Relation between Team Knowledge Management and Creativity

There has been an intense competition in the current business scenario and the organizations need to know about how much knowledge they have about their specific domain and whether they are able to leverage their knowledge base to enjoy competitive advantage. The report takes into consideration the importance of working as a team in any organization and the significant role of knowledge management in enhancing the generation of ideas and team creativity. Different studies have revealed that team composition has links with the team creativity that can mitigate conflicts within the team. Different types of members in a team give ways to different views and opinions, each having diverse knowledge and this helps in the efficient execution of teamwork. The knowledge management of a team has enormous effects on the creativity and financial performance of organizational teams (Dong et al. 2017).

The literature review states that there has been a relation between team knowledge management and team creativity. This is moderated by some internal as sell as external factors. Some cognitive styles of problem-solving acts as a moderator to strengthen the relationship between team knowledge management and creativity. There is an involvement of information manipulation in creativity and the cognitive process is shaped for by the cognitive orientation of the components. The institutional theory states that the link between team knowledge management and creativity can be described on the basis of operational contexts (Touboulic and Walker 2015). The knowledge management of a team has effects on creativity that can be strengthened by the environmental uncertainty. The knowledge management literature can be divided into two aspects, the process approach and the content approach. The content approach keeps the focus on the characteristics and types of knowledge. Some studies have revealed that the content of knowledge gives rise to new knowledge. Team creativity acts as a mediator between team knowledge management and the financial performance of the team (Gong et al. 2013). The team leaders who are regarded as the most reliable source of information look after team creativity of a team.  

In an economy where there is too much uncertainty, the companies can sustain in the competitive advantage if they have enough knowledge about the domain in which they are operating (Epstein and Buhovac 2014). It is not just a mere resource like labor or capital but also a very significant one in enhancing their horizon. A company is having the highest quality power because of profound knowledge and proper utilization of knowledge management (Pfeffer and Sutton 2013). Knowledge can also help to become a leader in an industry. The implementation of knowledge management is having several dimensions.

Internal and External Factors Moderating the Relationship

Strategy of knowledge management is dependent on the corporate strategy of an organization (Galliers and Leidner 2014). It has the objective of managing, sharing and creation of relevant and adequate knowledge that can assist in meeting the tactical and strategic requirements.

The culture of an organization has a considerable influence on the behavior of the people, how they interact, the context of knowledge creation, the ways by which they share their knowledge and the way they provide resistance to certain changes (Fullan 2014).  

The correct processes, systems and environments that strengthen knowledge management, need to be implemented in any organization.

Knowledge management system requires experienced and competent leaders at every level of the hierarchy in an organization (Ashkenas et al. 2015). There are variations in the knowledge management related roles and responsibilities which the company may or may not have the need to implement like knowledge managers, CKO and knowledge brokers.

Technology takes into account, the systems and tools that best fit the requirements of the organization and those needs to be properly designed (Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal 2014).

The long term support of the organizations in implementing ad sustaining the initiatives that include virtually all the important functions that are costly to implement, both in terms of money and time and that does not have a remarkable return on investment (Kim et al. 2014).

Knowledge management has gained importance in the current scenario because of various reasons. Companies are forced to enter into competition on the basis of knowledge. There has been a need to replace the informal knowledge with the formal ones when there has been reduction in staffing. Knowledge management is essential as the financial models and the information technology failed to achieve any benefits for the organizations (Reich, Gemino and Sauer 2014). There are also undesired consequences of universal access to information. The companies are forced to reduce costs in front of huge competition and manpower reduction is one of the options. Thus the mobility of the work force is increased and knowledge reduces comprehensively. Knowledge management plays a vital role in this scenario.

There are various roots for the knowledge management. They include business transformations, innovation, learning organization, intellectual assets, knowledge based systems and information management.

When an organization abides by the required rules and norms and can be stated as a learning organization, then that becomes a consolidated source of knowledge management.

The intellectual assets relate to the people who have worked for a considerable period of time and gained adequate knowledge due to long years of work experience. This is generally tacit in nature.

Impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Financial Performance

The organizations should implement and use those systems that facilitate in the smooth functioning of the operational activities by proper utilization of knowledge management.

Information forms the core of knowledge management, as information is an integral part of knowledge apart from intuition and experience.

Two important methods through which knowledge is created, are creativity and innovation. Radical changes give new dimensions to the knowledge base present in the company. A small change in the perception led to new and innovative knowledge insights.

Business transformation is one of the catalysts for effective knowledge management. Organizations are able to respond successfully to the changes in the competitive market through the method of process re-engineering.

There are certain principles of knowledge management that the companies should abide by. Firstly, knowledge management is expensive, as it requires many investments. Categorization of gathered knowledge and developing infrastructures for proper distribution of knowledge requires huge money. Efficient management of knowledge requires a mixed solution of technology and human resource (Malarvizhi 2015). The workplace environment requires a system that makes a proper utilization of computers and people in complementary manner. Knowledge management is also very political and requires knowledge managers.  It is benefited from maps rather than any specific models and more from the competitive market than that of the organizational hierarchies. Knowledge management compels to improve the knowledge work processes. There is no end to a knowledge management process.

The most commonly used tools and techniques for effective knowledge management are data mining, environmental scanning, content analysis and business simulation.

Environmental scanning is the process of acquiring and usage of information about any trends, relationships and events in the external environment of the organization, the knowledge of which provides assistance to the management for the planning of the company’s course of action (Kang and Kang 2014). The external environment is scanned to understand the external forces that have considerable effect to bring about changes in the organization itself. This scanning involves both the processes of information viewing and information searching.

The second popular technique is data mining. This process helps in the discovery of actionable and relevant patters, trends and profiles by carefully analyzing the company’s data using the various pattern technologies such as machine learning, neutral networks and genetic algorithms. The tools of data mining help to predict the future trends and their behaviors, assisting businesses to take proactive and knowledge-driven decisions (Huang, Wu and Chou 2013). There is a high possibility of rapid implementation of these techniques on the software and hardware platforms to improve the information resources readily available to the company.

Roots of Knowledge Management

Simulation is another important technique which is thought of as an exact replica of some real life situations (Stevens, Lewis and Johnson 2015). This method is adopted for effective knowledge management.

Content analysis on the other hand, is basically a research tool that is used in the determination of certain concepts in the texts. To conduct a content analysis, coding is applied on any text and broken down to manageable categories on different levels like phrase, word, sentence, word sense and theme. Content analysis is not so popular for effective knowledge management.    

Knowledge management is having a lot of good outcomes that are discussed below.

Knowledge management focuses on community outcomes and also the knowledge that is needed to meet those outcomes (Geisler and Wickramasinghe 2015). It serves to improve the content and information governance.

Successful knowledge management efforts help the organizational teams to meet the business objectives. Without the implementation of knowledge management processes, the different departments need to focus on the methods of information, work processes and procedures of knowledge capture.

Apart from giving emphasis on the different technological solutions, knowledge management has also focused on improved behavioral changes in the organization. This gives a lot of opportunities to the employees in improving collaborations with others and improve interactions related to work.

The needs of a business remain the primary focus of an organization. These needs are fulfilled by knowledge management system. The goals of the organization and the users are identified during the implementation of the knowledge management system (Siemens 2014). This helps the business to identify the technology-enabled solutions that can accomplish the needs and goals rather than only allowing the determination of the outcomes.

Knowledge, whether it is implied or tactic, is enhanced among the employees in the organization due to the knowledge management system. It also helps in the generation of new ideas from the employees. Companies are better prepared to take up critical projects, departmental knowledge through explicit mediums like success stories (Davenport 2013). The shifts from implicit to explicit knowledge make proper utilization of the data resources.    

Knowledge management plays some vital roles for a team working in an organization. These roles can be knowledge manager, power users or community manager. This helps to know the roles and responsibilities of each employee.

Knowledge management system not only encourages top-down support but also makes the system work better (Holsapple 2013).

The case study describes how knowledge management helps in the generation of new ideas within a team working in an organization and assists in the generation of larger knowledge stock. From the research it has been found that knowledge management helps an organization in the competitive market to stay alive which is also described in the case study.  The research helps to know that effective knowledge management enhances the financial performance of an organization. The case study has also inferred that knowledge management system can increase the financial performance. It has also been described that knowledge management is also capable of building a good workforce.

Tools and Techniques for Effective Knowledge Management

Conclusions

The report has inferred the importance of knowledge management and the different tools and techniques used for its effective implementation. Certain principles pertaining to knowledge management has been included in the report. The organizations need to consider these principles so that knowledge can be shared effectively among the team members and new ideas can be generated that can give competitive advantage to the organization. It is concluded from the report that knowledge management is a set of organizational activities that aim to improve knowledge, organizational behaviors, practices related to knowledge and organizational performance. It has been observed that knowledge management keeps focus on knowledge processes like creation of knowledge, acquisition, refinement, transfer, sharing, storage and utilization. These processes ultimately support the various processes of the organizations like innovation, collective learning, collaborative decision-making and individual learning. The outcomes of knowledge management have been inferred as improved behaviors in the organization, improved decisions, services, processes, products and relationships.   

References 

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