validate knowledge claims, both in knowledge capture and knowledge application are common and given high priority, e.g. “before we put that in front of our client, we would assemble all of the subject matter experts from around the world and (ask them to) pick this apart.”
Professionals seldom talk about knowledge but rather, “Yea it’s the means to ends, I would never say, hey you want to have a chat about knowledge, lets talk about information sharing, at least not in any of the groups I’ve been in” or “most of the time, you should talk to person X, they've done that they know about that, or let me fire you the presentation deck on what we did at this client's related to that, you'll find it interesting, that’s the level of conversation.”
As will be discussed in the next section, much of the dialogue about knowledge, including the validation of its usefulness, involve recognition of the role of the individual. Typical comments included “you can't really understand the detail unless you really talk to the people that understand”, or“you are saying to somebody who is an expert -- which of these are the good ones or the best ones,”or “it’s very common knowledge, if you really want to find in-depth knowledge you need to go to the people who've written the project not just the documents they wrote,” and, insightfully, “Not only tell me which are the best, now bring it to life for me.”
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Figure F-5 summarises the findings for the Complexity of Knowledge Theme for STRATFIRM.
STRATFIRM: Complexity of Knowledge In general, despite the apparent support shown in the associated chart, participants did not see knowledge as a particularly complex concept. Their approaches to KM did recognize the need for levels of abstraction and of validation of knowledge objects.
Figure F-5: STRATFIRM Complexity of Knowledge
2.5
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge
With 132 coded comments, this was the most frequently discussed theme, addressing all the subtopics. The existence of formal and informal social structures was frequently discussed, often in conjunction with the description of the various formal and informal knowledge processes.
Formal and informal structures were discussed at both the organizational and group levels. In describing the ways in which professionals meet as groups, a senior professional said, “It’s firm wide, everyone has access and then there are threads for by practice and there are geographic threads, there are threads by industry, so there's all kinds of different categorization.” Geography was probably seen as the least significant element, and frequent mention was made of individuals’ widespread participation in knowledge sharing and knowledge creation activities regardless of affiliation. For example there are “two levels of being part of a practice, you are either a core member of the practice or you are an affiliate member of a practice”(partner), where membership of such groups tends to be anticipatory of a more formal future commitment or specialisation. On becoming a member of a group a senior professional suggested, “It’s voluntary, nobody is going to be withheld from a certain group. It’s mostly about finding out that the group exists and then who do I contact to be part of the calls.”
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The firm’s culture is highly tolerant and supportive of general requests for knowledge and help. A partner’s example was, “while I’m working on this proposal (that’s due on this Friday) it’s probably faster for me to send out a note so the whole world sees it and somebody's got relevant knowledge or experience they can either send documents or they can call me.”
Much of the knowledge creation, capture and sharing takes place at the group level. These groups might be industry practice, functional practice or client team (whether on single or multiple projects). As one partner said in discussing these groups involved in knowledge sharing,“There's the practice, there's the geographical office there's the project team and there are these [structured teams]. I would say those are the core, and there's a little bit by your (professional) level, for example at a partner's meeting.”Senior professionals suggested that while “the wider challenges with key dimensions of culture, systems and people are addressed at the firm level,” many knowledge initiatives are driven by the various practices to that agenda and the “plan of how to disseminate the knowledge would be developed at the practice level.”
Professionals can become either formal or informal members of special interest groups, which are common methods of sharing practice and client-specific knowledge. A partner described this as, “When you think about people within these [special interest] teams, they share very nicely within them and they’ve got mechanisms to share across because we have meetings once every three weeks or so.” Membership of such groups is encouraged and“if they express an interest, basically we just connect them up” (senior professional). New [special interest] groups are created as needed. In theory, any professional can suggest the creation of such a group, however in practice this is normally done at the partner level, often responding to a firmwide strategic initiative. A junior professional described this as “I suspect it (an idea for a special interest group) would only get credibility or legs if it came from a senior level, what would probably have to happen is I would have to go find a partner who also though this was a good idea who would then align themself with me.”
Such groups are not limited to client focused activities, with one participant describing “There's a women's network, there’s Asian network, I think they are people from south east Asia
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within the firm that are trying to get together and talk about any issues they might have so there's those kinds of informal social (groups).”
In this context, face-to-face presence was not seen as an important requirement and geographic distance was not seen to be a constraint. Professionals participated in activities in a variety of means, one partner describing this as “More of them (industry meetings) are conference calls. Depending on the practice, they'll be anywhere from once a week to once a month and we'll probably do maybe one face-to-face meeting here (every couple of months) as they are very expensive.” An analyst added, “the job is mostly on the phone because of the travelling so we do pretty well on weekly conference calls and stuff like that.” A junior professional, in describing their participation, said their “group does one conference a month, where maybe two or three people talk about a recent project and it is an hour and a half or two hours call and I maybe make it half of the time.”
The importance of specific personal knowledge was also emphasized. As an analyst responsible for staffing projects described, “There's definitely an informal network, so that people become known for something and then therefore they are likely the person that people go (to).”
According to all the participants, one of the most important examples of these social structures is the structured approach to addressing proposal opportunities and client problems, where ad hoc teams can be quickly assembled drawing on resources all across the firm, regardless of practice area or geography.
Putting the best knowledge in front of a client was seen as important in both sales and delivery. Professionals typically described the review of the available document repositories and discussion groups as merely the first step in assembling the necessary knowledge to serve the client. They frequently expected to make direct contact with the individuals described as experts and, in many cases, assembling teams of experts to deliver the expertise directly to the client. A partner described this kind of activity as “before we put that in front of our client we would assemble all of the subject matter experts from around the world and we'd say
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okay pick this apart. Ask us questions. Help us think about other ways of thinking. Have we tackled all the issues and … help us make it better.”
In a similar vein, the importance of informal networks to identify the right sources and resources was also emphasized, in particular the importance of partner networks and relationships. As a partner said,“If I need to know something about manufacturing, I call a guy named [Consultant A], if I need to know something about supply chain there are three guys I would call, and I rely on them and their library and their contacts to get stuff that I need” adding “the flip side of it is that you know we all get lots of emails --the reality is that (once) you get certain subject matter expertise you can get pinged from around the world for the same things multiple times.” This was not always seen a negative as, once contacted,“There's an opportunity for you to be directly involved in that pursuit that you might not have otherwise known about.”
This need to go beyond explicitly captured knowledge came up very frequently. As a partner explained, “If you went to a document management system you can't really understand the detail unless you really talk to the people that understand it so that there is a bit of a skepticism that you can really interpret paper. You need dialogue to go with paper.” And, before using such knowledge in any significant way,“we don't believe that you should go and get it and reference it without having the appropriate conversation of really understanding the details.”In fact, unless the individual using the codified knowledge is an expert, there was significant emphasis on getting the real experts involved. For example, “If I'm not the subject matter expert, I am not doing the firm a service by taking that knowledge and sharing it (with the client) when I don't know first hand, so what I'd be expected to do would be bring that person who did this study who have direct knowledge in that area to bring them in to talk to the client.”
This same need to get to the expert individual is also expressed at the junior level: “You know if you really want to find in depth knowledge you need to go to the people who've written the project not just the documents they wrote. So much of it that they won't have been able to publish it is confidential or sensitive, whatever the case might be, it’s very much the case where it’s in people's brains.”
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Finding the individuals can be done through the knowledge repositories --“when you do a search for IC there will be people's names attached to it and the area and you can follow up people individually” (junior consultant), or from senior practitioners, “which is where the partner knowledge network really comes in” ( unior consultant). Fundamental to the firm’s approach to knowledge sharing is the development of a supportive culture. A partner described this as “I think that the reason that people help is one because you know we are kind of motivated to help one another because the more successful we are as a firm the more successful we all are”and suggested that hording of knowledge was viewed as bad, saying “People do not hoard IC. They may not think of sharing it, but if they are asked about it they will share it” and further,“we are also not interested in primadonnas.” The same view was reflected by junior professionals, with comments such as “This is my theory -- I think it is that people just genuinely want to help others within the firm… people are usually really good at responding.”
This emphasis on getting both the right experts and avoiding “primadonnas” was illustrated in one partner’s description of how to develop public IC. He pointed out that “there were a number of articles or whitepapers that have been authored by one person” and the firm’s view was “don’t do that anymore; collaborate, these are fine but they’d be better if you collaborated.”
Professionals generally felt that this aspect of their Knowledge Management was successful. One partner commented on the approach to sharing as, “I would say I don't know what our compliance is but I think its pretty good” and the culture was very responsive to teamwork and sharing.
Figure F-6 summarises the findings for the Personal & Social Knowledge Theme for STRATFIRM.
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STRATFIRM: Personal & Social Knowledge Participants showed strong support for these concepts in practice. The firm and its professionals recognised that sharing of knowledge was a key to their success. A culture of sharing existed at all levels and was expected in all the firm’s activities and at all levels. While professionals expected to be able to take knowledge objects and use them with appropriate modification, involving the most knowledgeable individuals in person was emphasised as being highly important. This also provided support for NGKM. Figure F-6: STRATFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge
2.6
Intellectual Asset Management
Some 51 coded comments were identified with regard to Intellectual Asset management, with most of these related in some form to rewards for IC creation.
The firm makes quite limited efforts to protect its IP assets and much of that is actually related to the protection of client data, which is seen as a serious concern. A senior professional expressed this as “Certainly in our clients’ work it’s in our protection of intellectual capital. That’s the main piece that I know of and I’m not sure what exists at the employee level that I probably signed something five years ago.” As the latter comment suggests, actual polices relate to employment agreements and to professional conduct and are referred in basic technology rules like “we all have password protected computers, you are not to leave your computer sitting around if you've been on a client's site” (Partner) or “There's a little note on the screen that says this is intended solely for the use of internal resources and you are supposed to follow those rules and when you click search by clicking search I reaffirm and I understand and agree with that” (junior professional), but this did not seem to be a very significant issue to the participants.
Again, in terms of actual behaviour to protect IC, other than the basic rules described above, the firm seems to make very limited effort to protect its own assets (such as methodologies, data etc). A partner felt that “So somebody leaves with our methodology you know I’m not sure we feel that threatened by it” because to actually use it effectively “at the end of the day you (need to
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have) the people that can deliver it and deliver the results.” This perspective was re-enforced by a junior professional who said he was “almost positive there's something in the contract when I signed my employment agreement that said don't steal stuff basically. I don't know how stringently it is watched for or looked at” and “I don't know if they care”if a leaving consultant took material with them.
The junior professional expressed what seemed to be a common view that “I suspect in our case that probably goes back to the firm's usual strain, yes we have frameworks yes we have methodologies, their aids, (but) without the people and the power of the whole organization to understand things and work with things they are useless.”
Perhaps in part because of this view that methodology is of little use without expertise and culture, the firm does not sell Intellectual Property. Indeed, it was felt that IP was better shared and given away to demonstrate the firm’s expertise than something to be protected or sold. The firm’s promotional material mentions a variety of activities where this is done, raging from the production of white papers and books, the presentation of seminars (by invitation) and include a periodic retreat organized for a select group of CEOs from major firms where current IC is shared in in-depth sessions without charge.
In fact most specific mentions of IC management related to awards for IC development and its impact on career advancement in the firm. Except for knowledge processes (PROCCS) this was the most frequent coded discussion, with 37 mentions and multiple mentions by each participant.
A partner expressed this as,“you know people are measured based on the intellectual capital (and) innovation they are driving” and that “at every level it’s part of your evaluation” and that this “actually increases as you move up the ranks, in terms of the expectations.” “It’s not enough to lead the office party, what are they doing to contribute to codify the intellectual capital and/or developing new intellectual capital, very explicit part of what we do.”
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While all mention this as important, there was a clear division between the views of senior versus junior staff in the importance of IC development for advancement in the firm. Juniors felt quite strongly that, while IC development was widely seen to be important, it could not make up for poor performance in terms of client billing (utilization) while, in contrast, seniors felt that, both for junior promotion and senior compensation, it was key. One partner even expressed a concern that “I've been highly focused on my clients trying to convert some things but my IC isn't moving. I'm very anxious about that right now … because I know it is going to be critical to my year.”Another partner said, “my bonus was significantly positively (impacted) this past year because of (the) focus that I put on IC development.”
Partners also said that “I would say to get you know from an junior to mid-level you would have to have done something (in IC), you know it doesn't have to be outstanding -- but to get from manager to principal you would have to you definitely have to have done something because you won't make it if you don't” contrasting this with “If you haven’t great clients and you do great IC, that’s not going to get you anywhere, but if you’ve done great client work and you do this then its definitely going to help you stand out.” A junior saw this somewhat in reverse as“I think it would matter if I had nothing, having nothing would hurt.”
The creation of IC, in any form useful to the firm, is recognized, both informally and formally through monthly IC awards which provide widespread recognition. As a senior professional said, “one of the key elements is the IC show case where you publish IC awards contributors each month the best IC that comes out.” This was seen as advancing a professional’s visibility within the firm, thus impacting the work assignments. A junior suggested “I think winning the [IC recognition] award would looked upon favorably on your review process, (but) it’s not going to get you promoted, if you weren't going to get there anyway.”
A partner suggested that, whether directly or indirectly, “recognition (of good IC contributions) comes in moving through a fast track promotion cycle” and this is also reflected in the annual review process. A junior professional described this as, “Yea, there's a section on, did you contribute to intellectual capital work. Essentially it’s firm building, it’s how it all bubbles up at the yearend stuff. On every review there will be a, did you create something new or is there something
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new in it?” and “The more you go up the ladder the more you have emphasize on innovation and quality.”
Figure F-7 summarises the findings for the Intellectual Property Theme for STRATFIRM.
STRATFIRM: Intellectual Property IP (the firm’s most commonly used term for knowledge) was seen as key to the firm’s success, but it was not seen as something that needed much direct management, protection or measurement. People created it, shared it and (sometimes) received rewards for it. Being seen as a knowledge creator and sharer was often seen as an important contributor to career successes, and most discussion of IP was in this context. This provided only limited support for the diffusion of the Theme and very little for NGKM. Figure F-7: STRATFIRM Intellectual Property
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APPENDIX G GENFIRM1 CASE ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX G – GENFIRM1 CASE ANALYSIS GENFIRM1 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM
GENFIRM1 is a large international firm offering services in audit, tax and consulting, with member firms in most countries in the world. One of the world’s longest established accounting and advisory services firms, with a long history of mergers with predecessor firms, it has a network structure (as do all the major accounting firms, since the post-Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley restructuring that dramatically changed the accounting industry in the first few years of the 21st Century). Network members in each country, while independent legal entities, share a common name, standards and practices. It has more than 100,000 professionals worldwide.
The Canadian member firm participated in this study. Seven individuals were interviewed within the firm: Four partners One senior professional One junior professional One administrator
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES
Table G-1 shows an occurrence chart, demonstrating the number of codable responses that were identified for each of the analysis codes, a total of 496 across the seven interviews.
Table G-1: GENFIRM1 Code Summary Chart
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2.1
Strategic Focus
All the participants identified some form of strategic focus on knowledge and Knowledge Management, making 69 codable comments, with partners providing direct insight into the firm’s strategic objectives and the more junior staff providing more general perceptions. One partner emphasized the importance of knowledge by saying “Knowledge is and has been a core part of our business and our service for as long as we’ve been in business. Which is over a hundred years!” with other partners commenting that “(knowledge) is one of our key strategic planning areas” and “knowledge and the use of knowledge is within the mission statement of the firm.”
A senior professional commented, “Are you asking if I fully understand our firm’s strategy…? No. But have I seen evidence that we have a strategy for managing knowledge? Yes.” A junior professional added, “I think it's been evolving strategy over the last since I've been here, at least. There's more of a focus on knowledge sharing, than there used to be.”
Responses related to the specific strategies of Knowledge Management were more varied with one partner commenting “Well, if you are talking about Knowledge Management in the sense of how much captured, where it's captured and so on, that is managed both on an international and national basis,” and another adding that “there are policies and there's a strategy around how that (knowledge) platform is managed and maintained from a global perspective and a country-specific perspective.” At the operating level, one partner suggested that “All the people in the firm are engaged in some form of Knowledge Management” while a junior professional added “I think it does but it's not very big and I don't think it's very well used.”
Strategies for knowledge and Knowledge Management were also embedded in other strategic initiatives. This came up in discussions around practices and methodologies, such as “if we look at components of knowledge, there is a game play to how (the) firm manages its tools and methodologies” and it seemed that such initiatives crossed organizational boundaries -“Whether or not we’re organized by geography by function by line of business. And the Knowledge Management and knowledge activities actually cross all of those boundaries.” One partner’s related comments included “it‘s not done through a knowledge initiative, it’s done through a marketing
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initiative or a service initiative” and “I suppose for a large part of it, for us it's about innovative ways of going to market.” Indeed, this came up frequently in discussions around innovation. “We have strategies for new service development which one could consider innovation …to draw on the knowledge of the expertise of the firm in a prototype model” (partner) and “I think innovation in our business model has really changed over the last few years based on market conditions” (junior professional).
One partner, who held responsibility for technology and Knowledge Management in Canada, suggested that “probably for the last 4 or 5 years we have downplayed the structure of Knowledge Management with a capital K and a capital M in our organization” and that “when we structure it or try to structure it using the terms Knowledge Management we get huge resistance in the organization… so that any activities that we carry out need to be carried out in the course of the standard processes or processes of the organization.” Some evidence was also presented about evolution in strategic thinking around knowledge and Knowledge Management. One participant (who had left the firm and rejoined) commented, “When I joined the second time, I was impressed with that, because the orientation from the first time to the second time, it was like night and day” and another described it as “I think it's been evolving strategy over the last (few years), since I've been here, at least. There's more of a focus on knowledge sharing, than there used to be.” Figure G-1 summarises the findings for the Strategy Theme for GENFIRM1.
GENFIRM1: Strategic Focus There was strong support for the diffusion of this Theme. The firm has specific explicit strategies for Knowledge Management and innovation and has a supporting KM organization. Despite this focus (and discussion at the partner level) it was not strongly promoted as KM, but embedded in the firm’s other activities and processes. This also consistent with the NGKM view. Figure G-1: GENFIRM1 Strategic Focus
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2.2
The Role of IT
Again, participants had significant contributions to make regarding the role of IT within Knowledge Management, with 83 codable comments. The majority of these (49) related to knowledge tools supported by IT. Discussion and inspection identified six sets of tools: A variety of discussion tools, including email, broadcast information request capabilities and a special repository for exchanging large files. A main knowledge portal, accessible by all staff, including access to proposals, conflict-of-interest files, technical literature (including brief on-line slide shows), policies, client information, toolkits, sample letters, reports. This also includes daily notices and reminders of knowledge-related items. The capability to setup virtual discussion spaces to both capture and exchange knowledge on specific topics, with tools such as project management, file management and document management. Access to client working papers and engagement files -- the official project files on multiple local servers, usually dedicated to practice areas An interactive contact management system A number of self-paced education tools, including a CD-based new staff orientation and online education (desktop delivered) training. These were frequently referred to by all participants, indicating widespread use. IT strategies addressed KM issues and IT was seen as a key component of KM. A partner described the evolution and use of such tools as, “The desktop strategy and the individual workstations and the build on individual workstations is definitely a part of the global strategy. Some of the collaborative tools, the charting tools, the methodologies spring more from what practitioners have used and have viewed as effective and in therefore said they want.” This view was supported by a junior professional, “what I started to see, a bit more on the micro level, we're starting develop some tools that allow for better sharing of knowledge.”
In Canada, the same partner combined the roles of CIO and CKO, who described the “pretty close alignment in our organization between technology and knowledge.” However, another partner commented “there are people who are accountable for aspects of, in effect, the knowledge base of the firm” such as there is “somebody who is accountable for audit practices and for making sure that methodologies, the kind of the rules, interpretations are appropriate and current.”In essence
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“the CIO here is primarily responsible for making sure that the platforms are in place and operate in a useful way, as opposed to being responsible to any extent…for the content.”
Overall, participants showed a reasonable degree of satisfaction with many of the tools available for them, although it was felt that this varied across the organization. Two partners said “it's being used effectively by some groups, it's not being used at all by others, kind of depends on the community, a particular community of interest” and “It varies in quality. Some practices are very very able to actually have high quality stuff. Other practices have modest organization and have poor quality.”
Each of the participants had stories and anecdotes that demonstrated how the use of these tools had been helpful to them in carrying out their work more effectively. For example, some problems in IT KM tool use were identified. Some felt that there was an over-focus on the technology, at the expense of the content, “(The) firm has, in my view, confused Knowledge Management with technology implementation. And has spent tons of money on elegant platforms and lost interest when it came to the point of populating the content behind those platforms. And, consequently has ended up with a knowledge base that is much less useful to those practitioners.”
Some evidence existed on a generational thinking with relation to IT and KM. For one partner, “there has been some emphasis in the last couple of years to evolving the platform to make it more useful for kind of team based interaction…over the last year, they’ve been building out the portal to be more of a say, knowledge orientated group as opposed to coming out of the IT group.” In part, this was seen as a move away from a technology focus. For another, “for a number of years (the firm’s) actually striven for both the creation and the evolution of a knowledge environment.” The senior professional who had left the firm and returned after a few years, commented, “There is very definitely life cycles associated with that. The portals improved… it’s better than when I left.”
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Figure G-2 summarises the findings for the Role of IT Theme for GENFIRM1.
GENFIRM1: Role of IT IT & KM are closely coupled at GENFIRM1. IT strategies exist to deliver KM solutions and demonstrate a high level of diffusion. A wide range of tools are available and are generally seen as being useful. Some generation evidence is present but suggests a continued focus on the use of IT. Thus, much of this is in opposition to the views of NGKM, which claims an overfocus on IT. Figure G-2: GENFIRM1 Role of IT
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models
With some 60 coded comments, this proved to be an area of some interest to all the participants. The terms knowledge and Knowledge Management are widely used within the firm, however they tended to come up most quickly during discussion about the various IT tools. Intellectual capital appeared to be a more a more widely used term in the firm, while, as this partner commented, “on the advisory service side, it (the term used) would tend to be intellectual capital while…there are some very specific terms for some (knowledge) that are integral to the audit and tax side of the business.” There was little direct discussion of the models prevalent in the KM literature.
All participants provided personal commentary on the role they found knowledge to play within the firm’s activities, ranging from a partner’s opening comment, “This is a very simple business, and it's a business that doesn't have a lot of infrastructure other than that directly related to delivering service to the marketplace, so there isn't a lot of pure R&D, it's just not around… the firm is a collection of individuals and tools and methodologies and lessons learned in supporting stuff” to a senior professional’s “You can’t survive in our business if you’re not good at leveraging knowledge.” As another partner expressed it, “I don’t think of anything other than the fact that knowledge underpins all of the stuff we do.”
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All the professionals described frequent conversations about the nature and use of knowledge with partners suggesting “Yes, there's debate, quite a lot of it actually…there's a great deal of argument” and “We’ve had a number of debates and discussion about what it is, what it should be, how we should use it, how it should be funded, who gets to read it.”
There was also a perception that the nature of this debate varied between senior and junior ranks. A partner suggested “I would think that (knowledge) strategy and information would be sort of reasonably well known across the firm amongst the partners,” while another commented “the lower in the organization we go, the most important thing to them is their ability to deliver on their job.” This view was reinforced by a senior professional who suggested, “we talk about intellectual capital from senior consultants all the way to the top of the tree.” A junior professional was more pragmatic, “Yeah, I don't think people necessarily are conscious of the fact that they're dealing with knowledge or Knowledge Management with we're dealing with it.”
Discussion about specific knowledge models and different types of knowledge seemed to be less common.
One partner attempted to define the nature of content as, “When I talk about kinds of content it's more from an intellectual capital base, in effect, the words captured and shared. You'll get a lot of people in the firm talking about the quality and capabilities of its people, our people, because we are basically service offering is really, people delivered, and our products, they're people delivered manipulation of knowledge.”
Another (audit) partner felt that, “given the nature of our place, the view of knowledge that you would get is probably more about technical knowledge, the ability to understand whether on the basis of technical needs.” A junior professional’s view was, “there's certainly a pretty well understood concept of knowledge. To me, when I think of knowledge, in our industry, it is expertise and whether it's expertise about a particular product or particular market or particular geography, whatever the case might be, that's what I think. The knowledge is the expertise that we bring to the table.”
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There was also some recognition that knowledge assets changed over time, with partners commenting, “There is very definitely life cycles associated with the content dimension of knowledge…(and there) is very much a view of things that could go stale and need to be revitalized” and “(with) the technical stuff I would say there's no question that something is superseded or out of date and it automatically happens (an update or change), couldn't function if it didn't, someone would be relying on an old old guidance and can get into trouble (if it didn’t happen).”
Frequently, when discussions moved beyond technology and KM, the discussion tended to be more on innovation than knowledge creation. In comparing knowledge and innovation one partner said, “I don't see them as separate, I think the innovation is more formally dealt with in solution development mode, whereas knowledge would be captured out of the project or out of the portal as well as in the solution development mode. Innovation would come out of that too, but there isn't a specific procedure to capture innovation in the environment as there is in the solution development environment.”
Across the interviews, participants made reference to the different types and uses of knowledge across the firm that depended on the situation and the line of service. A partner expressed this as, “there's so many types of knowledge that I think we have to manage, some of them are specific to our people's continuing education, some of them are specific to our organization ability to manage its quality and risk, some of it is our ability to go to market, and I think there are other dimensions of it too.” The CKO was more specific, “We divided (KM) into four areas; people, process, technology and content.”
A partner identified, “Knowledge would be a, some of the content can be the shared content; the other thing is the tacit knowledge you bring to the circumstance, connecting a number of items that are disconnected.” Another linked knowledge views to the type of practice. “You ask that question (about knowledge) to a tax practitioner, they would talk about tax interpretations, you know, rules, regulatory interpretations….” Underlying all of this was a belief that the management of knowledge was linked to the wider business performance, “Better or worse Knowledge Management strategies…we have this kind of belief that if we do a better job with knowledge maybe we’ll have better results.”
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One partner suggested that the decline in KM focus and the increased focus on intellectual capital and innovation was deliberate, “probably for the last four or five years we have downplayed the structure of Knowledge Management with a capital K and a capital M in our organization. On the basis that it is not actually a (service) unit in which can stand by itself for our organization …None of the terms that are being used in this space actually are all that accurate or useful.”
Figure G-3 summarises the findings for the Usefulness of KM Models Theme for GENFIRM1.
GENFIRM1: Usefulness of KM Models While participants did not typically refer to traditional KM models, there was widespread discussion about the nature of knowledge and its use in the firm. Noticeable differences were evident between the views of the audit and advisory services practices. The firm’s KM strategy was based on the four knowledge areas of people, process, technology and content. Thus this indicated quite strong support for the usefulness of (some) KM models within the firm. However, these largely represent the models developed as FGKM and showed little support for NGKM views on this Theme. Figure G-3: GENFIRM1 Usefulness of KM Models Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge
With 86 coded comments, discussion on the activities and processes for the creation, sharing and use of knowledge was widespread. Formal and informal processes for the creation and sharing of knowledge are widespread throughout the firm at all levels.
One partner described how the firm’s global leadership “looks at what the firm should be investing in terms of developing methodologies and so on (and) how that it should be distributed and made available both to practitioners and, to some extent to clients, for certain types of information” and suggested these would frequently be “created in response to external forces that change some aspects the environment that we operate in …(for instance) in the audit and tax world, it's some regulation or some rules that change, that force, a a creation of a new way of servicing (the client). At
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the other end of the spectrum, it's from a view of how the market is evolving and what we could be offering into that market that would do well and make money out of it.” Others supported this view of investment processes, “they regularly and annually endorse and encourage requests for investment in developing those things” and “we will go out and buy expertise to supplement what our core capabilities are.”
While the firm has a centralized group that develops intellectual products for the whole firm, participants emphasized that these had to be relevant to the market, with one partner describing how “part of the requirement that we have in any solution development mode, anything we would invest in is we need to be sure there are champions for it, to roll it out into the field, to create training and deliver the training, so there's quite a formal process around that. Making sure we what we invest in actually comes to market at the end of the day.”
A partner explained this “real world” focus, “the development process is particularly geared to ensuring we have practitioners involved in that process as subject matter experts or whatever the case might be. And so from the evolution from that and the coordination of that come the networks, and these become networks of subject matter experts. That tends to be how they are created.” To support this, a senior professional described his forthcoming role in this process “I’ll be partially seconded to (the central group) to help build out one of our methodologies probably for 12 months. They’re taking me off the frontline to lead this solution globally, I’ll have team members from all around the world involved in building out the solution.”
This development of new intellectual product is done at all levels and at varying levels of formality. As a senior professional said, “if the firm thinks there’s a real market opportunity, one way or another knowledge will get built -- somebody will get tasked …because it’s a proposal driven business, all of a sudden, one market opportunity can draw in a flurry of new knowledge in order to respond to that opportunity…some times its frantic but, at the end of the day, the right stuff tends to get done.”
Processes also exist and are used to share existing knowledge between professionals. A partner described this as “harnessing the best practices from different areas of the globe, and
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capturing that information so it can be improved upon and shared with others.” An analyst commented “It's more a case of making sure that all the consultants have a good idea of all the products that we offer, otherwise if they are on a job they might not see the potential or opportunity down the road. I hear that mentioned a lot.”A senior consultant said, “They've put some real formal things to get that information out to people…(there) certainly is a real emphasis on trying to spread the knowledge from those who have it down to those who are new the project or new in the industry.”A partner described these processes as routine, “There are certainly processes to capture it (knowledge), which we built into the management of the business, where completed proposals are captured where the output of work is also captured, recognizing of course the confidentiality questions.” A junior professional commented that in some areas, such as in tax services, “I mean there some things you can make more prescriptive and certain of our practice areas are prescriptive.”
Another routine set of processes relate to the development of professionals, with one partner commenting “we have some very deliberate mechanisms to make sure that both people's knowledge is continuing refreshed, for things that already exist.” A junior professional saw the result of this as “they've put some real formal things to get that information out to people” and “certainly our people on the projects that I've been on that have that knowledge and that expertise and to certain extent (this) gets passed on more formally.” unior professionals also mentioned opportunities to participate in knowledge sharing activities. Sometimes, this was described as a “push” rather than a “pull” focus, with one partner suggesting “we have an organized approach to disseminating knowledge, it's more dissemination than collection… the set of expectations defined for people in certain jobs… the learning programs that can get them to that target… the technical knowledge that is also disseminated in a structured way… on-going apprenticeship programs….” In contrast, “best practices…I wouldn't say they are captured in the same way, they are shared among practitioners, through discussion and so on, through access to completed work. So that would be more along the lines of the way you conduct your professional life, as opposed to the distinct procedure for capturing information.”
Since a significant part of the work is done in highly regulated areas, such as audit and tax, many formal processes exist and are forced in these areas. An analyst described this as,
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“Well, we have the rules of engagement and they're all very structured, and that's where clients are set up, engagement papers (are filed)…we have some fair stringent rules around what is kept and what isn't…very specific processes or aspects of intellectual capital base, the regulatory stuff. Very formal and very carefully managed processes because of the ramifications of not getting that right are significant in a firm like ours.” Partner comments reinforce this, “we are obliged to retain evidence of work and work product” and “Another related thing goes back to the question of signing off on it (the work), is the accreditation process around who is actually qualified to do these things” and “in the review process everything we do is reviewed by someone else and so then you are bringing that expertise from some other perspective.”
While participants made many comments describing the existence and use of processes to create and share knowledge, they also described some significant challenges faced in ensuring these processes work effectively.
Figure G-4 summarises the findings for the KM Processes Theme for GENFIRM1
GENFIRM1: KM Processes The firm has processes at all levels to help create and share knowledge. Central teams are tasked with innovation projects and knowledge creation and sharing processes are widely used both formally and less formally. The audit parts of the business have highly formal processes that were closely linked to accounting standards and regulations as well as the firm’s methodologies. This is generally supportive of the diffusion of the Theme and of NGKM.
Diffusion of KM Diffusion of NGKM
Support
Opposition
Figure G-4: GENFIRM1 KM Processes
2.4
The Complexity of Knowledge Management
With just 22 codable comments this theme did not occur frequently in interviews. Participants did not seem to respond well to consideration of knowledge as a complex thing, however they did identify some consideration of different types of knowledge in the firm and of the need for levels of abstraction.
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A senior professional recognized this as, “partly because GENFIRM1 is an audit firm, and a tax firm and an advisory firm, the use and application and distribution of knowledge is different in each one of those practices…different principles apply.” A partner suggested, “I think it's complex, in particular because the magic to creating the really powerful knowledge and solutions is connection between the different service sets. That is a complicated thing to do or difficult thing to do, perhaps difficult but not complicated.”
Typically, professionals do not seem to deal with complexity of knowledge. In fact, by contrast, they saw it as being situation-specific, “it's very project specific, as opposed to sitting down and having a conversation about where or what I think I need or what knowledge I think I need to have to develop ” (senior professional).
Some did recognize that, typically, they were very much dealing with the use of knowledge in context “the complexity would be if we try to replace the practitioner in interpreting in how you bring some of that knowledge to bear.” Thus, the complexity challenge was seen in problems that might be faced attempting to capture knowledge in repositories and failing to recognize the need for the professional to interpret that knowledge. …“for us, it's not a complexity issue, we can get carried away (in the use of IT tools), in not viewing the practitioner as integrator of that information.”
While the need for a large firm to create and share knowledge at a higher abstract level was seen as important, participants repeatedly returned to the importance of integration and interpretation, with a senior professional suggesting that“it's not a prescriptive kind of a business, it's a judgment business, and the best practitioners exercise the right judgment with the least amount of work to figure out what that judgment really is and with the smarts to know which barriers to break down and which ones to pay attention to” and a partner adding, “We've got a bunch of smart practitioners, if you give them the equivalent of the last ten reports written on that topic area and no more, at long as they were the last ten best, in my view, we'd be much further ahead than trying to distill what's in those ten reports.”
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To the degree that the validation of knowledge was considered, this most often came up in discussion about quality assurance processes, particularly in the tax and audit areas. As a partner said, “another consideration that we have is that we are obliged to retain evidence of work and work product and so that we have to be very mindful of what information is, is retained for evidence” and “in the review is process everything we do is reviewed by someone else and so then you are bringing that expertise from some other perspective.” One participant also commented that “our CEO messages what's important in our organization, so we talk about quality, people, clients, he never starts off client or people, always starts with quality.”
Figure G-5 summarises the findings for the Complexity of Knowledge Theme for GENFIRM1.
GENFIRM1: Complexity of Knowledge This was not an area of significant focus within GENFIRM1. Knowledge was not seen as a complex thing. Such complexity as was discussed related to the challenges of using specific knowledge in a specific context. Validation of knowledge claims, while not discussed directly, was an issue of particular importance within the audit area. Overall, there was limited support for the diffusion of this Theme or for NGKM Figure G-5: GENFIRM1 Complexity of Knowledge
2.5
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge
With 127 codable comments this was, by a substantial margin, the most discussed.
The firm has set up policies and structures for knowledge sharing at the corporate and group practice level. A senior professional, and others, described a global group as “for lack of a better term, a knowledge development centre that supports and facilitates knowledge sharing.” Other international centres exist to address specific topics of firm-wide importance. A partner mentioned “So we have a research library. We have researchers, and again in the audit and tax side there are groups that are responsible for maintaining currency around, monitoring legislation and maintaining currency around interpretations or regulations and how those are applied. So those are formal organizational wide dedicated resources.”
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Approaches and contributions to the international sharing of knowledge were identified. Partners’ comments included, “there are very definitely rules around how the firm operates…official interpretation of the things that are important to the knowledge aspects of what the firm does” and “as partners we are evaluated more and more on our interactive participation in sharing and team orientation than we ever were.”
However, despite this corporate global focus, participants also felt that the most important activities more often took place at the group level. A junior professional expressed this as, “as much as I'm part of GENFIRM1, I certainly feel more a part of the smaller individual groups that I'm a part of.” Typically, participants described this as membership of multiple groups, not simply focusing on a single practice area or geographic location. In part, this represents an organizational reality as expressed by a partner, “it's a not particularly homogeneous kind of business, it's a collection of several lines of business” and “(such groups) tend to be primarily, organized around you know, self interest, service offering, and attempts to assemble the collective wisdom.”
In one practice area, a partner described the formal and informal activities that supported sharing at the group level, “we have a national network of participants, we have networks of sectors participants…all those are linked and there is continuing sharing of different matters, whether that's market related, new services related, technical information, something new that somebody has come across that they really don't understand how to handle, and there's lot of those.”
Despite the more formal firm level and group level activities discussed above, participants frequently discussed the role of informal sharing and the importance of the contribution of the individual’s own personal knowledge. A partner discussed formal and less formal networks, “they are networking all the time either by phone or by email or by [a firm specific tool], whatever the case might be, so, that's where you would go if somebody if it's a particular thing you are looking for you go to a particular network and look for the expertise through that network.” and that informal networks tend to evolve and “(groups that start) at the most grassroots level, as they become better known, they tend to move towards being a more formal development network.”
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In recognizing the importance of the individual practitioner, one partner described this as “deploying a combination of their own personal skills and judgment and knowledge base, supported by and enhanced by the intellectual base of the firm.” Another stated, “it’s largely an apprenticeship, it's not a prescriptive kind of a business, it's a judgment business, and the best practitioners exercise the right judgment with the least amount of work.” A partner also saw the purpose of many of the firm-wide initiatives as being “to make things available to the individual practitioner, you know, the person leading the team. But then it's up to them to kind of, to take the initiative to define what they want, to interpret it, to use it, and there's a bunch of tools given to the individuals to help them do that.”
Individual professionals achieved stature and reputation because of their knowledge base and willingness to share. Participants gave several examples: “[name] has his own repository of presentations and things. You just say “[name], I'm looking for something, (perhaps) a process wheel, and he'll say I think I have something like that...” (partner) “A new project was starting up and they asked me to come in and just give some perspective what's gone right and wrong on the project that I'm working on, how that can help them” (junior professional) “They'd be recognized by their peers...and they're quite distinct from a business unit leadership role which in some is coincident but often it's not.” (partner) The firm’s culture was seen as sharing, with one senior professional saying that while “there are a few people that will hog knowledge because they think that it gives them power but pretty much everybody else will share” and “we’re in a business that if you aren’t a team player you’re going to get squeezed out. People in this business don’t take very long to figure this out and they learn to share.”
Figure G-6 summarises the findings for the Personal & Social Knowledge Theme for GENFIRM1.
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GENFIRM1: Personal & Social Knowledge The firm's knowledge processes/systems were seen as important, with participants constantly referring to the need for knowledge to be shared at the group level and that knowledge came from individuals and was used by individuals and teams in context. A willingness to participate in knowledge sharing was seen as very important to success in the firm. GENFIRM1 demonstrates strong support for the diffusion of this Theme and for the NGKM view. Figure G-6: GENFIRM1 Personal & Social Knowledge
2.6
Intellectual Asset Management
With a very few and minor exceptions, the organization does not sell intellectual property. The firm does have policies and procedures relating to the use and protection of intellectual assets. A partner described the focus as “We have policies and procedures around protection of it, protection of it in two ways. One, confidentiality of it and client information, is very strictly maintained and we also have policies and procedures around the securing of it in as much as, you know if you walk out the door, you are not allowed to take it with you.” This can also apply to client use of methodologies “where there's certain things that we just won't let other organizations have or won't even make them available if someone comes in to review something we have, we'll pull that (a non-disclosure agreement) out before he'll look at it.”
The limitations of this approach are also recognized. As a partner described it, “human assets are the prime assets of the business and it protects it as well, I mean, there are employment agreements that, you know, restrict people who leave from doing certain things… they're restricted from what jobs they can take for a period of time, from what clients they can do work in, in the nature of work, from what they can do in terms of speaking, attracting employees, you know, other assets.” Contributing to the firm’s intellectual assets is also seen as a contributing element of performance assessment and career advancement. One partner describes this as, “contributing to the firm's intellectual capital base is, expected, from most people. So, as part of the
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annual performance goals settings, there is a dimension of goal setting that relates to firm building kinds of activities and component of which is really the intellectual capital” and another suggested “generally, we would reward more on a combination of your individual contributions and your contribution to the team.” A senior consultant’s comments were more mixed, while recognizing that “you talk about it in your goal setting, you talk about it in your mid-term review you talk about it at the end of the year,” it was not the most important element in performance assessment. A junior professional suggested “there's a bit of a disconnect between the talk about that and how you are ultimately evaluated. At the end of the day, if you are out there doing chargeable work, then everything else falls by the wayside” also recognizing that this might become more important as the individuals rise in the organization.
Figure G-7 summarises the findings for the Intellectual Property Theme for GENFIRM1.
GENFIRM1: Intellectual Property The classification and protection of intellectual property is not given high priority within the firm. Contributing to IP was seen as a contributor to career success, but this was more as an "extra" after the more fundamental targets of utilisation and sales were achieved. This provides only limited support for the diffusion of some of the key views of the IC/IP field and very little support for NGKM. Figure G-7: GENFIRM1 Intellectual Property
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APPENDIX H GENFIRM2 CASE ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX H – GENFIRM2 CASE ANALYSIS GENFIRM2 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM
GENFIRM2 is one of the world's largest professional services firms, with well over 100,000 employees working in the majority of countries in the world. They provide services in audit, taxation as well as a wide range of advisory services, including a significant number of industry-focused practices. In common with other such firms, they operate as a global network of individual firms to minimise collective liability. The international firm acts as a coordinating body, developing broad market strategies, promoting the common brand and assisting in the development of internal products and services and the sharing of knowledge across all member firms.
The Canadian member firm participated in this study. Six individuals were interviewed within the firm: Two partners, one of whom had national responsibility for KM. Two senior professionals One junior professional One administrator
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES
Table H-1 shows an occurrence chart, demonstrating the number of codable responses that were identified for each of the analysis codes, a total of 403 across the six interviews.
2.1
Strategic Focus
All the participants identified some form of strategic focus on knowledge and Knowledge Management, making 43 codable comments. Senior professionals suggested that the firm had very explicit objectives for the use of knowledge identifying “one of the key initiatives under our [strategic plan] is how to improve knowledge sharing and particularly how to take advantage of technology to improve knowledge sharing.” Another described how KM strategy was linked with another global initiative as “I think the connected thinking (metaphor) is really
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one that’s caught on and pushed out across the firm. And it is, when you read those attributes, they all read like KM attributes.”
Table H-1: GENFIRM2 Code Summary Chart
A partner linked the KM strategy directly to the business strategy; “you have to do KM from what is the firm’s business strategy. So our firm’s fundamental business strategy is one based on customer intimacy (as oppose to operational excellence or innovation) ….The people we sell to are not looking for cutting edge solutions, they’re looking for very solid, true blue, guaranteed, no fail, pay a lot of money for that kind of assurance.” However this did seem to vary across lines of business, with “the consulting side (being) more focused on innovative new products,” where “you (might) need some cutting edge thinking, the knowledge sharing focus there is on what are the latest trends and what kind of people do we have and services can we offer to capitalize on those latest trends.” The relatively recent set up of a new firm-wide KM team was mentioned by several participants, “yes we have a person who’s in charge of Knowledge Management. He reports directly into our national managing partner. So it’s rather high priority. There’s a person who’s in charge of our
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Knowledge Management strategy overall and he has knowledge managers set up in various lines of service or geography.” The new approach was seen as “Our strategy, is that it has to move from broadcast to filter and from push to pull. So people go there to get what they want, we’re not sending stuff to them.”
While this new structure and focus provides support for the concept of a new generation of KM in the firm, as a partner suggested, “I think it would be true to say that we we’re kind of lagging our main competitors... And the current plan is to catch up and then of course, leap ahead of the others. So we’re going from a underinvested, very ad hoc, no real program, into something that’s better.” The firm is still in transition in its KM strategy, with one participant commenting that “I think (KM) gets high profile from that point of view and we’re spending a lot of money on KM technology. But if you go out to the offices, it just does not have a high profile.” In contrast, another professional described their easy access to KM support staff, “we have people who are dedicated to our line of service and then we have people who are supposed to represent us to the rest of the firm. I think having both of those people allows us a lot more interaction. That person just sits down the hall from me I go by their desk and…they’re that very easily accessible conduit.”
A senior professional commented that strategic success could still be limited, without more effort. “The only thing that really strikes home with me is that knowledge sharing and Knowledge Management in the firm if we really want to move it to the next level has to be tied in with our performance management and composition in terms of things like greater emphasis on group goals.”
The firm’s strategy includes a few related metrics; “at the line of service level or at the firm level there are some very high-level metrics, including portal usage with access improved and knowledgesharing goals met.”
Figure H-1 summarises the findings for the Strategy Theme for GENFIRM2.
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GENFIRM2: Strategic Focus The firm has quite recently started a new strategic initiative for KM and recognition of this initiative was common across all participants. It is clearly an important effort, with significant resources committed to it. While, to some degree, this was seen as a "catch up" strategy, overall, it can be seen as strong support for this theme and for NGKM.
Figure H-1: GENFIRM2 Strategic Focus
2.2
The Role of IT
Participants had significant contributions to make regarding the role of IT within Knowledge Management, with 76 codable comments. The vast majority of these (56) related to knowledge tools supported by IT. To many participants, KM was really about the IT tools used to support it. A senior professional suggested that KM was “owned by the business but deployed by IT” and a partner commented “we tend to emphasize the technology over the content.” However, there was also a general theme that the IT organization was not in control of KM -“it’s almost a support function where KM comes up with an initiative...and brings it to IT and says this is what we want to implement. And then IT kind of works on getting that solution set up. I think the thought leadership and the initiatives come from the KM side.”
Discussion and inspection identified seven sets of tools: A universal portal, with access to a wide variety of tools, including daily news. A well-known collaboration software application that provides for: email; instant messaging; directories (client, employee and alumnae); group communications; and document storage and retrieval (including formal documents such as audit reports, as well as marketing/sales documents such as resumes and qualifications). Group meeting tools, including teleconferencing and “net-meeting.” Experimental or pilot use of newer social networking tools, such as “Linked-In” or “Twitter” like facilities. Community-specific databases and discussion tools, structured by either competency or industry. Access to complete program guides (e.g. for audit) and standard forms.
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Access to external databases, including both general information, such as industry and company information, and practice-specific sources such as international accounting standards. While all the participants mentioned some problems with IT applications and support for KM, they also described it as being core to much of their daily work. All described the storage and retrieval of important documents, with the standard collaborative software application acting as the repository for most key databases with comments like “a lot of the information is in the [tool] database,” and “the biggest set of tools would be the variety of databases that we use.” This was also true about communications, “So 70% of our communication is done by our [collaborative tool]. We have the portal which is a web-based tool and we do a lot of communications in [collaborative tool] with links to lure people into the portal.” and “our audit file structure is based on [collaborative tool].”
Tools were often structured at the group or client level, such as “outside of the things like working communities we have separate engagement databases that are specifically for that project or that initiative and that would contain stuff that would not ever appear in other databases.” Those participants from the audit side of the business made frequent references to the use of databases at the client level or project level (for example, “under tools, it (the portal) can get you to template manger, which basically will drop down a program for any audit process, be it an audit special purpose report or reengagement or other kinds of specific stuff.”) while the advisory services professionals mentioned a broader range of activities with less formal knowledge objects “We’ve actually got a separate advisory (resume) reference database. It’s international” or “people (in discussion forums) are sharing their experience with a certain situation.” Most participants mentioned the use of the portal tools for finding people or expertise, such as “you put in a qualification that you’re looking for and they can lead you to people who are involved in this type of activity, mostly it would related to people on senior management level, so those who are called SMEs.”
The firm is experimenting with newer approaches to IT support for KM. One participant stated “we’ve also just launched a tool a few months ago called [name] which is just like Twitter” and another suggested that “Blackberry Messenger is definitely a required competency.”
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Some problems with the use of IT for KM were also discussed. Some of this related to the ease of use of the tools (“that database is for that, but there is not effective search”). Others mentioned over-technical approaches to implementation, such as “(some) launch attempts generally tend to be disastrous because we launch some new technology on people and people tend not to like that. And we mix up the medium with the message.” Despite this, most were also quite positive that IT tools for KM were an important and successful part of the firm’s KM strategy. “I think people use them a fair amount and they’re certainly accepted. People are knowledgeable about them.”; “I feel confident that within 2 seconds I can pick up an article within any industry and bring it to my next client discussion and tell them something they wouldn’t have otherwise known.”; and “The use of our templates are much better, they’re used more often which is really good.”
Participants felt that there had been a generational shift in the use of IT for KM and that this had been positive. A senior professional saw “a push to use the portal and it has been pretty significant” and another felt “the use of this portal to try to get a better understanding of what’s going on with the firm from a broader perspective and get some of the industry insight. That use has definitely increased.” More specifically, “In those (last) 8 years we’ve seen a greater use of this templating and more acceptance of it as we shift away from a paper documented file to an electronic file.” Recently professionals saw increasing use and experimenting with new tools, as “Some of the things that are newer and a little more cutting edge,” like the use of instant messaging and Twitter-like tools. Figure H-2 summarises the findings for the Role of IT Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: Role of IT At GENFIRM2, IT is seen as a critical element of KM delivery. Indeed, for many participants, the two concepts were close to being synonymous. Effective IT applications exist for KM and are seen as useful. The firm continues to experiment with new ways to use IT in the KM area. This represents strong support for the diffusion of this theme, which is counter to the view of IT in NGKM. Figure H-2: GENFIRM2 Role of IT
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2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models
With only some 26 coded comments, this proved to be an area of very limited interest to the participants. They did not see professionals in the firm talking much about knowledge, nor did they offer many views of KM from the perspective of KM models. One professional expressed their understanding this way, “KM is about storage. So it’s about structuring information for people, it’s about storing it, it’s about making it easy and accessible, and it’s about informing people that it’s accessible.” Another gave a completely opposite view, “I think it’s very much what is in people’s heads. I mean information and perception in every different individual and how they see things.” A partner explained this divergence about views of what knowledge is, “If I walked down the hallway, the day-to-day people do not think about it.” He then added, “The people who kind of work at an industry level think about it in terms of their industry and best practice and a lot of it to do with people; a lot of KM organization is finding the right person, not just a matter of finding the right reference source.” Another view came from a KM-focused senior professional who commented that “Well people here tend to think of knowledge as a discrete document, (and) we’ve made a choice to say we’re not going to fight that, if that’s how people think of it, we’re going to start from where they are and we’re going to leverage it.”
The partner with KM responsibility believed that the use of KM models was pretty well restricted to the KM support team, “So we’re saying, yes in part that’s what knowledge is and the only issue is we need to organize it better, we need to have standards, we need to manage the usability…We also, from a Canadian KM point of view, think that knowledge is embedded in the processes and the architecture and the thoughts of the firm and the way people talk to one another.” He even suggested that other professionals switched to a more KM focused vocabulary when they talked to him, “Of course, all of my conversations are mediated by the fact that they know they’re talking about KM to the (KM person), I think they change, there’s always that affect.”
Indirectly, there was perception of the existence of a knowledge life cycle in at least some areas – usually to do with knowledge products. An audit specialist mentioned “That happens on a lot of our templates where there’s a certainly a focus to keep things up to date and make sure we’re using the right templates and templates are being updated.” The KM partner said “now that
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we’ve organized this stuff and made it easy to find, we better make sure that it stays current and upto-date, so we have a project this year to improve significantly our content management capability.”
When asked what words the firm’s staff might use when talking about knowledge, one professional suggested, “I think the key word would be ICAP (intellectual Capital). That’s definitely the short version that goes around a lot. (Also, there are) certain values I guess we share (around) collaborating, those two words get thrown around a lot.”
Figure H-3 summarises the findings for the Use of KM Models Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: Use of KM Models This was not a topic of much interest in the firm. Except within the KM team, knowledge models were not really discussed. While some evidence exists of knowledge models being used in practice within the firm's processes, this was not due to the recognition and/or implementation of specific KM models. Overall, this provided little support for the diffusion of the Theme or for NGKM. Figure H-3: GENFIRM2 Use of KM Models
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge
With 86 coded comments, discussion on the activities and processes for the creation, sharing and use of knowledge was widespread. Formal and informal processes for the creation and sharing of knowledge are widespread throughout the firm at all levels. Many of these processes revolve around on knowledge tools available from the portal.
Knowledge repositories exist in many areas and are widely used; however "like any Knowledge Management repository they’re only useful in so far as people update it and manage it. I think that some work communities are very successful in that because the groups that managed (them are) more diligent than others.”
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The firm has a strong focus on sharing and collaboration, with a senior professional describing this as “…multifaceted. You got both time and energy. So there’s the strong emphasis on coaching, we want to make sure that we’re investing in our people. And then there’s also your taking the time when someone asks you ‘do you have a business case on this issue from your experiences’ that you take the time then to ‘say yea, I’d be happy to have the conversation and/or share what you’re able to share, documents maybe, that will help them.” Regular meetings arranged, both face-to-face and electronic. These can be industry or practice specific, they can include training events or be for client teams. “A lot of knowledge exchange takes place during learning and education events because you’ll get a whole bunch of people together in the same room...and then there are some practice meetings.” Sometimes, the portal is used to share the content of these sessions, “recently, along with the attendance, they started a section on the portal where you can get the topics that were discussed and are presented at the meeting (along with) PowerPoint presentations and documents.”
Some participants mentioned efforts to capture knowledge at the end of projects and elsewhere, such as “documenting what we did so other people can learn from that and say oh hey we’ve already done this work before, we should talk to those guys” and “I think when it happens outside of the engagement you just might be working on an approach on a new thing or whatever that’s a bit more fuzzy.” Sometimes, this might be done by “go(ing) to your local KM practice person and you’d say go do whatever needs to be done with it.” Several mentions were made of the importance of having a local KM specialist as part of the practice office. For example, “if I’m looking for that information I go to the local KM manager and ask her to help me.” Another application of this approach was a technique that required senior experts to carry out a form of debriefing, for example “(We had) a sort of peer sales expert person…who went and talked to this proposal team to ask ‘what did you learn’, and she came back with some quite interesting learning and actually wrote it down.”
Approaches to repositories do vary between practices. “Things are little more standardized in the audit side”… “We have all of our methodologies posted. We have tools, and this is all really adhered to where we started to see, it’s been a combination of regulatory compliance type of things. You find the template you get a bit of a better product and efficiency. So combine those two.”
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In the advisory services area, there are processes to make sure that sales support and project staffing information are available, “there’s a huge focus on that. We’ve actually got a separate advisory reference database. It’s international and you can look up anybody in say here’s your resume and then it actually now tells you when it was last updated, you can attach multiple versions.” One senior professional described recent efforts to provide more detail in this area as a “huge survey to sort of say ‘I have this level of experience between none to I’ve been doing this again for 20 years’.”
This difference between the practices was more distinct when discussing innovation. “There is that difference by line of service, so if you put them on a sort of continuum, the audit people are really not interested in innovating at all, in fact they’re deathly (afraid of) innovation and they’re much more worried about ‘how do I make sure that I’ve covered off all the rules that I need to cover off and follow them appropriately or interpreted appropriately’,” while “the tax people, they’re probably at the other end of this spectrum… the half life of a new tax solution is something like six months.” Indeed, for one partner, “the thought leadership really takes place in the marketing context…the firm certainly wants to be known as a thought leader…just recently for example, the firm did a set of videos in the [practice] area, talking about the latest industry service issues.”
Despite the firm’s significant efforts to build directories and establish communities, the personal element was still mentioned by most participants. A junior professional pointed out in describing how they might find specific information, that “I would probably go to the couple of people I know…because it’s easier than to spend half an hour or an hour on the computer and not being able to find what you’re looking for.” A partner also pointed out that, while peoplefinder databases were available and being used by staff, “It’s just not getting used that much, because the more senior people do it intuitively” and because “in our organization, a successful person has connections and knows how this place works.”
A number of process related problems were identified. Barriers to capturing knowledge were discussed, “some people don’t do this. And again, there are a number of reasons why they don’t do this other than they just don’t want to, (perhaps) they don’t have time, it’s not necessary, they don’t ever think about it, it’s so confidential that you can’t even share….” One partner
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commented, “we talk about debriefs and stuff like that until we’re blue in the face to get that kind of stuff. And it’s just in the rush of meeting deadlines and getting statements and stuff out you know it doesn’t matter if there is a step to say ‘have you had the debrief?’”
A partner was concerned about some definitional challenges, “consider the fact that we separate KM from learning and education which I think is illogical.” This time factor was also mentioned in the context of push/pull strategies “(an)other problem we have in spades is that we tend to broadcast stuff. And 10% of the people need it but 90% of the people receive it and then it is lost in the woods for the 10% that actually need it” and “the trouble with our portal is it’s not really filterable by the user, so once again, it’s there but people don’t go to it because it’s so difficult to find stuff…So I’m trying to shift our strategy from a push to a pull.”
Some participants did mention some generational changes, describing the need for additional approaches to KM as the business evolved beyond audit, where "the Knowledge Management survey structure is very straightforward” to a wider range of professional services where “knowledge sharing is (more) important to the firm and I’d say that the area where we’re trying to make the most inroads is making knowledge sharing little more accessible at all levels.” A senior professional recognised that “absolutely, (there has been) renewed focus I would say. I think that traditionally there was very little thought given (to KM).” Figure H-4 summarises the findings for the KM Processes Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: KM Processes KM-related processes are widespread across the firm all levels, with many of these related to the creation and use of directories and repositories. In general these were seen as effective, with a key element being the presence of a KM support specialist within the individual practice areas. Significant differences existed between the audit and advisory services areas, reflecting the different nature of their practices.Overall, this indicated strong support for the diffusion of this Theme and some level of support for NGKM. Figure H-4: GENFIRM2 KM Processes
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2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management
With just 27 codable comments, this Theme did not occur frequently in interviews. Given the views expressed in section 2.3, that knowledge was not a subject frequently discussed within the firm, this might not be too surprising. Indeed, most direct discussion on this topic was made by the KM partner, who commented “we are stewards of the content, on behalf of the firm as a whole, our job is to help the firm as a whole, get the maximum benefit from the content as it exists.” However, there were some insights provided, typically indirectly, when discussing other matters. This most frequently occurred when discussing validation issues, with comments like “Some people do provide feedback (on database content)” and “(in some of the communities) people can edit the posts and theoretically refine the answer” and “when it comes to the engagements, control there is much stricter.” In the audit area, “There is a compliance coordinator in [location] and there is one at [location]...We try to make it uniform, we try to all agree.”
Figure H-5 summarises the findings for the Complexity of Knowledge Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: Complexity of Knowledge This was not a topic of interest to the participants, except for the KM partner. Some of the behaviours related to the validation of knowledge and existence of knowledge life cycles indicated some support for the diffusion of the Theme, but overall, not at a very significant level and not for NGKM.
Figure H-5: GENFIRM2 Complexity of Knowledge
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge
With 75 codable comments along with seven related comments in the DD section, this was a much-discussed topic.
The sharing of knowledge at the national and international level was mentioned with both benefits and constraints. “Our KM people meet with their national global counterparts to say ‘we’ve got these new pieces in have you heard it’” and “while we’re all independently owned and
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operated, so there’s some of those legal separations but I think from being able to tap resources and stuff there’s a network and email lists where you can say ‘we’ve got this question on this new initiative and if there’s anyone that has expertise from all around the world can weigh in on it’.” Innovative ideas, in particular, were often seen as originating at the international level, where “bigger innovation in terms of really changing the way we work, that I would say actually is a bit more of a global initiative. It’s usually one country around the firm will have a good idea.” One participant described being invited to take part in a four-month global exchange experiment, where professionals from across the world gathered in the same place to successfully share and develop new ideas to be used across the world.
Much of the knowledge work takes place at the group level – industry, practice or client project. Typically, but not always, this would have a geographic focus. A partner described “setting up in every office in Canada what we call a knowledge champion, at the manager level and they hold monthly meetings and say ‘has there been anything great come up’; they will share it nationally and then we’ll put in one of these best practice things.”
This focus on the local team included reference to knowledge specialists “I view them as part of our team. So they know all the research people because we have a dedicated research group that also can pull that information.”
In addition, there was a strong emphasis on personal and informal contacts and activities, such as “So I think it’s just the matter of talking to the right person.” Individuals were also seen as holding on to useful knowledge, even if they do not share it immediately “Now to make people to upload their documents or make them to use their time on putting in their documents on specifying what the document is about, etc. that requires resources, that requires some policies, procedures, that requires people’s time. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. But it’s not that I don’t want to share it. I don’t want to lose something that I consider potentially useful, so… I saved them as a kind of repository of my own.” While all the participants mentioned the usefulness of the various directories, networks were seen as a more personal thing “The networks, to my mind, work on a who knows what, who knows whom basis. The longer you’ve been the firm, clearly the better developed your networks are.” and “I think a lot of people tap into the broader networks
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through their partner…. What’s different about partners is that they’d get together, they’ve been around quite a long time, typically, they get together at a cross-line of service level.” The partner responsible for KM described a need to focus more on these interpersonal relationships, “I’m really interested right now in how is that a firm can accelerate ad hoc, you know personal networking and what are the mechanisms that a firm could use to improve that and then measure success of it.” A consultant described the firm as “a collection of networks. There are some practices that are shared….in an organization like ours there are opportunities to tap into stuff around the globe and we do have a lot of sharing.”
A consultant who transferred in from an IT consulting firm contrasted his experiences. “Coming over here, what really impressed me was that everyone would take an hour out of their day to say have you heard about this let me sit down and talk to you about it, here’s how we’re going to do it, here’s how we can find that information, here’s the other three people you should talk to. And so very quickly you build those informal networks.”
As the last quote indicated, there is a culture of knowledge sharing across the firm, however the seniority of the person making the request could have influence, “if you get any call from any partner from another territory that you’ve never heard of before, you will try to call them back because we are all partners and share a common goal. I think if another partner in another country were to get an email or an approach by a manager or senior associate, I think they may just not get around to it.”
As has been suggested in earlier discussion, the firm has established a variety of communities who share knowledge on a more or less formal basis. Professionals can be members of multiple communities, with the senior professional describing his membership as “So we have two hats we can work. Our primary hat, if you will, and our secondary hat. My primary hat now is services consisting of [group]. So there’s both the industry and competency and it could be an either or depending on what your background is.” These groups could be either geographic and industry national. “Our [industry]practice is primarily based in Toronto… whereas I (also) sit on in the IT call as well and that call is very national.” Typically, such groups
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are “usually focused on thought leadership and usually involves clients too. The reason we meet is around getting our clients educated and making contacts to win business.”
An example of a more informal network was described in relationship to some international new accounting standards where, “what we started doing with that is holding like book club sessions every month or two. People will just get together and just share their experience of here’s what’s been happening with my clients and the issues I’ve been coming across.” Figure H-6 summarises the findings for the Personal & Social Management Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: Personal & Social Management The firm has made significant effort at all levels to create and support communities. The combination of international and local activities demonstrated strong support from the need to share knowledge demonstrating strong diffusion of the Theme, with a recognition, that networks were heavily based on personal relationships. Comments also provided some support of NGKM. Figure H-6: GENFIRM2 Personal & Social Management
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management
With 39 codable comments, discussion around IP focused mainly on IP protection and rewards.
The firm does sell some intellectual property but only in unusual situations, where a specific client had an unusual need (for example, providing certain audit guidelines help to the Canadian Federal government). Otherwise, the firm is fairly protective about its core tools, with a partner suggesting that access to key methodologies was controlled. “We restrict it, you wouldn’t get your computer out of the firm with it on it. We do a lot of interactions with other firms, they sign releases. We’ll give them a lock-down machine a read-only version of a lot of stuff. We’re very fierce on that.” In contrast, a senior professional thought that “there is definitely a confidentiality agreement that we sign. I think at the end from an audit perspective the kind of
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templates and things are not so proprietary that we’re overly fussed if they take it away” except “When you get into someone’s tax and advisory solutions that’s a little more specialized and they’re a little more, they take it a little more seriously in terms of being able to take that stuff with you when you go.” While exit interviews take place, the focus “tends to be on almost exclusively on an HR perspective. Did you have good time while you were here? Is there something we can learn about what we’re doing? Did you hate your boss? Are you going somewhere because they’re paying a lot more money?”
There was limited recognition of specific rewards for creating or sharing knowledge. A professional, in discussing annual reviews and career planning, commented that with regard to knowledge, “you take a look at what they expect under ‘people’, there may be two or three pages of bullets and a few of them of course would be related to KM. Mostly I guess ii is sharing KM, sharing high level achievement, etc. It’s not a priority and it’s up to you which of these bullets you choose and it’s up to you and up to your manager and coach to make sure that your goals are in accordance w/ company needs. Basically, I’m not planning to choose any of these KM related goals for my next year and I’m very confident that I will not be forced to put them there.” In describing the same system, and other professional was more positive. “It’s part of our balanced score. One of our focuses being able to demonstrate that you’ve contributed things to our you know various Knowledge Management repositories, as well as basically sharing and collaborating and part of that is informal or formal knowledge training, coaching and mentoring.” Indeed another professional felt that any reward for KM related activity would be fairly informal and if “somebody has put a good check mark for that against your name, then it can help you with promotion, or bonus or something like that.” A partner suggested that career-related terminology would not mention creating or sharing knowledge and would more likely be discussed in terms of skills and experience, for example “you are good at something and will be described in terms of working in practices or industries like this guy knows mining or this guy knows something.”
None of the participants thought that being good at creating and sharing knowledge would be a major factor in rewards and promotion, rather, “I think its thresholding. I think if you have enough utilization the other factors become more important.” A senior consultant described this as “they have like spot programs to recognize contributions and knowledge sharing but it’s really a
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small dollar amount. You know, at the end of the day it may factor in but, if you look at the people who get promoted around here some of them are great at sharing knowledge, others are not. So it’s kind of nice to have but not essential.”
The KM partner summarised this challenge as, “I think the short answer is, it’s not recognized and it’s not really rewarded. I think you could argue that, in order to be a thought leader for example, you have to spend a fair amount of time reading and thinking and having conversations so that you could generate new thoughts, then you need to spend some time thinking about how to write down or otherwise communicate to other people. And in both those instances, you would typically be discouraged from doing those things because they take away from your available hours.” A recently introduced scheme allows individual professionals to both gain and award points to one another. The scheme is described as “We have a formal sort of people reward, we have a point system if you will. So you can award people points which you can then use to buy gifts certificates. So think of it like air-miles.” and “you’re expected to give points. You’re not supposed to be Scrooge and hold onto them.” One interesting comment from an auditor was that certification to demonstrate having certain knowledge was essential to some parts of the business, “One of the impacts of being a regulated profession, there are requirements for continued professional development. And you’ll hear people talking about I have to do that course in order to maintain my credential and that is based on knowing stuff.” Figure H-7 summarises the findings for the Intellectual Property Theme for GENFIRM2.
GENFIRM2: Intellectual Property IP was, to a limited degree, seen as something that needed to be protected, particularly in the audit area. While professionals felt that some recognition was given to knowledge creation and sharing as part of performance review, this was not as a significant element contributing to promotion. Thus, only limited support was available for the diffusion of this Theme or for NGKM. Figure H-7: GENFIRM2 Intellectual Property
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APPENDIX I ITFIRM CASE ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX I – ITFIRM CASE ANALYSIS ITFIRM 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM
ITFIRM1 is a large international firm offering services in: IT and process outsourcing; systems and business process solutions; systems integration; and consulting. It has nearly 30,000 professionals worldwide in some 30 countries. It is a public company, with the vast majority of employees holding stock in the company. Service delivery is managed mainly at the business unit level, with most staff working in their local geography. However, all business units follow a number of standard frameworks for doing business and the firm is a widespread adopter of well-recognized standards in the industry, including the Capability Maturity Model and ISO certifications. Professionals from the Canadian business unit participated in this study. Six individuals were interviewed within the firm: Two partners Three senior professionals One junior professional
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES
Table I-1 shows an occurrence chart, demonstrating the number of codable responses that were identified for each of the analysis codes, a total of 471 across the six interviews.
2.1
Strategic Focus
All the participants identified some form of KM Strategy.
ITFIRM’s overall strategies are quite public, shared with both employees and shareholders. Indeed, many of the core strategic documents are available on the corporate website. Major objectives set across the organization and performance measures are established to track performance. While one partner stated that “we are basically a knowledge business,” in the firm’s strategic documents, mention is made of “innovation and expertise,” however terms such as knowledge or Knowledge Management are not seen. Strategies for knowledge and
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for Knowledge Management were intertwined, until recently, mainly “managed at the business level” (partner). This is now changing with corporate level initiatives, largely under the leadership of the chief technology officer. This view of a significant change in the firm’s approach to Knowledge Management was articulated by most participants, often with reference to IT platforms and tools to support knowledge sharing. Two senior consultants, with significant experience with the firm highlighted the change “if you’d asked the question three years ago, the answer would have been different” and “in my time here, there’s been a night and day change in appreciation of the value of knowledge, and a resulting increase and allocation of resources to this area, be they financial or human.” This was also seen as a big change by a partner, comparing this to an earlier effort “to put in place knowledge sharing…years ago and honestly with very limited success.”
Table I-1: ITFIRM Code Summary Chart
A major part of the firm’s strategic approach is the corporate-wide use of standard frameworks. For example a partner described the need to “help the business units increase their revenue and lower costs” by making sure that it would be much easier to “share the
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information, share the successes, and also try to reuse and avoid duplication.” A senior professional, with sales responsibility, noted that “just purely from a KM perspective, I would say, (this happens) traditionally at the business unit level, and increasingly resources are being placed to expand that and improve it.”
A partner suggested that “a large proportion of the innovation is done through acquisition. So we acquire innovative solutions and innovative techniques,” while also describing a formal process for prioritizing and investing in software related intellectual property. Internal development of IC is “typically done at the business unit level” where “we get approval to go away and work on (something) for three weeks and we’ll put this into our local repository” (senior professional). However, another professional also described a “growing awareness in the last few years to disseminate knowledge and share best practices and collaborate more” across the global firm.
Specific centres exist for knowledge development and capture. A junior professional mentioned both an “info centre which is on the marketing side of things” which “pulls some of their information…engagement descriptions as well as … success stories… to go into our repository” as well as “centres of excellence” working in such topic areas as security and SAP implementation, as well as for specific industries, such as Telecom. Similarily, a partner described a “documentation centre” where end-of-project write-ups are assembled and saw this as a key place to “put any type of request into that group” to connect the requester to specific knowledge or knowledge experts.
The firm’s portal on the Internet is an example of the corporate level strategy for knowledge sharing, with its role being described clearly in the corporate strategy. In this context, the balance between corporate and business unit was well described by a partner as “the responsibility to fit the content will remain at the BU level because the content is there (but) at the corporate level, we are putting some technologies in place to facilitate (sharing) and making sure that it’s easier for the members find their information.”
Figure I-1 summarises the findings for the Strategy Theme for ITFIRM.
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ITFIRM: Strategic Focus While the firm’s strategies and the views of its professionals provide only some direct support for a strategic view of KM, it does demonstrate diffusion of the Theme and some elements of NGKM. While outside of the KM specialists, an explicit KM strategy was not very visible, the firm’s approaches do suggest a very direct focus on knowledge and innovation, though often not described as such. Figure I-1: ITFIRM Strategic Focus
2.2
The Role of IT
Participants had significant contributions to make regarding the role of IT within Knowledge Management, with 83 codable comments. Discussion and inspection identified seven sets of tools: A number of communication tools, the most important of which is a firm-wide mail system and some recently introduced community discussion boards or collaboration spaces. The use of conference calls and other structured meeting approaches at the senior management level to review business performance and specific major proposals and projects. A firm-wide portal, accessible by all staff, including access to sales proposals and qualifications, technical literature, client information and methodologies and announcements and bulletin boards. Business unit specific portals, each with their own structure. A firm-wide customer search feature, equivalent to an internal “Google” capability. Specific repositories of technical knowledge at both the firm-wide and business unit level that include:
The firm’s methodologies and frameworks. Specific major technologies (e.g. SAP. Oracle). Repositories of source code.
Sales support tools, both firm-wide and within business units, including:
Project references and proposals. Staff skills and availability. Bid repositories for specific active bids.
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Until relatively recently, these tools operated almost completely at the business unit level. Within the last three years, or so, a corporate wide initiative led by the chief technology officer, has introduced new tools available to everyone in the firm. Participants close to the chief technology officer saw this work as being directly related to corporate strategies (“if you ask the CTO his answer would be yes. He would say that has building the tools and they will use it and that's his strategy,”“his (the CTO’s) organization has been the one that's been slowly over time rolling out these Knowledge Management tools”), others seemed less aware of this, although recognizing that “The tools themselves have been rolling out really in the past couple of years.”
As might be expected in a firm whose services focus on information technology, IT has an important place in discussions about knowledge use and knowledge sharing. Until the most current initiatives, the emphasis has been on building repositories and providing basic communication tools, such as email.
As has been discussed earlier, under the CTO’s leadership, the last few years have seen a significant change and wider use of IT in Knowledge Management. The most significant change being the move toward corporate provided, firm-wide tools and, most recently, the provision of tools to support community knowledge sharing. One partner described this as a “build it and they will come strategy.”
The move towards community knowledge sharing reflects a change in the firm’s approach. Until recently, the firm’s approach was one of experts and specialists capturing knowledge and placing it in a repository, so that the wider community could then retrieve it as needed. In part, this was a recognition that “in the past where we tried to force-fit into this very structured document tool in what was more of a light weight collaborative need. And people would stop putting the documents in because it would too hard to put them in,” while “the most successful thing we’ve done thus far is to seed the areas that allow the community forums and practices (to operate)” (senior professional). Several participants commented on the useful combination of the tools for community sharing and the firm-wide “Google” search capability, a junior professional describing the process as “we have the specialist interest groups (where) we’ve customized a tool that used to just be basically distribution lists and it would just go
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out. What we ended up doing is taking the distribution lists and then moving them into also into forum style… so you would have a threaded discussion.” A senior professional said that “what we’ve done and continue to do is create the collaboration spaces that allow people to break out of their silos, if I can call it that, and dialogue more in the social networking space.”
Participants frequently described successful use of the tools, particularly structured knowledge such as that present in methodologies and frameworks. A junior professional commented that the methodologies were “probably the item that has always been most up-to-date within the portal” but also that knowledge sharing existed “right down to code level snippets where people have worked on specific things and found them to be useful and wanted to share them with other people.”
Pre-sales bid teams and project teams, on a day-to-day basis, used working repositories specific to their projects, ranging from “really large scale document management systems to file servers even at the most basic level” (Junior professional).
Frequently, participants described corporate approaches to knowledge capture and knowledge sharing where “experts” act as screens and filters into knowledge repositories, particularly important structured knowledge tools, such as methodologies and qualifications (e.g. “the initiative was started that we need to capture, not only the pure IP, but also the collateral material that you know in a more formal way” and “if you call the assignment centre, they will have access to the resume, to the abstract of your profile but also to the database of the projects”).
Some participants mention specifically the development of “a (corporate-wide) repository for pure IP.” A senior professional described this as a “global asset repository, of which there is anything from methodologies in there to source code snippets, the fully functional frameworks.”
In contrast, some business units have developed more decentralized approaches. One senior professional described a business unit initiative “to get access to thousands of IT books online and learning modules” and another mentioned “an ‘ask the leader?’, question-response for executive interchange.” Another commented that while no firm-wide expert directory existed
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“we do have a corporate phone directory which includes who they report to and who reports to them, and what their role is and all their phone numbers. And for the local one in our business unit, it includes the resume.”
Figure I-2 summarises the findings for the Role of IT Theme for ITFIRM.
ITFIRM: Role of IT IT is a key component of the firm’s KM strategy. With global and business unit processes and systems, the firm has been successful in a number of areas and its strategic plan is to do more in this area. Thus, ITFIRM’ demonstrates strong diffusion of the use of IT in KM and is not supportive of a NGKM view.
Figure I-2: ITFIRM Role of IT
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models
With only some 38 coded comments, knowledge models were a subject of limited interest to participants.
From the partners’ perspective, ITFIRM’s consultants did not talk about knowledge. Rather they would say “I need to know about this client, I need to know about this technology” or “they would talking intellectual property and that would mean to them the software itself, and maybe some experience on how to use the software.” One partner commented “I have never heard words around Knowledge Management used to describe that process. It has been as a direct result of needing to address a business need, there’s never been a broader discussion about what’s the best way to capture this knowledge it’s just been sort of pushed towards solve that particular problem.” The main exceptions to this were those professionals who were involved directly in the roll out of some of the KM tools, who could discuss what one described as “more of an academic speak vs. the day-to-day type of interaction that most people talk about.” Another partner said of Knowledge Management, “the closest things we have is this key frameworks which have the effect of
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embedding within them…the learned wisdom based on our collective experience as an organization and that’s the closest thing that we have (to talking about KM).”
A partner further commented that “innovation was talked about in the organization even less than the word knowledge” and added that ITFIRM’s overall strategy was to buy innovative ideas rather than develop them internally. In addition, intellectual property was more likely to be incrementally developed, while actually developing for the delivery of new products and services to clients. This normally happens at a business unit level, where “the intellectual property (development) process is managed by the teams that are doing software development, of which there are a hundred plus teams across the company. The knowledge that those teams have is embedded in the software, so it’s not like they’ve got a repository of knowledge or that they think about the software as a knowledge repository.”
A junior professional expressed this as “we’re technical people, when we look at a problem set, we generally tend to look at it from a technical standpoint and from a tool” and “To me it always tends to be more of a technical kind of sphere of things that the discussion seems to go on.” For others, when discussions start about some of the more conceptual aspects of Knowledge Management and classification, “all of a sudden, it becomes a document management/configuration management discussion.” Given that the vast majority of the professionals in the firm understand IT concepts and theories, such as those found in database management, they would be familiar with some Knowledge Management concepts -– as an example, one senior professional commented “you know we’re trying to get that taxonomy right because you have to live with your taxonomy for a long time” and if “I went up to somebody and said, I just did an interview on KM, a lot of people would look at me with a blank stare and say I have no idea what you’re talking about, but they do know about information management and collaboration. So that’s probably the terminology that they would use.” There was a recognition that knowledge, however described, has a life cycle, with comments such as “four years ago this was cutting edge, now it is no longer. Why do we have this in the repository, it’s been surpassed or something else has taken its place.” In addition the challenge of capturing tacit knowledge was described as “I also have seen other people
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say…where someone is a great resource, but…they either aren’t writers or can’t find the time to actually do that brain dump to put whatever they do know into an area where they can (share it).”
Figure I-3 summarises the findings for the Usefulness of KM Models Theme for ITFIRM
ITFIRM: Usefulness of KM Models The use of KM models was not very visible in the firm’s activities. As IT professionals, those KM concepts that were most often mentioned were those closer to IT concepts (e.g. taxonomy, repository. lifecycle, tacit/explicit conversion). Thus, the firm’s practices are not very supportive of the diffusion of this Theme nor of NGKM.
Figure I-3: ITFIRM Usefulness of KM Models
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge
With 104 coded comments, this was the most frequently discussed topic in the interviews.
According to several partners’ comments, key knowledge processes are defined within the firm’s methodologies: “So we have a client partnership management framework, we have a employee partnership management framework and we have a shareholder partnership framework”; “we have a number of frameworks which encapsulates the knowledge of how we do things”; and “Best practices and the right way to do things get embedded in the processes [and methodologies].” A partner described this as “There is a formal process for prioritizing and investing in software related intellectual property, that process has been established for about five years or so now in the [policy].”
Processes to create new intellectual capital exist “typically at the business unit level where we get approval to go away and work on this for three weeks and we’ll put this into our local repository.” However, some initiatives do take place at the corporate level where “So creation is driven by 2
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thrusts. We may actually seed stuff…(or)…it’s a BU generated item where (corporate) broadcast it… from the enterprise portal.”
Existing knowledge is captured and shared through both formal and informal processes. One professional described three categories of knowledge sharing, “the required (where) that information is kind of tracked and kept right. The second one really is more ad hoc, because of the fact that somebody has gone away somewhere and wanted to share that back with everyone And in the third realm I guess it’s more along the lines of people are doing it as part of their (job), what they do day in and day out.” Given the nature of much of the work done by the firm, particularly in the area of systems development, project related knowledge is captured at each stage of the project execution process, covering both project management and systems content – “that’s kind of the work product of doing things day-in and day-out.”
When professionals wish to access knowledge, they follow a number of routes. A partner suggested that, “when the consultant is looking for something, he will start by calling or going directly to the documentation centre and you will do a query and try to see if there is something.” Also, for a junior professional “(much) of the time it would start at the info centre level” although “people now have gotten used to trying to find things by themselves as fast as possible (and) are not as happy to have to wait for 48 hours for a response for a query.” More informal processes are also important, “I keep going back to where I find the community forums, our SIGs (Special Interest Groups, where) someone can tap me to answer or to address …questions.”
The various corporate centres are seen as an important part of knowledge sharing processes. In addition to the more traditional information and documentation centres and resourcing/staffing centres, the firm now has “centres of excellence, (where) we decided to put in place a formal qualification process…(where) you will have to meet certain criteria.” As an example, “if you are working on an SAP project, you are facing a real challenge, you will have to call the SAP centre of excellence and part of their objective or mandate will be to help to resolve (your challenge).” This general focus on going through knowledge centres was discussed frequently and clearly influences decisions on tools chosen and how they are implemented. For example, rather than using expert directories “we go to HR, because HR know the resource managers who know all
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the people, they also have all their resumes and they’ve staffed them many times before.”This formal route is supplemented by informal networks and contacts and use of the Special Interest Groups.
Building and using and knowledge bases to support the sales process is seen as a key initiative. Professionals are expected to maintain updated resumes and project description “One of the obligations… is one month after a [project ends], he has to update or upgrade his resume. And at the end of the mandate or a little bit before, depending on the duration, you will have to write a project description” and if “you call the [staffing] centre, they will have access to both, to the resume, to the abstract of your profile but also to the database of [projects].”
Access using IT tools was seen as very important and “having to take into account the fact that a lot of people are offsite or they’re working at unconventional times or tele-working.” Repositories exist both as things that can be searched (either by the individual professional or through one of the centres) and as embedded elements of processes. Professionals can be “members” of repositories and be notified when new material is added of relevance to their interests. A senior consultant commented, “repositories are important, what we want to do is to share knowledge at the working level.” Repositories “are organized by (such groupings as) web technologies, virtualized technologies, IBM technologies, all those things. In the practices, there might things like an SOA practice, a business processing engineering practice, enterprise architecture practice, and an industry is like health and telecomm.” Further, these repositories are separated between methodology, client-specific and more general, and each has different levels of control and access.
Management and quality assurance processes exist to ensure that projects are being handled appropriately and to assess levels of risk and exposure. These processes are intended both to provide decision-making and awareness forums to share key information about major projects at business unit and across the firm as a whole. For example at the business unit level “each month…we have to complete what we call the health check. And basically what the health check is, is seven or eight indicators (about the) client relationship and project.” At the corporate level, as a partner described “once a week they have a (conference) call with the
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country leader and some business leaders” and “also on the quarterly basis there is what we call a global operation meeting” where very similar discussion takes place. At the project level’ “there is a very formal manage risk assessment process around all new contracts. That knowledge is gathered centrally and it is used in senior management reporting…apart from that one there’s local processes.”
As discussed earlier in this section, ITFIRM’s approach to innovation is strongly tied in to acquisition strategies. This can lead not only to the acquisition of new businesses but also, due to the nature of outsourcing, in “each of those contracts with an individual customer, generally (we) would have inherited the people from that team, they will have become our employees,” thus bringing in new concepts and ideas that might be used across the firm. Innovation tends to come from the business units, each taking leadership in different areas. For example “[Region] has always been a driver for the corporation… we are leaders in the [industry]…but you know increasingly, it’s more competitive and we need to make sure that we’re capturing all the innovation that may be happening elsewhere.” However, in general, incremental innovation was seen as “just a maturity process…so I think it’s just an evolutionary process.” Explicit investment in new knowledge and innovation is likely to be based around major products and services. For example, “We have IP teams and we have a framework to manage that. And the IP team has the mandate of the investment program to make that we will invest in the evolution of our solution or IP; they are managing both. And they also (oversee) what we call the catalogue, the ITFIRM IT end solutions.”
There was some sense of generational change in knowledge-related processes, again, these often heard in conjunction with discussions on IT tools, such as a partner’s comments that “on the IT side specifically there is definitely a sense of evolving the product, and therefore the knowledge the product encapsulates is definitely subject to some sort of revolution” and “that however is an evolution in the last two to three years.” Training was also seen as an important element of knowledge transfer at a number of levels for both new and more senior employees.
A number of problems were identified with current knowledge processes, mainly related to finding the right knowledge at the right time and addressing the two most important
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processes -- selling work and delivering projects. “We kind of have islands of information, especially with ITFIRM’s decentralized nature with every BU being basically almost an island unto itself… So sometimes people don’t know whereto go and don’t know where to start” and “there’s very few incentives within ITFIRM to do that sort of thing because of the geographic nature of the business.” Respondents also mentioned the problem of identifying an expert but finding that he is not available, for example, “you know have expertise in SAP, but you know all of them could be on billable contracts and have no time to actually go and do something new. There’s still no correlation in terms of availability.”
Also, because of ITFIRM’s focus on IT products and services, knowledge processes most often address product and service related knowledge, with one partner commenting “We have a problem…we have no mechanism to prioritize the creation and management of non-software related IT.” Also, since much of the knowledge is software-related, there is very limited opportunity for individual employees to make suggestions to improve business practices, “there’s actually no process other than on the software side for anybody to even put forth their suggestion.”
Figure I-4 summarises the findings for the KM Processes Theme for ITFIRM.
ITFIRM: KM Processes KM-related processes exist at all levels in the firm, from global activities through business units to local units. The firm’s foundational frameworks reflect a form of knowledge process. While the emphasis on KM process is supportive of the theme, this is mostly in terms of existing knowledge, often technology related, with new knowledge or innovation often coming through acquisition or from client work, this is more limited support for NGKM. Figure I-4: ITFIRM KM Processes
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2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management
With just 25 codable comments this theme did not occur frequently in interviews and, where it did, it usually came up indirectly in discussing other matters. This is similar to the situation discussed above in relation to the use of KM models.
The importance of abstraction was discussed, particularly with relationship to ITFIRM’s methodologies and frameworks. A partner discussed their importance to the firm “The closest things we have are the key frameworks which have the effect of embedding within them…the learned wisdom based on our collective experience as an organization.” Another partner, in describing the importance of the firm’s frameworks, demonstrated that these address many of the expected knowledge activities of the firm’s professionals. A junior professional reinforced the expectation of abstraction at different levels in the firm’s knowledge base as an issue of “granularity…you have more of the finer grain types of stuff as opposed to the more course grain stuff that you get at the higher level.” Further, this was often seen as the need to prepare summaries or abstracts, often with associated commentary -- “When you post it, you have like an abstract. And people often put in the abstract, ‘you know this is really good stuff’.”
Some comments were made about the importance of context, usually with relationship to client work, a junior professional noted this as “everything is done based on whether or not it’s project level” as well as discussing cross business units and internationally “Maybe you know an expert in Paris will not use the same word to describe than the one in Montreal and the same in English for (perhaps) New York, Toronto, Sydney, or India.”
There was some recognition that validation of knowledge claims was important, the junior professional describing the ability in some areas for “everyone to comment on that and anyone has the opportunity to flag anything or to make changes,” with a partner describing this as “we need to do some data cleansing or harmonization before (using knowledge).” A senior professional identified some divisions within the firm as to the usefulness of such comments “other people say, I saw something that’s in the repository, you need to take it out. And my answer is why? And they’re like, I don’t like the viewpoint. So, for a lot of our repositories you know if someone puts in a
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viewpoint and it’s their viewpoint, whereas, some people in the firm will say well that’s not what we want people to be thinking and the answer is but there is no right way to think about that subject.”
There was little explicit discussion about the different types of knowledge that exist with the firm, except that a senior professional involved in the roll out of the knowledge tools did identify “the three types of knowledge. There’s the IP knowledge and there’s the just generic white paper and other knowledge and then there is like news item type announcement type knowledge.” He suggested methodologies and snippets of software code as examples of IP knowledge, a paper he had written on service oriented architecture as an example of the second and an example of the third being something he prepares for a special interest group, “So once a week I’ll go in and read the hundred or so news items or sometimes…and it takes me about an hour. And I pick out the 5 to 10 that I think are most useful and then I can post those.”
Figure I-5 summarises the findings for the Complexity of Knowledge Theme for ITFIRM.
ITFIRM: Complexity of Knowledge While some of the firm’s practices recognise a few of the elements of knowledge complexity, this is just not a topic of interest to the firm’s professionals, not even those involved in KM delivery. There is very little support for the diffusion of the Theme or for NGKM.
Figure I-5: ITFIRM Complexity of Knowledge
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge
With 96 codable comments this was, along with knowledge processes, the most discussed topic.
As has already been discussed, the firm’s commitment to overall methodologies and frameworks as expressed at the policy level all the way from the corporate board and through the individual units indicates a strong commitment to facilitate the knowledge
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sharing in the operation of the business and servicing clients. A partner described how “the need for the frameworks become apparent and then the frameworks become the mechanism by which (you get) the key knowledge that you need to execute, so those are social, those get promulgated early on in to the management team (and beyond).”
Within the corporate methodologies and frameworks, most of the policies and structures designed to support knowledge sharing operate at the business unit and practice level. A partner describes the differences this way, “the responsibility to fit the content will remain at the BU level because the content is there and at the corporate level, we are putting some technologies in place to facilitate that and making sure that it’s easier for the members find their information.” At the practice level “teams under the direction of local management on whatever project their working on will be, will use whatever (knowledge) tools and processes they feel appropriate based on their own experiences and training that they have received. So you’ll find huge variation.”
Other than the centralized capture and distribution of knowledge through corporate and business unit level methodologies, frameworks and repositories, the most likely method of knowledge sharing would be within the special interest groups, to which various specialists belong, “for instance, we have one on technical architecture that [several hundred] of our more senior architects across the firm belong to, and so, you can send a notice to all of them saying, hey listen, I’m trying to do something like this, has anyone done this before?” Further, much knowledge sharing “tends to be focused around the project because we’re an opportunity and a project delivery based company…Indeed a number of BUs would have a local chapter of some (specialized topic).”
Key comments about the importance of SIGs and related activities included: “You know what we have is not formal focus groups, but on a monthly basis, what we have in place is breakfast with members, but this is more a sample you know and have the chance to propose and to suggest a modification, improvement, how to fix problem, all kinds of that. (Partner) “If you want to do one you just phone up the person that runs them, and they’ll automatically set it up and send out to invite everybody. And then you just have to show up and give your slides and they’ve got that meeting maker all setup for the remote site and everything like that.” (Senior Professional)
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In [Region], they actually created a [location] Java users group, so which is open to everybody, so every quarter or six months they actually run the get you know 200 people from various firms that go to it and they pull in speakers from the Java world and what not…(but) there is not real hard governance on some of this stuff.” (Senior Professional) “Sometimes people come out and ask a question and then they say oh no I don’t have anything on record but later on someone will come back out of the woodwork and say oh yes, we did a small project. So this is where the SIGs and that whole ability to ask people questions really comes in handy.” (Senior Professional) A relatively new capability was the potential to set up new communities so when “people come to us and say I’d like to have a global community of interest related to the [subject]. So then we’ll say, OK, who have you talked to, have you talked to any other business units, is it just your business unit? And based on that answer, we will do one of two things. We typically will fire up a global one, but we put the caveat if that, if no one participates within a certain amount of time, then we potentially will push it back to the local (level).” (Note: this was the one area where specific metrics and gathered to knowledge use were mentioned, “we actually produce metrics on usage. So and the metrics are anything from having more people join this group this month, to the number of message posts to a SIG.”)
SIGs share electronic imaging spaces and, depending on the group, may also have either face-to-face or electronic meetings. As an example “the [Region] SAP practice on a quarterly basis will have a meeting all together. But it will not be enterprise wide. Maybe there will be ability to attend face-to-face or via the web.” Even more informally, for “local type chapters, the discussions are once a quarter they all have pizza and beer or something to that effect and have a little session for two hours.” Professionals might become members of several SIGs as they develop in their career.
Despite the focus on corporate and business unit level capture and sharing of information there is also some recognition of the importance of the individual in the firm’s knowledge base. This is recognized in the creation of special interest and other expert groups, as well as in concerns expressed about the large scale of the firm, for example, “due to the global geographical space of people, I think from a KM/social networking viewpoint, somehow I think the firm needs a breakthrough at the faceless entity. I mean you know partly because email and/or
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voicemail or whatever the mechanism, I think people pay more attention to if they have actually connect to a face.” A senior professional expressed the need for this as “now that we’re so widely dispersed among so many geographic business units, the value that comes from offering something centrally, is much greater. You know, we’re collaborating with Europe, and we’re collaborating with Australia. You know, we’re now so global as a company, that the value in doing that has become so obvious, there’s very little effort, there’s a huge amount of benefit.”
There is also a culture of knowledge sharing, and not just with fellow professionals, “You will share basically knowledge with other clients, you will share experts with other clients, you will share technologies with other clients.” (partner) ITFIRM is strongly committed to develop a culture of “synergy and teamwork” and during projects, teams will meet to share knowledge and these meetings “not only include subject matter experts, but also less experienced members, who gain knowledge from their colleagues and are therefore able to more rapidly hone their own expertise,” and because of the long-term nature of the projects, professionals may lose contact with those not in the project team. “And it’s your understanding and your commitment to the people in a team, that often motivates you to package up the information for others to share right. I’m on this team, they’ve shared stuff with me, I’ll share stuff with them. So it is kind of a very psychological or philosophical thing to get that right.” Across most participants, a concern was often expressed that the contribution of individuals was not always recognised in the way that it should be. That, at the working level “A guy can be creating something awesome that would be stuck in the corner because he’s worrying about doing his day-to-day stuff, and not necessarily having the thought to say I should put this out there for people to use” or “you’ll sometimes see them at the coffee machine or in the kitchen and you say ‘hey how come you didn’t answer?’ and he’s all like “I didn’t have time or I thought someone else was going to do it.” Even though the firm has comprehensive methodologies, a junior professional fell that he “literally had to do the interpersonal type of communications with people, like I’m going to go and invite X for coffee and get some background on what is going on here.”
Figure I-6 summarises the findings for the Personal & Social Knowldge Theme for ITFIRM.
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ITFIRM: Personal & Social Knowledge The recognition of the importance of the social and personal element of knowledge sharing is a relatively recent phenomenon in the firm and does represent diffusion of the Theme. Significant recent efforts have been made to establish effective communities -- both physical and virtual -- and to encourage professionals to participate. It is also evident that this was still intended to be focussed on the more senior professionals and technical experts in the firm and that many of the more junior or less-skilled technicians would not be expected to participate. Thus, some limited and recent support for NGKM is present. Figure I-6: ITFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management
ITFIRM does sell intellectual property, often at a very large scale, but normally bundled in with other services. A typical example would be the implementation of an enterprise solution such as SAP, where the firm sells the software (licenced from SAP), the implementation services and, perhaps, the outsourced services to operate it. It has a formal framework to manage intellectual property and frequently acquires patents for some of its work. Despite this, the sale of intellectual property is not its primary business, with a senior professional describing the situation as “we’re not a product company per se, but it doesn’t mean we’re devoid of products, we do have a number of large systems that are our own products in [specific industries] where we have actual large pieces of intellectual property. But predominantly the intellectual property is not at that grandiose level.” Where new IP is developed it may be stored in corporate repositories or in practice specific areas. ITFIRM frequently does large-scale projects with governments across the world and, in many of the projects the negotiation of IP rights is a significant element within the contract. Professionals at all levels discussed the importance of managing and protecting IP, for example, “often things cross my desk in terms of patenting, how would the patents go. Definitely there’s a whole framework that people have to follow in terms of the life cycle and everything else….and I think we do a good job on that end.”
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ITFIRM clearly defines what it considers to be confidential information -- including client materials as well as their own methodologies, frameworks and software. Use and protection of this intellectual property, through patent, trademark and copyright and is clearly laid out in employee and client agreements. A junior professional recognized that “yes, we are doing a lot in terms of protecting our IP in terms of licenses.” However, a partner commented that these policies were less well handled in “non-software” areas.
Contributions to the development of intellectual property are recognized, for both individuals and teams, with “one incentive program where we have an innovation program where people who’ve created assets are being incented to check them in with the possibility of winning some type of monetary reward.” As an further example of this “there are one or two competitions for things like code reuse…and one or two others…and some of the cash rewards from them are [$X,000]…sponsored by corporate but there’s like one or two a year. And any local business unit may choose to reward an individual for publishing a white paper or something like that.” The firm also rewards employees who “help to hire somebody, you will receive [$X,000]. And if you identify an opportunity and we are closing you’re also receiving something.”
Recognition during the annual review process does also happen though it is less prominent. The junior professional felt “everyone takes these things very seriously when it comes to their annual review” however a partner felt that while “there is something about how you contribute to the development of ITFIRM, they are not using the word knowledge or stuff like that.” They evaluated on demonstrated knowledge and experience in such areas as “customer knowledge, which includes industry knowledge financial, technical.”
Figure I-7 summarises the findings for the Intellectual Property Theme for ITFIRM.
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ITFIRM: Intellectual Property The firm recognises that the development and use of IP is key to support its service delivery. IP is protected and professionals are rewarded, sometimes with significant awards, for major contributions to the firm’s IP. On the other hand, less formal contributions to IP development is not a significant part of performance review and promotion. This is supportive of the IC/IP Theme in general, and to some degree, of NGKM. Figure I-7: ITFIRM Intellectual Property
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APPENDIX J LAWFIRM CASE ANALYSIS
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APPENDIX J – LAWFIRM CASE ANALYSIS LAWFIRM 1.
OVERVIEW OF THE FIRM
LAWFIRM is one of the largest Canadian law firms offering a broad range of legal services, with a strong presence in the fields of: business law; intellectual property; government regulation; and civil and commercial litigation. In addition to these functional services, it also has a strong focus in a number of industry sectors, including energy, financial services, mining and information technology.
One of the country’s longest established firms, it has a history of mergers with predecessor firms, with one taking place quite recently, and it now has offices in major cities across Canada and some presence internationally. Recognized as a market and industry leader within the profession in Canada, it has almost 1,000 professionals worldwide, with most located within Canada.
Staff from both the National office and the Toronto office firm participated in this study. Seven individuals were interviewed within the firm: Two partners Two senior professionals Two junior professionals One administrator
2.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES
Table J-1 shows an occurrence chart, demonstrating the number of codable responses that were identified for each of the analysis codes, a total of 583 across the seven interviews.
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Table J-1: LAWFIRM Summary Code Chart
2.1
Strategic Focus
All the participants were able to discuss, to some degree, the firm’s strategic approach to the use of knowledge and in Knowledge Management. Some 53 comments, provided their perspective on changes that have taken place in recent years and the current position.
Knowledge is seen as a key resource for the firm, with one partner seeing it primarily as a resources issue “it’s a strategic allocation of resources to that end by applying money to whatever hardware and software, back-office support we need for that.”
Discussions about the firm’s strategic approach to Knowledge Management focused around two very significant, and possibly linked, events. The first was a major merger of two large firms to create the current firm. The second was the presence just before the last merger, for about five years, of a specific national role and function within the organisation dedicated to Knowledge Management where “we had our KM council…we spoke of the KM. strategy.”
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This approach was abandoned during the firm’s recent merger. During this period one manager described the focus as “So a lot of (the) strategy for the KM and the communication element was collecting information, expertise, databases, CRM systems… (with)… limited focus on agreements, database; collaborative workspace there.”
Descriptions of this earlier Knowledge Management structure were varied in their assessments of its function and success. One partner felt that the reduced focus on KM was strongly related to the need to address other priorities during the merger saying “these KM initiatives that were being undertaken at that time got jettisoned, as we tried to struggle with other issues; the prioritization being, getting 4 or 5 different firms to have uniform business plans and goals.” A senior professional expressed the challenge as “(the person who) had the KM role here, was trying to do was more of the broader, information type, KM. I think they were trying to create accessible things like databanks, and legal research, expertise databases. But I think they just found the elephant impossible to move” and “I have a tough time discerning what was or was not accomplished while he was here. I mean they have an Intranet, they have a portal, all of that must have been in someway related to what they were doing.”
Participants generally felt that the expected challenges of the merger had now being handled, with a partner commenting “I think we’ve solidified and we’re one firm and all the hiccups and bumps in the road are behind us.” As a result, a new approach to KM was emerging.
The current formal organizational structure for Knowledge Management has two elements. The first is a traditional library and information centre that provides support to all professionals. As a partner described it “after we removed KM as a specific group within the firm, both library systems and IT remained and picked up several of the responsibilities that the KM people had.” The second is a relatively new and highly focused group that is responsible for the development of powerful precedents for use across the firm supporting key areas of practice. A member of this group described its role as “What (the firm has) done is decided to go for the end game, right away. And what you’d end up is a pure product, which is infinitely more powerful.” For a partner, this was, to a degree, a catch-up strategy “we’re late into the game of people creating precedents,” while another partner saw the potential value as “I can acquire
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greater amounts of specialized knowledge by tapping into, not just on the precedence side…being able to consult with an expert within the firm who’s created a document addressing that specific need, allows me to quickly show that this is not on the commodity side, this is high-value added because I’m able to show that I have that knowledge.” This need for advanced knowledge products was seen as an important response to market pressures, “because clients are driving a wedge between commodity legal services and high value-added legal services and knowledge and KM and IC play strong roles on both sides of the line.”
While a number of comments were made that were generational in nature, these tended to be very much related to the outcomes of the merger and the continuing and growing need to be cost-effective. A partner described this transition as “We are now returning to looking at how do we become more cost effective in delivery and those quality products or services. So KM is rising within our firm.” He added “It is definitely part of a strategic plan but it has been to this point in time has been very difficult to implement.”
Support for KM varied across the firm by location, with a partner describing this as “We have much more of a system whereby the offices have very individual voices…we had a large number of partners who were not philosophically there and are not philosophically there now today.” A senior professional saw the challenge to be “if you’re trying to mount a strategy of information sharing and knowledge sharing right across and organization, when each constituent group can say I don’t really want or I don’t see the point in it, it starts to fall apart.” A partner described the challenge, “We have a number of tensions within the firm as to those who feel that investment in KM is a waste of money and others who think we have to do it to be more efficient, more effective, deliver our service to clients in a more cost effective manner and quality control and all of the good things that are suppose to come out of KM.”
While the firm does not measure the returns for its KM effort, this was seen by a senior professional as likely to change, “KM in this kind of organization whereby the ultimate goal is the generation of revenue and it’s done in such a way that it’s very clear on how its done the …and the whole issue on the ROI on KM becomes paramount and even the creation of these model agreements
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and documents, the question becomes It’s great reusable work product, but how much does it cost, I mean, can we bill out this document?”
The change in KM was also seen as generational, with a number of participants suggesting s the nature of legal work was changing. A partner described the challenge as, “I think the whole knowledge and KM are important because clients are driving a wedge between commodity legal services and high value-added legal services and knowledge and KM and IT, I think, play strong roles on both sides of the line.
Figure J-1 summarises the findings for the Strategy Theme for LAWFIRM.
LAWFIRM: Strategic Focus The firm has seen two relatively recent efforts to take a more strategic view regarding KM. The first (a firmwide effort with a formal KM structure) was abandoned following a merger, the second is now in full implementation and is a more focused but still strategic effort. This demonstrates some support for this Theme, but little of NGKM. Figure J-1: LAWFIRM Strategic Focus
2.2
The Role of IT
Participants had the second largest number of contributions to make regarding the role of IT within Knowledge Management, with 125 codable comments. The vast majority of these (90) related to knowledge tools supported by IT.
Discussion and inspection identified several sets of tools: Basic communication tools, the most important of which is a firm-wide mail system, linked with mobile devices (“smart” phones) and some discussion folders enabled within the email system. In addition, the firm makes significant use of video and audio conferencing. Various online document creation tools including electronic access to transcription support.
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An Intranet through which professionals can access client and accounting information, which includes:
Access to the firm’s newsletters, publications, marketing material, etc.
Use of specialist software to capture and manage documents, including precedents and discovery statements. For each client matter a comprehensive set of material is available, including memos, letters, contracts, precedents, discoveries, client accounts and accounts receivable, etc.
A set of electronic databases created or (access-enabled), by the library services group in conjunction with the IT staff. These include on-request electronic distribution of journal index pages (users can then request selected articles to be sent electronically). These include access to a variety of standard legal-databases as well as firm-specific precedents.
Databases of practice, or subject-specific information and guidance, developed and posed by national practice groups. Examples would be latest news, new legal developments, articles written by the firm’s professionals
Some professional directories with resume and some areas of expertise/skills information
For key client engagements, special access-restricted extranets are set up, allowing both professional and client staff access, with materials related to a partial matter, especially in the litigation area for pre-trial activities and those related to the “discovery” process. In a significant new development, a special group is building a major precedents database, intended to provide comprehensive best practice tools All professionals have personal access to these tools. All have desktop computers, most have mobile devices, such as smart phones, and, for those who can make a business case, they can get laptop computers.
One professional described it as, “Here at LAWFIRM, IT is very prominent. Our intranet, a lot of our Systems, IT has a huge role (in Knowledge Management).” A junior saw the use of IT as strongly related to the age of the professionals involved, “Well, what we’re also seeing is a generational shift… there’s a generation coming in now, that wants to use technology…the maturation of KM is going to come because there ís a generation that feels that in their life, that can be very useful to living a life that is balanced.” Indeed this was see as a challenge that all lawyers would face in the court system over the next decade, as “judges that are going to be appointed as we move on, they’re going be younger, and readily comfortable with electronic information…But that
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is going to take probably another 10 years until we see some of the older judges leaving the profession.”
All participants had comments to make about the use of IT. They make extensive use of the online tools available. eMail is seen as the most widely-used tool both within the firm and in client communications, with one professional stating “Yea, email’s primary, I’d have to say. We send very few letters by regular post, most documents are emailed” and another describing the key communication methods as being “People would communicate either through email or meetings which may use audio or video conference for some things or face-to-face meetings.” As this last quote indicates, eMail is also the main group discussion medium as no “chatroom” type tools are available and the email system has topic-specific discussion folders. As a partner put it, when looking for help, a professional would use “either broadcast or focus email” and this would be done every day by many professionals. A senior professional described his key tool use as “I think the intranet (and email) has been used as an overarching vehicle to connect groups across the country, but it’s not a collaborative workspace as such.”
The Internet access page is customized to some degree for each professional, so, as a partner described it, “What you would see on our opening page is an index and then you’d see your personal financial information. We’re all driven by the billable hours. So it would show billable hours, gross billings, responsible cash collected, A/R, summary numbers. And then it would have a number of headings including the areas of what you click on to go into your KM for specialization and your periodicals and all of that sort of thing.”
Access to repositories is also seen as key. As a junior professional put it “(except for clientspecific confidential material) everyone’s document that they create (in electronic files is accessible to everyone in a central document management.” This access includes a wide range of information outside of the firm with professionals mentioning such sources as “externally, the information providers…like Lexis-Nexis, Thomson, etc…these vendors are trying to create their systems in such a way that the end user gets a lot of value-added information” and “You can look outside as well…Like the courts also have a website that has some forms in there, and that’s better because that would be updated (regularly).” For internal documents, “Our document management system is the
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overlaying piece wherein all written work is submitted. So memos,precedents, contracts, everything, it’s all in that system, that’s the only place where we really, encourage everyone (to support).” Professionals have seen steady growth in the online documents area, where “we have an open system which is completely searchable on a full search basis..,in various forms (it) has been available for a dozen years in a full text search (form).”
The online tools assist in finding the right expertise: “We have easy access searching which partner or professional is an expert in this. Then their full portfolios are lifted, so it’s easy to sort of easy (to find out) their ratings, how their peers within the firm rate them.”
Participants discussed both successes and problems with the use of IT in the knowledge area. The successful use of some tools varied. For example “some groups were better at using the discussion board than others. For instance, the [specialist] group was very robust in using it.” The challenge with the use of chat rooms was described in a pragmatic manner, “if you were to create a chat room, it would just lie there sallow. Lawyers have almost no time for anything that is not directly involved in billing”
The expert database also faces challenges in being updated. As a senior manager described it, “It was like pulling teeth to actually get them to enter their profile originally and I don’t think people have kept it up-to-date (as they should). As lawyers have grown in their practice, they haven’t moved themselves from being beginners to competent for instance. So, they (those looking for experts find it) easier just to send a broadcast email and then people say ‘Oh, I’m actually an expert in this’.”
The Intranet portal received significant praise with comments like “The nicest thing is, when you log in remotely to our system, you get our intranet area to work within” and “The Intranet is very unique in so far as it’s a very personalized Intranet.”
Figure J-2 summarises the findings for the Role of IT Theme for LAWFIRM.
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LAWFIRM: Role of IT IT is seen as a core element of KM in the firm. All professional and support staff make use of repositories and communications tools and the creation of new well structured precedent is key to their new KM strategy. While support the diffusion of the Theme, this is counter to the views of NGKM.
Figure J-2: LAWFIRM Role of IT
2.3
The Usefulness of KM Models
With some 49 coded comments, participants suggested that, while knowledge models were not a subject frequently discussed by lawyers, there were specific discussions about certain types of knowledge.
While there was some recognition of the field of Knowledge Management and its potential contribution to the law firm, the term “knowledge” was not a major subject for discussion within the firm. “Knowledge would be used yea. But more knowledge of the law, knowledge of the regulations -- you wouldn’t hear, they have a body of knowledge, that’s just not something that would be used but (rather) they have expertise in IP, they have expertise in contracts” and “I think in the practical law firm field, knowledge has sort of a feeling of academia, and when you’re practicing law, it’s not just part of the academia.” (junior professional) In general they use the more specific legal terms to discuss the knowledge they used, for example “within IP we have various different, there’s patents and prosecution, trademark and prosecution, packaging and labeling, entertainment, then you’ve got your litigators and litigation which is a very specific area.”
The life cycle of knowledge is considered, especially in terms of the currency of a piece of work “if I pull something from 1999, that’s not going to be good to me in 2007. I may take a look at it and see and then again go to the rule book because that changes constantly” and “what is of importance in one part of the business cycle may be totally different (than in another).”
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Some participants spoke more of skills development and practical experience with a junior speaking of “skills for a lawyer or litigator’s courtroom skills, and training on motions, and training trial advocacies” and a partner suggesting that“people might call it expertise or experience.”
One senior professional, with a background in KM commented on a major difference between North American and British lawyers in this area, suggesting that “the British more or less invented this as a pursuit and the top firms have created whole floors of what they call PSLs or Professional Support Lawyers, who spend their careers doing nothing but generating documents to be used by everybody else. And it’s not so much KM at that point as knowledge creation.”
The most frequently referenced type of knowledge was that of precedents – a legal principle, usually created by a court decision, which provides an example or authority for judges deciding similar issues later. The preparation and updating of precedents to be used and reused was seen as a key knowledge activity. Typical comments in this area from junior professionals were “my boss has said I like this one and I want you to put that in my precedent file, we’ll need some of this language in the future,” “You know lawyers are wordy individuals and they look for more concise ways of saying things, ways that make their intent clearer” (junior); “So you start from zero and probably by about 2nd or 3rd year, just as a matter of working in the firm, you start to gain skills because they send you courses or they send you to conduct (specific research or discovery) and have to look things up and learn things.”
A KM-expert senior professional described his role in building a more advanced set of precedents as a major investment for the firm, who described the building of more robust precedents as “We gather together all sorts of examples; (existing) precedents if you like and whittle them down, figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and we draft them all, and we draft the annotations and we run it by other people and get their comments, and what emerges out of that is a document meant to used and reused in to the indefinite future.” His objective was to provide over 100 such precedents over the first year of the project to be held “in a new infrastructure and designed in a whole way.”
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Little mention was made of links between KM and innovation. One senior did talk about innovation in terms of client service, “I think we talk about it in terms of innovative solutions for our clients. Not necessarily innovative solutions internally…It could be that they are looking for an innovative solution that will really cut the cost of the work you’re going to do for them. And you’re willing to find the innovation solution in the hope that other work will come your way from that client.”
Figure J-3 summarises the findings for the Usefulness of KM Models Theme for LAWFIRM.
LAWFIRM: Usefulness of KM Models This was not a significant item for discussion in the firm, except by the KM specialists. Specific legal terminology for knowledge objects, such as “precedents” was typically how such items would be addressed and the development and tracking of such material, including recognition of its relative currency was widely evident. This does not provide strong support for this Theme or for NGKM. Figure J-3: LAWFIRM Usefulness of KM Models
2.4
Processes for the Use of Existing Knowledge and the Creation of New Knowledge
With 67 coded comments, this was the third most frequently discussed topic in the interviews.
According to several participants, processes exist to both capture and share knowledge but their use across the firm and between practices is quite varied. Much is captured simply by using the document management system and keyword search. A junior professional described how “I always save everything on the system because I may need it again, or somebody may come and ask me (for it)” and that the document would be stored in the firm’ s document management system (DMS) not on his own computer, thus “everybody can see it so we can share it.” In general, the decisions to make a specific commitment to knowledge capture are ad hoc, with a junior professional saying “there are moments when they sort of stop and they have
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their meetings and they discuss and they say ok, this person is an expert in the field but we need to capture information in place where it’s accessible after that person decides to move on.” The importance of the DMS is well summarised by a senior professional, “Our document management system is the overlaying piece wherein all written work is submitted. So memos, precedents, contracts, everything, it’s all in that system, that’s the only place where we really, well we encourage everyone (to contribute).”
In contrast, the new precedent-creating project has a more formal process, led by a small precedents team, described as “We’re here to create models, so say we need a model shared purchase agreement, we gather together all sorts of examples; precedents if you like, and filter them down, figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and we draft them all, and we draft the annotations and we run it by other people and get their comments, and what emerges out of that is a document meant to used and reused in to the indefinite future. And then the role becomes keeping it healthy through care and feeding.” Another key to making this work is to give billing credit to those experts who are asked to assist in this task– “they’ve created a docket code for accountable hours to give them equivalent to billable credit to for work on this stuff. It’s a big step; many firms have not been willing to take that step.” As the new precedents are created, they can be annotated with guidance and experience in their use but these annotations are screened by the precedents team, before they are posted
Knowledge transfer, especially to junior staff, was often described in a person-to-person or apprentice mode, with comments like “When a person is first hired, they have an obvious training to go through that’s run and it is extensive and I would say it’s one of the best,” “they are mentored by the senior professionals, they are drawn into working on files with them. And so when a discovery examination comes, the junior would fit in, they take notes, they watch, they observe, and they see how it is done. And this is done over years and years and years” and “They do mock trials, mock examinations, those kinds of things.” Junior staff are mentored where someone “oversees you and makes sure during the first couple years of your practice, that you’re getting exposed to a variety of things, so if you choose what area you would like to go into, you usually don’t know, when you’re first starting out. Their role is more limited as time goes on.”
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Key to these knowledge transfer processes are formal and less formal gatherings, such as lunch-and-learn sessions and regular practice meetings where “they would share information about legal development, business development initiatives. They may share info about specific developments in the law, they may have guest speaker to speak about another thing that’s going on in the firm.”
The varied success of the firm’s prior approaches to KM were summed up by a senior professional as, “So KM can be a morass into which you lose your prestige, you lose your stretch as a lawyer, you’re giving things you don’t want to do, the core task is billing” and “There’s a tension between how we are earning our living, which is billing by the hour, and (the challenge of) becoming more efficient.” Another senior professional said, in a similar vein, “like any professional services firm, we need to generate revenue. So because that’s the overarching element to it, it’s very difficult to say ‘well, we would like to work on a precedents community and it will take 5 hours a week’. They will look at those 5 hours and say, at $600 or $700 an hour, that’s worth this amount of money and it’s a loss.”
Others spoke of the high level of independence that senior lawyers have and the lack of pressure points to make successful lawyers change their behaviour, “So it (lack of focus on KM) hasn’t affected our departments that much but I know in other departments, it’s still very segregated. It’ll probably be like that until people retire and then people come in.”
Several commented on the impact of the most recent merger on the prior KM structure and projects. A senior professional described that, “when we originally had the KM program, what we did was we started segregating off pieces of information from within the system for research, for precedents. But we never really continued with that, we’re going much more along the lines of selfdiscipline.” and a partner commented, “what the firm lacks is that the enforcement, the discipline for these systems.” However others felt that the earlier effort was having limited success, with one commenting that “I think they just found the elephant impossible to move” and “these professional service firms, they’re quite fractured. We’re all lawyers but our needs (vary).”
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Another commented on a significant variation between different types of firm: “law firms, run a continuum between a place like my prior firm, which is highly regimented, hierarchical, clients are clients of the firm, everything you produce is ours, not yours, to firms where well we’re a bunch of sole practitioners under one roof…it’s my client, my document, and I’m locking it down.”
Most participants felt that things had changed over recent years with an evolution in how KM was being used. Some saw this largely as a technological change, with one long serving participant commenting “the world is changing at such a fast pace that the job changes. It’s changed from seventeen years ago when I started in this field. We didn’t do intranet searches when I started.” contrasting this with now, where “information is being exchanged and transmitted at such an alarming rate.” A partner felt that “We’re really at a cross-roads. And I think the whole knowledge and KM thing are important because clients are driving a wedge between commodity legal services and high value-added legal services and knowledge and KM and IP play strong roles on both sides of the line.”
Figure J-4 summarises the findings for the KM Processes Theme for LAWFIRM.
LAWFIRM: KM Processes Knowledge processes are important within the firm but have varied degrees of success depending on the part of the firm. The independent and individual nature of a law practice makes enforcement difficult. Despite this the firm’s current formal initiative to build powerful precedents is a key part of the firm’s KM strategy and provides quite limited support for the diffusion of the Theme or for NGKM. Figure J-4: LAWFIRM KM Processes
2.5
The Complexity of Knowledge Management
With just 25 codable comments this theme was the least frequently mentioned in interviews. Lawyers do not spend much time thinking about the nature of knowledge. In fact, “The problem with KM is the definition/the concept; there are so many. And if you put a whole bunch of people who even practice in this area, who were lawyers in a room together, I can guarantee you, they
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will give you all different answers.” One partner even felt that calling the work KM was itself a problem “We’ve had issues in the past with something being labeled as KM. And therefore, having negative connotations as to this is like soft, this is not for any particular need, so this is a waste of money. And so, we now approach KM by not calling it as such; we give it specific titles, whether it’s precedent preparation or whatever.” For the same partner, KM is “first thought of in terms of precedence” and then “being the sharing of knowledge within the minds of the lawyers here and part of the way, through professional development, by having seminars where lawyers within the firm share their knowledge with other lawyers in the firm” and finally “KM would also include, (some) sort of fee-based transmission of knowledge to clients.”
Context and levels of abstraction were of some significance. Re-useable work (for example precedents) was seen as both situation specific and as a more general tool that could be modified to meet a new need. “It’s just the way law evolves, you just always start from precedent…so even if you’re creating a new argument, you start from something someone else did and then you update it with what happened more recently” and if a precedent is stored, “it would be modified afterward, it would not be replicated in its identical form.” More generally where any document is re-used “you wouldn’t use it as a precedent without scouring it and scrubbing it to ensure that dollar amounts, party names, location, and all these indicators of what it relates to would be scrubbed from the document.”
Having a clear understanding of the origins and prior use of a piece of work is seen as being very important. For example, “They could go to a library and find precedent texts and they would have no idea whether they’re applicable to that particular transaction or not. (While) if we develop an in-house, annotated precedent, that has been peer reviewed. I know they’re starting from the right place.” This type of validation was mentioned several times as key to successful reuse of work.
The new precedents development team sees the use of metadata on the new precedents as key. “The documents will be in a special repository, accessed through a special interface, broken down by a taxonomy… and they contain instructions throughout on (for example) this optional prevision shouldn’t be used for the purchasing or only use this if the competition act applies… and that is where
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the real value of the model is. This is incredibly valuable because it allows junior lawyers to punch way above their weight.”
Several participants also differentiated between the theory and practice of law, “you start the basic training in law school, in terms of advocacies and the basic law, evidence law, and all that. And coming into the department, you just have very basic school level training and IC and in first year, you’re starting from almost zero, you just have the theoretical stuff from school.” In contrast “when you’re practicing law, it’s not just part of the academia, it’s the actual practice application of the academics” and if “you have no practical skills on…how to apply it and what you need to get out, (it) is going to be a failure.”
Figure J-5 summarises the findings for the Complexity of Knowledge Theme for LAWFIRM.
LAWFIRM: Complexity of Knowledge While some of the actual use of knowledge demonstrates some of the complexity of this Theme, this is not a topic of specific interest to lawyers. They see knowledge in its specific forms as they use it and recognise, as part of their professional practice, some of the arguments for this Theme, thus providing only limited support for this NGKM Theme.
Figure J-5: LAWFIRM Complexity of Knowledge
2.6
Personal and Social Nature of Knowledge
With 150 codable comments this was, by far, the most discussed topic.
With a few qualifications, participants felt that there was a sharing culture in the firm. A partner suggested that “our culture is a very responsive, interested, and helpful place to …invariably when people are looking for things, they’ll get more replies that they want.” uniors also felt that “yes it’s receptive (to sharing)” but that a senior staff few were less participatory, “because some lawyers are more proprietary so they secure their documents on a system so you can’t
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access them.” This latter issue occurs, at least in part, because “the reality is that even though everyone is together in the organization, they’re all actually sole practitioners.”
Much of this sharing was seen as happening at the individual or informal level, often to meet a specific need, with a senior professional mentioning “They probably are better at more of the personal communication, the one-on-one working then they are at going to the big system.”
A partner said that “I think we depend upon a lot on self initiation” and a junior explained it as “If I’m doing a proceeding that I’ve never done before, I’ll talk to people and find out who’s done a similar one and I’ll look for their name and do some keyword searching.” This type of search was described by a partner as“If you were looking for something, you would have to do a search to our docs management system to try to find something or walk down the hall and ask somebody.”
The examples given demonstrate that much of this work is done ad hoc, when people need something, rather than a part of a wider process, perhaps explaining the lack of some common sharing tools. A senior professional explained the challenge: “Yea, and if you were to create a chat room, it would just lie there sallow. Lawyers have almost no time for anything that is not directly involved in billing, almost none. It’s very hard to get them interested in promoting team spirit, culture, the common good, any of that.” Another commented “So I think the intranet has been used as an overarching vehicle to connect groups across the country, but it’s not a collaborative workspace in such.”
In discussing this focus on billing, one senior professional commented, “There’s a huge KM group here in Toronto comprised of law firms. And the lawyers who sit on them probably in a lot of cases have been practicing at one point and decided to get out of it more to get into this. The original meetings I attended were very much sessions where they were concerned about their role. They could not understand why the lawyers didn’t respect what they were doing even those these people had been revenue generators in some point in their career.”
The firm seems to be wresting, post merger, with establishing the right level of centralisation and local autonomy. One participant identified the strategic challenge as “But I think the
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thing is now clients now a days are multi-jurisdictional clients, so the need for [national groups] grows from the fact that your client are not (just) your clients, these are clients who offices in all parts of the country, and they need to be addressed as such.”
In response to this challenge, a partner described the firm’s structure as “centralized, but there is a delegation of local autonomy, so there is a national unit and each office has a management and there are issues of national concern and issues of local concerns. So its part national, part decentralized.”
A number of national, firm-wide efforts to share knowledge were identified “So we actually have a very, very large professional meeting every year with the lawyers, and all these practice groups get together” and “we are trying to move the firm more towards a practice or industry group model, away from office-centric.”
A more focused national effort was the setting up of a “staff of two lawyers to work on creating precedence in the business law area…hiring people whose job it will be to create those precedents and manage the system.”
Much of the knowledge sharing happens at the national/practice group level. A partner argued that the firm “actually has a mature CoP system, definitely; it’s national. We call them national practice groups…Then we have groups that what we call industry groups. Each of these groups would meet either on national basis or on a local basis, would have periodic regular meetings, maybe once a month or once a week. Our [specialist] group meets nationally once a week and they meet electronically on a video conferencing system.”Now those groups may also communicate by email, they would use email lists, they would also have periodic meetings.
Responsibility for developing client-facing knowledge products seems to be more practice aligned. “Our [practice leaders/marketing staff] are responsible for doing their own newsletters to their own clients and if you went on our website, you would see there are probably 20 or 30 newsletters that we publish -- some on a regular and some on an irregular basis.”
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At all levels in the firm, significant efforts are devoted to staff development – a key element of knowledge transfer. “In Toronto, we actually have a director of professional development management and he’s been running a lot of programs. Many lawyers go out to external conferences or seminars for their professional development.” Mentorship is seen as key to staff development and knowledge transfer, a junior describing the process as: “And we do have mentorship roles from the partners mentoring the professionals to senior staff mentoring junior staff.”
This apprentice role was well-described as “they (the new lawyers) spend a good portion of their first time watching, observing, taking notes, learning the techniques, sitting in a conference calls, listening, going to court, sitting with the lawyers, the senior partners, arguing, and they learn it by being mentored. So in that case, that kind of knowledge is transferred face-to-face and I’m not sure if there’s any substitute for that.”
An experienced junior described how their career advances as “I really liked this particular area and would like to do more of that. And then they will grab a take to getting work in that dept. So often where the pairing up happens is the young person decides what kind of law they want to practice in. And then after that it comes down to personality, who works well together.”Eventually, “As you get more senior, the partners will take you on client pitches so you eventually learn how to do them yourself.”
Some concerns were raised about the consistency of the mentorship program by a partner, “I don’t think that the role of a mentor and the success of the mentor/mentee relationship is uniform. In fact, it isn’t. It is all over the place.” In addition it was not clear how being a good mentor helped one’s career --- “are you worth more than me because you’re known to be a good mentor? It doesn’t really factor in that heavily. And you know (that while doing) soft stuff like that is important, is a challenge that law firms haven’t quite grasped.”
Valuable knowledge was also seen as being very personal. This was a concern: “there is a huge loss of potential creation of intellectual property from (the loss of) that individual because if that individual was stellar and a great contribution to the system or even just really great at what they did but they wanted a change and they went to another firm; you lose that.”
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Finding useful knowledge often involves personal contact, “likely the only time I’m ever going to see that information without talking to the individual is if it’s something that we’ve published or made available to the public in a newsletter or an article or something like that.” Important stuff is “in people’s minds or client files. Or they’ve written something that’s not in the client file but it hasn’t been published.”
In summary, useful knowledge is often seen as highly personal but the firm is not quite sure how to manage that knowledge or to find ways to share it. A KM-experienced senior professional commented that “(Keeping knowledge to yourself) is a false concern because no amount of KM can compensate for the human experience…sooner or later, they’re going to have involved with people who know what the heck they’re doing.”
Figure J-6 summarises the findings for the Personal & Social Knowledge Theme for LAWFIRM.
LAWFIRM: Personal & Social Knowledge There is a strong belief in the firm that knowledge sharing is a vital part of the firm’s success and, generally, a culture exists of sharing at all levels (firm. practice, individual), although pockets are present where people do not share (not is much pressure applied to them to share). The importance of the individual is widely recognised with the expectation that access was needed to the right expert for key interventions and guidance. This is good support for the diffusion of this Theme and for NGKM. Figure J-6: LAWFIRM Personal & Social Knowledge
2.7
Intellectual Asset Management
The nature of legal practice means that work on important topics, if filed, can retain its usefulness, the example of Justice X was cited, who “was a student, then a lawyer before he went to the bench. All his research work products are still sitting there -- its absolutely valuable.”
While IP is not sold directly, several professionals commented that its reuse was an important element of client service. A partner observed that “there will always be a debate on
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how you monetize or how do you get a ROI. Do you actually charge the client for using the precedent or do you somehow factor into the billing equation some other way or you just not even think about it?”
A junior professional pointed out that it was quite difficult to protect IP, especially if this involved work that becomes part of the public domain, for example, in court proceedings or in legal agreements, “law firms are different breeds than, let’s say, an engineering company that develops a process of doing something would and patent it to protect it. A law firm where it’s a precedent way of writing a certain clause or something like that, it’s not so easily (protected), once a document’s filed in the court its public knowledge… You can’t patent clauses in the language of an agreement.” Indeed lawyers frequently use material they find in other lawyers’ work, “law is actually (full of) plagiarism, people use each other’s things all the time, we use stuff from other firms all the time. No one really considers (this as) something that you can protect.”
On the other hand, sensitive client data and related IP is closely protected. Lawyers are “trained to protect information for their clients. They are very well trained to confidentiality.” Indeed improper release can be punished, “And those are sanctions. And it’s sanctioned by the court, sanctioned by the law society.” But, only some information can be protected, as even “the client specific stuff is not considered really proprietary, other than (for) the privilege issue.”
Internal working documents, especially for client matters may be well-protected, on a “need to know” basis and electronic access to files are restricted to the legal team for that client, “sometimes you’ll have a case sitting in the database that’s password-protected. So that means, only the team (mostly lawyers and law clerks, and sometimes students) has access to it.” Indeed “firms are obligated to put conflict screens around certain clients” to avoid others in the firm seeing any material related to that client or matter.
Limited effort is made to stop a lawyer taking material with them if they leave (except for client –related work), so, “You would hope, or you would try to make sure, the lawyer doesn’t take all the precedents that they’ve created with them (when they leave). But they’re not stupid people, at some point they’ve probably put it on a disk and taken it home during their career anyway.” In fact,
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even if there is an exit interview, the firm’s partners “are more worried if someone leaves the firm not (whether) the intellectual property (has) gone, they’re worried about the person taking the client.” Indeed when the client does go with the lawyer, “all the stuff that is related to the client goes with them, but that’s in the Law Society’s rules.” A senior professional provided additional perspective, “(It’s) hard to do (protect IP) because technologically, I have to give you access to it. And if you’re canny, then during your career, you’ll just salt it away, against the possibility of leaving, which is all too likely.” However, the IP is somewhat time sensitive, “last year’s model is not as valuable as the one that’s coming out next week. And they fossilize pretty quickly if they’re done right. So you can more or less, become sanguine about the idea that a guy has a 5 year old copy of your material somewhere.”
The firm seems to provide few rewards for IP creation and sharing. A junior expressed it as “You’re assessed on the hours that you billed, whether you’re a financially profitable employee” and while “they do encourage you generally to write papers, there’s not a lot of emphasis on it.” In the annual review process “the HR department solicits assessments from all the partners I work with and they’re all gathered on some computerized program, and the mentor will sit down and look through the consolidated results and look for areas of improvement.” In most cases, this was seen as focused first on billings and then “your personality, whether people enjoy working with you, whether they foresee a role for you in the department.” One exception was cited, where “the director of students and associates in the [geographic location] office, required juniors to update their files with IP they created by simply saying, ‘you need to do this, I’m coming to see you if you don’t. I’m putting it as part of your evaluation.’”
Some internal recognition is achieved when professionals are recognized in the press or have work published, done through internal newsletters and announcements. While one partner felt that “We do rely on, as part of the compensation process, a number of soft criteria. And one is involvement within the office, the other would be leadership, the other one would be expertise,” overall, participants were pretty consistent in a view that the creation and sharing of IP was not a major factor in compensation or promotion.
Figure J-7 summarises the findings for the Intellectual Property Theme for LAWFIRM.
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LAWFIRM: Intellectual Property IP is a key topic for lawyers with some quite contrasting views. On the one hand, the protection of client data is seen as a key component of legal services. On the other, the results of much of the lawyers work enters the public domain (for example, in court or in contracts). IP is not sold, but is built (e.g. precedents) and is protected to some degree. In general, professionals are not rewarded for IP development. Thus, there is quite mixed support for the diffusion of this Theme or for NGKM. Figure J-7: LAWFIRM Intellectual Property
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APPENDIX K A REVIEW OF CASE STUDIES OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS
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APPENDIX K – A REVIEW OF CASE STUDIES OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS To test the validity of the case study findings, case studies carried out by other researchers on Knowledge Management in professional services firms were reviewed. An initial literature review identified some 50 papers examining consulting firms and law firms. Of these, 23 contained sufficient detail to be assessed against the various themes covered in the research framework. The studies reviewed are presented in the accompanying tables (Table K-1 for Consulting Firms, Table K-2 for Law Firms). About half of the firms studied were large firms, often global, the remainder medium to small.
Using secondary data in this form does raise some challenges in comparing the results reported with the findings of this study. As knowledge intensive organizations, PSFs naturally exhibit a variety of behaviours related to the creation, sharing and transfer of knowledge. These activities take place whether or not the organization has an explicit strategy for Knowledge Management. Thus, in some papers, where recognition of various forms of knowledge use and transfer are identified, it is often not clear whether they do actually follow a specific strategy within the firm, or whether the comments reflect the observations of the researcher.
As might be expected, most authors discuss the importance of knowledge to the success of a PSF, with discussions of “knowledge” appearing frequently in mission and strategy statements, and some suggesting that PSFs should be seen as pioneers in KM providing models for companies in other industries to follow (Ambos and Schlegelmilch, 2009).
The studies fall into two groups. The first group, covering a period from 1999 to 2001, describe early studies of firms adopting KM. The second group, from 2005 to 2010, provide a more recent prospective.
1.
THE EARLY STUDIES
Several common themes emerge from the early studies. The major consulting firms examined had all adopted, to varying degrees, specific Knowledge Management strategies.
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In most cases, these seemed to revolve around the establishment of technology-supported activities with processes focusing on knowledge capture, storage and retrieval. In general they seem to be following codification strategies (Edgar, 1999, VonKortzfleisch and AlLaham, 2000, Dunford, 2000, Creplet et al., 2001) and to have achieved only limited success (Morris and Empson, 1998). In some cases, the studies are speculative, focusing as much on what might be done as reporting on actual activities. For example one study on knowledge transfer examined incentives and barriers to effective knowledge transfer, but did not describe the current KM strategies within the firm (Lahti and Beyerlein, 2000).
Where less formal and less structured elements of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing were discussed, these tended to focus on discussions of specific professional behaviours and expectations rather than describing such activities as being part of the firm’s explicit KM strategies. For example Werr (2000), in reviewing two consulting firms commented on “knowledge systems” that addressed methods and tools and project documentation, while also recognizing the importance of the consultant’s own experiences and tacit knowledge.
Where smaller firms were examined, a lower level of formality in KM practices was reported. For example, Morris & Empson (1998) contrasts large and small firms, finding “relatively few formal procedures to standardize and share is knowledge” (p.620). Another study of several European small to mid-size firms found a similar situation (Creplet et al., 2001).
2.
MORE RECENT STUDIES
More recent studies continue to demonstrate a belief in the strategic importance of Knowledge Management, as well as a continuing effort to make better use of supporting IT systems. While many of these systems still focus on codification and the establishment of useful databases for a wide range of users, there is increasing mention of the use of tools and procedures to improve access and communications to professionals across the firm. Reflecting changes in the available technology, new systems are often being presented
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through “portals”–a single access point to multiple tools and databases (Le-Nguyen et al., 2008). However, mixed success is still being reported (Lam, 2005, Mezher et al., 2005).
Some firms are reported as taking a broader review in their KM strategies, such as addressing people, processes and technologies (Sherif, 2006) . Concerns are also raised about the firms’ capabilities to make use of the tacit knowledge held by its professionals despite concerted efforts to capture, store and disseminate more widely key knowledge, even in cases where the firm is seen as an “exemplary” in KM practices (Donnelly, 2008).
In small to mid-size firms, KM strategy continued to be more informal, with management responsibility sometimes resting with technology leaders (Lam, 2005). Studies continue to identify challenges in successful implementation of knowledge strategies with one suggesting a divide between knowledge generalists and knowledge specialists (including librarians), and the importance of “knowledge centres” in successful KM activities in PSFs (Ambos and Schlegelmilch, 2009, Lai and Taylor, 2011, Hertlein et al., 2010)
The last study reviewed (Palte et al., 2011), from the European Business School’s KM Benchmarking Centre, provided some detailed insight into the KM strategies of three large German PSFs. This longitudinal benchmarking study covered several years of assessment, identified successful KM initiatives and a formal relationship between business and KM strategy. They also identified a link between effective KM processes and a successful KM strategy. In developing a detailed assessment framework they drew on earlier work to define an integrated KMS architecture (Riempp, 2004). Notable in both the paper and the architecture is the lack of recognition of informal, personal and social aspects of knowledge sharing.
3.
KM IN LAW FIRMS
Only a small number of relevant papers were identified in relation to case studies of KM within law firms. Gottschalk’s early work (Gottschalk, 1999, Gottschalk, 2000) provides some lessons from Norwegian firms and makes some comparisons between law firms and consulting firms. He identifies a close relationship in the firms between KM and IT (for
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example the hiring of a CIO, who would also be the CKO). In a survey of 247 Norwegian law firms and 9 consulting firms (mostly small firms), he found that, while interest in interorganisation Knowledge Management networks was quite high, very few firms seem to be involved in knowledge networks and that KM was largely IT focused, using electronic mail and internal databases. He found little difference between law firms and consulting firms except that law firms made greater use of databases.
In 2006, du Plessis and du Toit, in surveying 144 lawyers from small, medium and large firms in South Africa, suggested that many law firms have traditionally taken an ad hoc approach to KM, other than in legal research activities, largely supported by knowledge specialists. As with Gottschalk, he found a close association of KM and IT. Legal researchers and librarians were seen as a key interface here. Little evidence was found of knowledge asset management, knowledge sharing or knowledge capture and codification. They also found a high level of uncertainty in understanding the role and use of KM processes and systems.
Faulconbridge, (2007) in interviewing lawyers in 11 large transnational law firms, discussed the importance of relationship networks to successful business, supported by searching of expertise databases (all the firms surveyed had such databases to help identify individuals with specific knowledge and experience). The evolution of these networks over time was a key issue, recognizing that the “embeddedness� of these networks is affected by cultural understanding and trust. It is notable that although reference is made to knowledge production and learning, no specific KM strategies are identified or discussed in the firms studied.
Interestingly, in a more general discussion piece published in 2008, (Gottschalk and Karlsen, 2008) suggest that, given that law firms are knowledge organizations and lawyers knowledge workers, they need to address more directly KM strategies to improve their competitiveness, perhaps indicating a continued low level of commitment to formal KM with many law firms.
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Note: Key to Abbreviations used in the Table Firm Type: ACC = Accounting (Audit & Tax) ENG = Engineering Consulting Firm IT = IT Consulting Firm MC = Management Consulting PSF = Unspecified Professional Services Firm Firm Size Large = More than 2,000 staff Mid size = 200-2000 staff Small = Les than 200 staff.
Study Date
1 1998
2 1999
3 2000
4 2000
5 2000 6 2000 7 2001
Title/Authors CONSULTING FIRMS Organisation and expertise: An exploration of knowledge bases and the management of accounting and consulting firms(Morris and Empson, 1998) Knowledge management: has it changed my working life? Will it change yours? (Edgar, 1999) Structurization and Formalization of Knowledge Management in Virtual Organizations: The Case of a MediumSized Consulting Company (VonKortzfleisch and AlLaham, 2000) Key challenges in the search for the effective management of knowledge in management consulting firms (Dunford, 2000) Knowledge transfer and management consulting: A look at "The firm"(Lahti and Beyerlein, 2000) Managing Knowledge In Management Consulting (Werr, 2000) Consultants and experts in management consulting firms (Creplet et al., 2001)
Firm Type
Size & Number studied
ACC/ MC
2 Mid/ Small
MC
1 Large
MC
1 Mid
ACC/ MC Strat MC
5 Large
Explicit KM Strategy
Yes Varies
Yes
Focus but limited impact
IT important to KM
KM Models/ Complexity
KM Processes
Social & Personal Views
Codification
No
Yes inc. new Knowledge
Limited
Comments
No support for Hansen
No support for Hansen Librarian view
Codification
Codification
Networks, community
Poor KMS Overfocus on Codification
Informal networks
Limited rewards
Early KM examples
Important
Limited rewards
Focus on Knowledge transfer
Individ Experience
Methods, tools
Importance of tacit knowledge
MC
1 Large
E/T
MC
1 Large 1 Small
Codification
MC
7 Large Mid Small
KM Strategy Limited support for Hansen
Knowledge Assets/IC
Knowledge transfer
Virtual network
Role of experts
Codification
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Study Date 8 2005 9 2005
10 2006
11 2006
12 2007
13 2008
14 2008
15 2009
16 2009
17 2010
18 2011
Title/Authors Successful Knowledge Management requires a knowledge culture: a case study (Lam, 2005) Knowledge Management in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Consulting: A Case Study (Mezher et al., 2005) Adaptive processes for knowledge creation in complex systems: The case of a global IT consulting firm (Sherif and Xing, 2006) Development of a Knowledge Management initiative and system: A case study (Wong and Aspinwall, 2006) IT for KM in the management consulting industry (Kim and Trimi, 2007) The management of consultancy knowledge: an internationally comparative analysis (Donnelly, 2008) Understanding Knowledge Management Software-Organisation Misalignments from an Institutional Perspective (Le-Nguyen et al., 2008) Managing knowledge in international consulting firms (Ambos and Schlegelmilch, 2009)
Innovation in management consulting firms through informal knowledge sharing (Taminiau et al., 2009) Knowledge Centers in Professional Services Firms: Design and Empirical Evidence (Hertlein et al., 2010) Knowledge Organization in Knowledge Management Systems of Global Consulting Firms (Lai and Taylor, 2011)
Size & Number studied
Explicit KM Strategy
IT important to KM
IT
1 Small
No KM strategy
New KMS failed
ENG C
1 Large
Yes
New KMS Strong codification
Success
Use of researchers Effort needed to sustain program
Firm Type
KM Models/ Complexity
KM Processes
Social & Personal Views
Knowledge Assets/IC
Comments IT project Failure to match culture
No link to rewards
IT
1 Large
KM Strategy
Knowledge Portal
Mentions CAS
MC
1 Small
KM Strategy
Codification
Defined KM domains
MC
15 Mid/ Small
Varied
Email & Internet. Search Data mgt Collaboration
Structured KM processes
Communities meetings
Defined K assets
Time challenges
Survey No support for Hansen Coaches/ Mentors Networks Team support
Tax advisors
1 Large
Databases Problems in maintenance
IT
1 Large
Portal
K processes varied
Sophisticated IT, limited use
Processes important 3-tier is a
K sharing embedded in cultures
K sharing in appraisals, but some skepticism
K provider vs K user No support for Hansen
Methods & tools
Informal networks Knowledge sharing
Lack of reward
Focus on Innovation Time challenge
MC
6 Large
MC
23 Varied
PSFs
MC
4 Large
5 Large
KM in mission Gaps in impl
Knowledge Centres, linked with KM strategy
Knowledge Centre model Knowledge organizaton in taxonomy & systems
Lack of reward
Time challenge
Inst. Forces can affect KM tech adoption
Formal processes
Part of KM benchmarking study
Knowledge capture
Librarian view Knowledge as object
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Study Date 19 2011
Title/Authors The Effects of a KM Strategy on KM Performance in PSFs (Palte et al., 2011)
Firm Type
Size & Number studied
Explicit KM Strategy
IT important to KM
PSF
3 Large
Positive impact
Significant element
KM Models/ Complexity
KM Processes
Social & Personal Views
Knowledge Assets/IC
Comments
Very important
Not in model
Limited impalct
Detailed KMS model
Social & Personal Views
Knowledge Assets/IC
Comments
Table K-1: Case Studies in Consuting Firms
Study Date 1 1999
2 2000
3 2006
4 2006
Title/Authors LEGAL FIRMS Knowledge management in the professions: lessons learned from Norwegian law firms (Gottschalk, 1999) Knowledge Management Systems: A Comparison of Law Firms and Consulting Firms (Gottschalk, 2000) Knowledge management and legal practice (du Plessis and du Toit, 2006)
Relational networks of knowledge production in transnational law firms (Faulconbridge, 2007)
Firm Type
Size
Explicit KM Strategy
IT important to KM
LAW
1 Small
IT/KM strategy
More IT than KM
LAW
256 Mainly Small
LAW
LAW
144 Mid/Small
KM Models/ Complexity
KM Processes
Exploratory project
KM & IT closely linked
KM seen as IT systems
Strong dependence on personal network Lack of sharing
More structured K
Survey
Very little effort to protect own IC
Survey Use of para prof researchers Lack of general awareness of KM
Informal sharing Personal networks Limited openness
11 Large
Structural conditions affect K sharing
Table K-2: Case Studies in Law Firm
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