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Strategies and Institutional Mechanisms for Dissemination and Utilization of Knowledge

Strategies and Institutional Mechanisms for Dissemination and Utilization of Knowledge

INTRODUCTION

Unlike capital and labour, knowledge strives to be a public good. Once knowledge is discovered and made public, there is zero marginal cost to sharing it with more users. Secondly, the creator of knowledge finds it hard to prevent others from using it. Instruments such as trade secrets protection and patents, copyright, and trademarks provide the creator with some protection.

The implication of the knowledge economy is that there is no alternative way to prosperity than to make learning and knowledge-creation of prime importance. There are different kinds of knowledge. "Tacit knowledge" is knowledge gained from experience, rather than that instilled by formal education and training. In the knowledge economy tacit knowledge is as important as formal, codified, structured and explicit knowledge.

At the level of the organisation or institutional learning must be continuous. Organisational learning is the process by which organisations acquire tacit knowledge and experience. Such knowledge is unlikely to be available in codified form, so it cannot be acquired by formal education and training. Instead it requires a continuous cycle of discovery, dissemination, emergence and utilisation of shared understandings. The right types of institutional mechanisms are necessary for this purpose. This article attempts to explain the various strategies to build the institutional mechanisms for dissemination and utilisation of knowledge.

DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

Data may be regarded as a commodity, value is added to data when they are processed into information and in turn information gains further value when it is applied in new contexts becoming transformed into enterprise specific knowledge. Knowledge is also defined as information to which experience, context, interpretation and reflection are added by individuals so that it becomes a high value form of information.

KEY WORDS

Before begin this article, it would be worthwhile that readers are refreshed briefly about frequent used terms ‘explicit knowledge' and ‘tacit knowledge' as these has become the buzzword in organizations in the last decade and therefore their correct understanding bear significance (Moolani, Mago and Umesh Chandra, 2009):

Explicit knowledge – can be formally articulated or encoded; can be more easily transferred or shared;

Tacit knowledge – knowledge-in-practice; developed from direct experience and action; highly pragmatic and situation specific; subconsciously understood and applied; difficult to articulate; usually shared through highly interactive sessions.

This knowledge would vanish from the organisation if it is not captured prior to separation of the person possessing such knowledge.

Thus the concept of knowledge goes beyond the definition of information. It consists of "information artifacts, such as documents and reports, available within the organization and in the world outside" as well as "the experience and understanding of the people in the organization". The former is termed as explicit knowledge while the latter is regarded as tacit knowledge.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

Definitions about knowledge are many and varied. Foskett (1982) defines knowledge by making a distinction between knowledge and information. He says "knowledge is what I know, information is what we know and knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed".

Davenport and Prusak (1998) define knowledge as, "a fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, values and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information." Notice that there are two parts to this definition:

• First, there is content: "a fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, values and expert insight." This includes a number of things that we have within us, such as experiences, beliefs, values, how we feel, motivation, and information.
• The second part defines the function or purpose of knowledge, "that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information."

KNOWLEDGE ATTRIBUTES

1.      Knowledge exists everywhere. Even in an organization where strong KM practices don't exist, there are islands of knowledge. Knowledge about products, customers, markets, and operational issues, the existence is haphazard or unorganized.

2.      Knowledge is perishable. What knowledge is used today would become outdated tomorrow. Sustained efforts need to be put to imbibe new information and unlearn old and outdated knowledge.

3.      Knowledge is an asset. The brands, patents, special skills, and customer relations of an organization are treated as assets. Treating knowledge as a tangible asset allows for a value to be imputed to knowledge repositories. For example companies can publish a set of Intellectual Capital Account annually so that investors and other stakeholders can value the business for its intellectual worth.

4.      Use of knowledge does not consume it.

5.      Transfer of knowledge does not result in losing it.

6.      Knowledge is abundant, but the ability to use it is scarce.

7.      Much of the organization's knowledge goes out of the organization.

8.      Knowledge can be tacit or explicit. Tacit knowledge is subconsciously understood and applied, difficult to articulate, developed from direct experience and action, and usually shared through highly interactive conversation, story-telling and shared experience. Explicit knowledge, in contrast, can be more precisely and formally articulated. Therefore, although more abstract, it can be more easily codified, documented, transferred or shared. Explicit knowledge is playing an increasingly large role in organizations, and it is considered by some to be the most important factor of production in the knowledge economy. Imagine an organization without procedure manuals, product literature, or computer software.

9.      Knowledge may be of several types, each of which may be made explicit. Knowledge about something is called declarative knowledge. A shared, explicit understanding of concepts, categories, and descriptors lays the foundation for effective communication and knowledge sharing in organizations. Knowledge of how something occurs or is performed is called procedural knowledge. Shared explicit procedural knowledge lays a foundation for efficiently coordinated action in organizations. Knowledge why something occurs is called causal knowledge. Shared explicit causal knowledge, often in the form of organizational stories, enables organizations to coordinate strategy for achieving goals or outcomes.

10.   Knowledge also may range from general to specific. General knowledge is broad, often publicly available, and independent of particular events. Specific knowledge, in contrast, is context-specific. General knowledge, its context commonly shared, can be more easily and meaningfully codified and exchanged, especially among different knowledge or practice communities. Codifying specific knowledge so as to be meaningful across an organization requires its context to be described along with the focal knowledge. This, in turn, requires explicitly defining contextual categories and relationships that are meaningful across knowledge communities. To see how difficult (and important) this may be, ask people from different parts of your organization to define a customer, an order, or even your major lines of business, and see how much the responses vary (Melchert and Norman, 2002) .

11.   Knowledge relates to place and context. For example, your father's knowledge about farming is specific to a particular place and a particular time from say 1920 to the 1990s. Some of what he knows about farming could be adapted to other circumstances, but most of his knowledge pertains directly to paddy and cattle production in that particular place. Our knowledge and yours also is related intimately to the areas where we grew up and where we live.

12.   All information is not knowledge, and all knowledge is not valuable. The key is to find the worthwhile knowledge within a vast sea of information.

PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION AND UTILIZATION

The literature is filled with differing definitions and uses of dissemination, knowledge utilization, diffusion, and technology transfer, among other related terms. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, sometimes carefully distinguished from one another. The different uses and definitions reflect varying assumptions and interests, ranging from a limited focus on "getting the word out" to an all-encompassing focus on seeing new knowledge or products from creation all the way through implementation by intended users. Newman and Vash (1994) note, "Experience shows that possession of information does not mean it will be used". Similarly, Sechrest, Backer, and Rogers (1994) argue that "we need to distinguish between 'dissemination' and 'effective dissemination,' because the former term is often used to indicate merely the successful distribution of information". Even where use is included as a dimension of dissemination, however, the question of what is meant by use or utilization is not a settled one.

The question of use moves dissemination to a focus on implementation. Klein & Gwaltney (1991) identified four functions or types of dissemination:

• spread,which is defined as "the one-way diffusion or distribution of information,"
• choice, a process that "actively helps users seek and acquire alternative sources of information and learn about their options,"
• exchange, which "involves interactions between people and the multidirectional flow of information," and
• implementation, which "includes technical assistance, training, or interpersonal activities designed to increase the use of knowledge or R&D or to change attitudes or behavior of organizations or individuals."

Spread is described as a proactive process, in which disseminators take the initiative in distributing useful knowledge or products. Choice is described as reactive, providing information and materials as requested by potential users, and exchange and implementation are described as interactive processes (Klein & Gwaltney, 1991).

Definitions of dissemination also reflect differing assumptions and beliefs about the ways in which knowledge is used, indeed about the very nature of knowledge itself. The focus varies from perceiving dissemination and utilization as linear, mechanical processes of "transfer," in which knowledge is packaged and moved from one "place" to another, much as an appliance might be packaged and shipped, to characterizing the process as highly complex, nonlinear, interactive, and critically dependent on the beliefs, values, circumstances, and needs of intended users.

A key assumption of this approach is that knowledge is a "thing" that simply needs to find a good home… Nowhere is this more apparent than in the worthy effort to define dissemination as consisting of four activities: spread, exchange, choice, and implementation. This definition points out that the purpose of dissemination was primarily to cast knowledge out into the world of practice, under the theory that a good idea would ultimately be used. The newer approach incorporates ideas about communication as a two-way process and extends the job of dissemination to include providing support for actual changes. It nevertheless embodies the belief that knowledge comes in definable, useable units that can be arrayed in front of practitioners who will then find among them something to "solve their problem(s)."

For the purposes of this paper, the terms dissemination and knowledge utilization are used interchangeably. Both are assumed to mean not only the distribution of products or information, but also the incorporation of approaches designed to promote conceptual or instrumental use.

DIMENSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE UTILIZATION (adapted from NCDDR, 1996)

Within the varied perspectives about dissemination, authors generally consider some combination of these four major elements:

• the dissemination source, that is, the agency, organization, or individual responsible for creating the new knowledge or product, and/or for conducting dissemination activities,
• the contentor message that is disseminated, that is, the new knowledge or product itself, as well as any supporting information or materials,
• the dissemination medium, that is, the ways in which the knowledge or product is described, "packaged," and transmitted, and
• the user, or intended user, of the information or product to be disseminated.

CONTENTS TO BE DISSEMINATED

The information, material, or products to be disseminated can vary tremendously. Edwards (1991) notes that research results can include "theories, models, paradigms, postulates, generalizations, or findings… validated tests, curricula, techniques, programs, or systems," while technological advances can include "software products, devices, equipment, or machinery".

MODES OF KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION (Meera, 2009

• Organizational Website
• Annual Reports
• Newsletters
• Radio and Television
• Seminars, Conferences, and Workshops
• Government Bodies
• Field Visits by Personnel
• Commercialization of Products and Technologies

 MEDIUMS FOR DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE

Before discussing different platforms for disseminating knowledge, it helps to make a tacit distinction between what Polanyi calls tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge in detail. According to Polanyi (1967), "…tacit knowledge is what is in our heads and explicit knowledge is what we have codified".

Given that tacit knowledge is knowledge that is in our heads the easiest and the only way to disseminate this type of knowledge is through organs of the body. We can communicate it through voice. This method of communication is largely applied in schools from primary to tertiary. Besides explicit communication, a lot of information and knowledge is passed on from one person to another through gestures. Laughing is a simple sign of happiness. Shrugging your shoulders indicates that you do not know. Of unique interest to note though is that gestures are not universal, they are unique to societies. Nodding one's head means that one is in agreement with what is being said after the European fashion. The converse is true in the Asian culture. In the Asian culture when you shake you head from side to side this means concurrence with what is being said. One of the notable efforts to try to address the problem of different norms and standards on gestures is what has come to be known as the sign language which came into being as an effort to address different human beings impairments such as speech and hearing.

The second type of knowledge is explicit knowledge. This is knowledge that has been codified. How can knowledge be codified? Codification of knowledge came as a result of man's application of tacit knowledge to transform matter into various useful objects for his survival. Writing is the oldest form of codifying knowledge. Most of the world's knowledge is in written form in the form of books. With further transformation of matter through application of tacit knowledge other ways of codifying knowledge have emerged over time. We now find knowledge in mediums such as recorders, the INTERNET and others.

Of particular interest to us is knowledge that is manifest in transformed matter. A spacecraft for example, is a form of transformed matter and an interesting manifestation of knowledge. Houses, cars, guns, computers etc are other forms. Impact of disseminated knowledge can be looked at two levels. The first level is the level where tacit knowledge is codified to explicit knowledge. This in itself is the effect (impact) of knowledge. The different products that we have are an epitome of this. The second level is the usage of these manmade products to solve societal problems. This shows further impact of disseminated knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION STRATEGIES AND MECHANISMS

The commonly employed disseminated mechanism for dissemination of tacit knowledge are Communities of Practice, Chat Rooms, Online Forums, After Action Review,  Knowledge Fairs, Corporate Yellow Pages, Knowledge Networking, Video Conferencing, etc., and of explicit knowledge are Intranet, Knowledge Repositories, Best Practices Database, Lessons Learnt Database, Knowledge Maps, Data Mining, Email, Blogs, Wikis. (Ganesh, 2009)

Although there is a distinction between communication technologies (such as telephone and e-mail) and collaboration technologies (such as workflow management), it is very difficult to draw a line between the two (Rollet, 2003). Communication and collaboration are invariably intertwined, and it is quite difficult to establish where one ends and the other begins. Both types of tools have been grouped under the category of groupware or collaboration tools. Although all organizational members will make use of communication and collaboration, including project teams and work units, communities of practice will be particularly active in making use of many, if not all, of the communication and collaboration technologies described below.

(a) Groupware and Collaboration Tools

Groupware represents a class of software that helps groups of colleagues (workgroups) attached to a communication network (e.g. Local Area Networks [LANs]) to organize their activities. Typically, groupware supports the following operations:

• Scheduling meetings and allocating resources
• E-mail
• Password protection for documents
• Telephone utilities
• Electronic newsletters
• File distribution

The most commonly used communication technologies include the telephone, fax, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, chat rooms, instant messaging, phone text messaging (SMS), internet telephone (voice over IP or VOIP), e-mail, and discussion forums. Communication is said to be dyadic when it occurs between two individuals (e.g. a telephone call). Teleconferencing, on the other hand, may have more than two participants interacting with one another real time. Videoconferencing introduces a multimedia component to the communication channel as participants can not only hear (audio) but also see the other participants (audiovisual). Desktop videoconferencing is similar but does not require a dedicated videoconferencing facility. Simple and inexpensive digital video cameras can be used to transmit images. The visual component is especially useful when demonstrations are presented to all participants (Firestone, 2003).

Chat rooms are text-based but synchronous that offers participants communicating with one another in real time via a web server that provides the interaction facility. Instant messaging is also real-time communication, but in this case participants sign on to the instant messaging system and they can immediately see who else is online or "live" at that same time. Messages are exchanged through text boxes. The SMS (Short Messaging System) allows text messages to be sent via a cellular phone rather than through the internet.

Communication technologies are almost always integrated with some form of collaboration, whether it be planning for collaboration or organizing collaborative work. Collaboration technologies are often referred to as groupware or as workgroup productivity software. It is technology designed to facilitate the work of groups. This technology may be used to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, solve problems, compete, or negotiate. Although traditional technologies like the telephone qualify as groupware, the term is ordinarily used to refer to a specific class of technologies relying on modern computer networks, such as e-mail, newsgroup, videophones, or chat.

E-mail is by far the most common groupware application (besides, of course, the traditional telephone). Although the basic technology is designed to pass simple messages between two people, even relatively basic e-mail systems today typically include interesting features for forwarding messages, filing messages, creating mailing groups, and attaching files with a message. Other features that have been explored include automatic sorting and processing of messages, automatic routing, and structures communication (messages requiring certain information).

Newsgroup and mailing lists are similar in spirit to e-mail systems except that they are intended for messages among large groups of people instead of one-to-one communication. In practice, the main difference between newsgroups and mailing lists is that newsgroup shows messages to users only when they are explicitly requested (an "on-demand" service), while mailing lists deliver messages as they become available (an "interrupt-driven" interface).

Usergroups - Technical knowledge dissemination: The Internet is ubiquitous to the techie community. It is natural that they form associations in the online world, which helps them address the various issues involved in their technology domains. User-groups, communities of geeks related to issues regarding a particular technology, have become all pervasive feature on the Net.

Usergroups have various components—mailing lists, newsgroups, and Web forum and offline meetings. This helps members interact in various ways and in a manner best suited to their requirements. The best thing about usergroups is that advice is gratis and, it as a rule solves the problem posted to the group. This exemplifies the spirit of the usergroup, which is not driven by financial motivation but by the desire to share and disseminate knowledge with other members. It is almost altruistic in nature. People, whose time is money, spend an enormous amount of time in usergroups helping others and solving technical problems. A usergroup provides its members the distilled wisdom of a worldwide group of experts on any topic. The experts can cut across geographies and can provide a perspective on the technologies and issues which are highlighted.

Usergroups are excellent resources for technical help, tips and resources. They provide an excellent gateway to interact with like-minded people and technical experts—people who have spent 15-20 years using a particular product and who have unerringly spotted problems in code or the method of achieving a specific technical issue.

Workflow systems allow documents to be routed through organizations by means of a relatively fixed process. A simple example of a workflow application is an expense report in an organization: an employee enters an expense report and submits it, a copy is archived and then routed to the employee's manager for approval, the manager receives the document, electronically approves it, and sends it on, and the expense is registered to the group's account and forwarded to the accounting department for payment. Workflow systems may provide features such as routing, development of forms, and support for differing roles and privileges.

Hypertext is a system for linking text documents to each other, with the web being an obvious example. Whenever multiple people author and link documents, the system becomes group work, constantly evolving and responding to other's work. Some hypertext systems include capabilities for seeing who else has visited a certain page or link, or at least seeing how often a link has been followed, thus giving users a basic awareness of what other people are doing in the system. Page counters on the web are a crude approximation of this function. Another common multi-user feature in hypertext (that is not found on the web) is allowing any user to create links from any page, so that others can be informed when there are relevant links not known to the original author.

Group calendars allow scheduling, project management, and coordination among many people and may provide support for scheduling equipment as well. Typical feature detect when schedules conflict or find meeting times that will work for everyone. Group calendars also help to locate people. Typical concerns are privacy (users may feel that certain activities are not public matters) and completeness and accuracy (users may feel that the benefits of the calendar do not justify the time it takes to enter schedule information).

Collaborative writing systems may provide both real-time and non-real-time support. Word processors may provide asynchronous support by showing authorship and by allowing users to track changes and make annotations to documents. Authors collaborating on a document may also be given tools to help plan and coordinate the authoring process, such as methods for locking parts of the document or linking separately authored documents. Synchronous support allows authors to see each other's changes as they make them, and usually needs to provide an additional communication channel to the authors as they work (via videophones or chat systems).

Synchronous or real-time groupware is exemplified by shared workplaces, tele- or videoconferencing, and chat systems. For example, shared whiteboards allow two or more people to view and draw on a shared drawing surface even from different locations. This system can be used, for instance, during a phone call, where each person can jot down notes (e.g. a name, phone number, or map), or people can work collaboratively on a visual problem. Most shared whiteboards are designed for informal conversation, but they may also serve structured communications or more sophisticated drawing tasks, such as collaborative graphic design, publishing, or engineering applications. Shared whiteboards can indicate where each person is drawing or pointing by showing telepointers, which are color-coded or labeled to identify each person.

Video communications systems allow two-way or multiway calling with live video, providing essentially a telephone system with an additional visual component. Cost and compatibility issues limited the early use of video systems to scheduled videoconferencing meeting rooms. Video is advantageous when visual information is being discussed, but may not provide substantial benefit in most cases where conventional audio telephones are adequate. In addition to supporting conversations, video may also be used in less direct collaborative situations, such as by providing a view of activities at a remote location.

Chat systems permit many people to write messages in real time in a public space. As each person submits a message, it appears at the bottom of a scrolling screen. Chat groups are usually formed by listing chat rooms by name, location, number of people, topic of discussion, and so on.

Many systems allow for rooms with controlled access or with moderators to lead the discussion, but most of the topics of interest to researchers involve issues related to unmoderated real-time communication, including anonymity, following the stream of conversation, scalability with number of users, and abusive users.

Although chat-like systems are possible using nontext media, the text version of chat has the rather interesting aspect of having a direct transcript of the conversation, which not only has long term value, but also allows for backward reference during conversation, making it easier for people to drop into a conversation and still pick up on the ongoing discussion.

Blog, a collaborative mechanism (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media.

Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.

(b) Wikis

Wikis are web-based software that supports concepts such as open editing, which allows multiple users to create and edit content on a website. A wiki site grows and changes at the will of the participants. People can add and edit pages at will, using a Word-like screen, without knowing any programming or HTML commands. More specifically, a wiki is composed of web pages where people input information and then create hyperlinks to another page or new pages for more details about a particular topic. Anyone can edit any page and add, delete, or correct information. A search field at the bottom of the page lets you enter a key word for the information you want to find. Today, two types of wikis exist: public wikis and corporate wikis. Public wikis are developed first and are freewheeling forums with few controls. In the last year or two, corporations have been harnessing the power of wikis to provide interactive forums for tracking projects and communicating with employees over their in-house intranets.

An example of wiki is Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written, literally, by thousands of people around the world. Wikis exist for thousands of topics, and if one does not exist for your favorite subject, you can start one on it and add it to the list.

Wikis support new types of communications by combining internet applications and websites with human voices. That means people can collaborate online more easily, whether they are working together on a brief or working with a realtor online to tour office space in another city (Leuf and Cunningham, 2001)

A public wiki survives thanks to the initiative, honesty, and integrity of its users. Sites can be vandalized, derogatory remarks- called "flames"- can be posted, and misinformation can be published. However, a vandalized site can be restored, a flame can be erased, and information can be corrected by anyone who knows better. The community polices itself. Corporate wikis differ from public wikis in that they are more secure and have many more navigation, usage, and help features. Corporate wikis are used for project management and company communications as well as discussion sites and knowledge databases. For example, a wiki can be established for a particular project, with the project team given access to update the status of tasks and add related documents and spreadsheets. Its central location makes it easy to keep everyone informed and up to date regardless of their home office, location or time zone. A wiki is more reliable than continually e-mailing updates back and forth to the team members, it is faster than e-mail since updates are available instantly, and it is more efficient than e-mail since each team member does not have to maintain his or her own copies. Managers like wikis because they allow them to see what progress the team is making or what issues it is facing without getting involved or raising concern (e.g. a new way of project management reporting)

(c) Networking technologies

Networking technologies consist of intranets (intraorganizational networks), extranets (interorganzational networks), knowledge repositories, knowledge portals, and web-based shared work places. Knowledge repositories can be defined (Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998) as an online computer based storehouse of expertise, knowledge, experiences, and documentation about a particular domain of expertise. In creating a knowledge repository, knowledge is collected, summarized, and integrated across sources. Such repositories are sometimes referred to as experiences bases or corporate memories. The repository can either be filled with knowledge through passive collection – where some people in the organization are scanning communication processes to detect knowledge (van Heijst, van Der Spek and Kruizinga (1997).

 Davenport and Prusak (1998) describes three types of knowledge repositories

1. External knowledge repositories (such as competitive intelligence)
2. Structured internal knowledge repositories (such as research report and product-oriented market material).
3. Informal internal knowledge repositories (such as "lesson learned").

A knowledge repository differs from a data warehouse and an information repository primarily in the nature of the content that is stored. Knowledge content will typically consist of contextual, subjective, and fairly pragmatic content. Content in knowledge repositories tends to be unstructured. Knowledge repositories also tend to be more dynamic than other types of architectures because the knowledge content is continually updated and splintered into varying perspectives to serve a wide variety of different users. To this end, repositories typically end up being a series of linked mini-portals distributed across an organization.

 Most repositories contain the following elements (adapted from Tiwana, 2000):

1. Declaration knowledge (e.g. concepts, categories, definitions, assumptions-knowledge of what)
2. Procedural knowledge (e.g. processes, events, activities, actions, manuals-knowledge of how or know-how)
3. Casual knowledge (e.g. rationale for decisions, for rejected decisions-knowledge of why)
4. Context (e.g. circumstances of decisions, informal knowledge, what is and what is not done, accepted, etc. - knowledge of care-why.)

The knowledge repository is the one-stop-shop for all organizational users providing access to all historical, current, and projected valuable knowledge content. All users should be able to connect to and annotate content, connect to others who have come into contact with the content, as well as contribute content of their own. The interface to the repositories should be user-friendly, seamless, and transparent.

Personalization in the form of personalized news services through push technologies, in the form of mini-portals for each community of practice, and so forth will help maintain the repository in a manageable state. To this end, use of a term such as knowledge warehouse should be strongly discouraged. The knowledge repository should instead be visualized as a lens that is placed on top of the organization's data and information stores. The access and application of the content of a repository should be as directly linked to professional practice and concrete actions as possible.

The knowledge repository typically involves content management software tools such as a Lotus Notes platform and will be run as an intranet within the organization, with appropriate privacy and security measures in place.

Knowledge portals provide access to diverse enterprise content, communities, expertise, and internal and external services and information (Collins, 2003; Firestone, 2003). Portals are a means of sorting and disseminating organizational knowledge such as business processes, policies, procedures, documents, and other codified knowledge. They typically feature searching capabilities through content as well as through pull technologies (intelligent agents) may exist. Communities can be accessed via the portal for communication and collaboration purposes. There may be a number of services that users can subscribe to as well as web-based learning modules on selected topics and professional practices. The critical content will have the best practices and lessons learned that have been accumulated over the years and to which many organizational members have added value.

The purpose of a portal is to aggregate content from a variety of sources into a one-stop-shop for relevant content. Portals enable the organizations to access internal and external knowledge that can be consolidated, analyzed, and used as inputs to decision making. Ideally, portals will take into account the different needs of the users and the different sorts of knowledge work they carry out in order to provide the best fit with both content and the format in which the content is presented (the portal interface). Knowledge portals link people, processes, and valuable knowledge content and provide the organizational glue or common thread that serves to support knowledge workers. First generation portals were essentially a means of broadcasting information to all organizational members. Today, they have evolved into sophisticated shared workplaces where knowledge workers cannot only contribute content and share content but also acquire and apply valuable organizational knowledge. Knowledge portals support knowledge creation, sharing, and use by allowing a high level of bidirectional interaction with users (Alex and Byerlee, 2000).

Portals serve to promote knowledge creation by providing a common virtual space where knowledge workers can contribute their knowledge to organizational memory. Portals promote knowledge sharing by providing links to other organizational members through expertise location systems. Communities of practice will typically have a dedicated space for their members on the organizational portal and their own membership location system included in the virtual workspace. The portal organizes valuable knowledge content using taxonomies or classification schemes to store both structured and unstructured contents. Finally, portals support knowledge acquisition and application by providing access to the accumulated knowledge, know-how, experience, and expertise of all those who have worked within that organization.

KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION AND UTILIZATION STRATEGIES AND MECHANISMS

A number of technologies play an important role in how successful knowledge workers are in acquiring (i.e. understanding) and applying or utilizing (i.e. making use of) knowledge content that is made available to them by the organization. E-learning systems provide support for learning, comprehension, and better understanding of the new knowledge to be acquired. Tools such as electronic performance support systems (EPSS), expert systems, and decision support systems (DSS) help knowledge workers to better apply knowledge on the job. Adaptive technologies can be used to personalize knowledge content push or pull. Recommender systems can detect similarities or affinities between different types of users and make recommendations of additional content that others like them have found to be useful to acquire and apply. Knowledge maps and other visualization tools can help to better acquire and apply valuable knowledge, and a number of tools derived from artificial intelligence can at least partially automate processes such as text summarization, content classification and content selection.

E-learning applications started out as a computer based learning (CBT) and web based training (WBT) applications. The common feature is the online learning environment provided for learners. Courses can now be delivered via the web or the company intranet. The particular knowledge and know-how to be acquired can be scoped and delivered in a timely fashion in order to support knowledge acquisition. E-learning technologies also greatly increase the range of knowledge dissemination because knowledge that has been captured and coded or packaged as e-learning can be easily made available to all organizational members, regardless of any time or distance constrains.

Decision support systems are designed to facilitate groups in decision making. They provide tools for brainstorming, critiquing ideas, putting weights and probabilities on events and alternatives, and voting. Such systems enable presumably more rational and even-handed decisions. Primarily designed to facilitate meetings, they encourage equal participation by, for instance, providing anonymity or enforcing turn-taking.

Visualization technologies and knowledge mapping are good ways of synthesizing large amount of complex content in order to make it easier for knowledge workers to acquire and apply knowledge.

Artificial intelligence (AI) research addressed the challenges of capturing, representing, and applying knowledge long before the term knowledge management entered popular usage. AI developed automated reasoning systems that would make use of explicit knowledge representations in order to provide expert level advice, troubleshooting, and other forms of support to knowledge workers. Expert systems are decision support systems that do not execute an a priori program but instead deduce or infer a conclusion based on the inputs provided. Natural language processing also grew out of AI research. Linguistic technologies resulted in automating the parsing (breaking into subsections) and analysis of text. Common applications today are voice interfaces or natural language queries that can be typed in to search databases. Similar AI technologies can also be applied to analyze and summarize text or automatically classify content. Many of the automated reasoning capabilities studied in AI research are encapsulated in autonomous pieces of software code, called intelligent agents or software robots ("softbots"). These agents act as proxies for knowledge workers and can be tasked with information searching, retrieving, and filtering functions.

(a) Intelligent Filtering Tools

Intelligent Agents can generally be defined as software programs that assist their user and act on his or her behalf: a computer program that helps you in newsgathering, acts autonomously and on its own initiative, have intelligence and can learn, improving its performance in executing its tasks (Woolridge and Jennings, 1995). These agents are autonomous computer programs, where their environment dynamically affects their behavior and strategy for problem solving. They help users deal with information. Most agents are internet based- that is, software programs inhabiting the Net and performing their functions there.

 The following features define a true Intelligent Agent (Khoo, Tor, and Lee, 1998):

1. Autonomy: the ability to do most of their tasks without any direct assistance from an outside source, which includes human and other agents, while controlling their own actions and states.
2. Social ability: the ability to interact with, when they deem appropriate, other software agents and humans.
3. Responsiveness: the ability to respond in a timely fashion to perceived changes in the environment, including changes in the physical world, other agents, or the internet.
4. Personalizability: the ability to adapt to its user's needs, by learning from how the user reacts to the agent's performance.
5. Proactivity: the ability of an agent to take initiatives by itself, autonomously (out of a specific instrument by its users) and spontaneously, often on a periodical basis, which makes the agent a very helpful and time saving tool.
6. Adaptivity: the capacity to change and improve according to the experiences accumulated. This has to do with memory and learning: an agent learns from its user and progressively improves in performing its tasks. The most experimental bots even develop their "own" personalities and make decisions based on past experiences.
7. Cooperation: the interactivity between agent and user, which is fundamentally different from the one way working of ordinary software.

Many knowledge management applications make use of intelligent agents (e.g., see Elst, Dignum, and Abecker, 2003). This range includes personalized information management (such as filtering e-mail), electronic commerce (such as locating information for purchasing and buying), and management of complex commercial and industrial processes (such as scheduling appointments and air traffic control). These tasks/applications can generally be grouped into five categories (Khoo, Tor, and Lee, 1998):

1. Watcher agents: look for specific information.
2. Learning agents: tailor to an individual's preferences by learning from the user's past behavior.
3. Shopping agents: compare "the best price for an item".
4. Information retrieval agents: help the user to "search for information in an intelligent fashion".
5. Helper agents: perform tasks autonomously without human interaction.

 (b) Adaptive technologies

Adaptive technologies are used to better target content to a specific knowledge worker or to a specific group of knowledge workers who share common work needs.

Customization refers to the knowledge workers "manually" changing their knowledge environment- for example, selecting user preferences to change the desktop interface, specifying certain requirements in content to be provided to them (language, format), or subscribing to certain news or listserv services.

Personalization, on the other hand, refers to the automatic changing of content and interfaces based on the observed and analyzed behaviors of the intended end user. For example, many MS office applications offer the option of dynamically reordering pop-down menu based on frequency of usage (the ones used most often will be displayed on top). One way of automatically personalizing knowledge acquisition makes use of recommender systems. Recommendations regarding content that is likely to be considered useful and relevant by a given knowledge worker may be based on a user profile of that knowledge worker (e.g. with themes checked off), or the recommendation may be based on affinity groups. Affinity groups make use of similarity analysis of users in order to develop groups of individuals who appear to share the same interests. Amazon, for example, uses affinity groups when, after ordering a book online, visitors to the site are provided with information on related books that others who have bought the same book have also purchased.

Communities of practice are affinity groups to some extent, and personalization technologies are often used to target or push certain types of content that are of interest to a given community. Community profiles ca be established just as individual profiles and can be used in the same moment in order to better adapt content and interfaces to the community member

KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION INITIATIVES - SELECTED INDIAN CASE EXAMPLES

1. ISB, Hyderabad (www.isb.edu) - As part of their knowledge dissemination efforts, the school hosts high profile national and international conferences and seminars throughout the year
2. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) (www.indopia.in) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for disseminating knowledge through training programmes. The BSE will benefit from this MoU, as it will enable BSE offer a wider range of programmes and investor awareness seminars for its stakeholders. The objective of this MoU is to promote excellence in professional and legal education. Since both BSE and ICSI are leaders in their respective domains, it is only apt that they come together for exchange of resources. BSE offers exclusive training, enabling financial market participants and intermediaries to keep abreast of latest developments in a rapidly evolving economic environment. ICSI and BSE will create NextGen capital and financial market professionals and this collaboration would provide the right platform to Company Secretaries to further build their skills to meet the challenges of the globalised and transforming capital markets.
3. Government of West Bengal (www.indiainfoline.com) - The first edition of Agromax Conference in the Eastern Region, its fourth edition nationwide, saw record turnout of young, progressive farmers from West Bengal, the North East, Bihar, Orissa and Chattisgarh. These farmers are all part of the 10000+ young Indian farmers knowledge dissemination network launched last year by Aries Agro Limited along with the Confederation of Indian Industry's Young Indians. Agromax, the flagship National Agribusiness Conference focused on ‘Making Balanced Crop Nutrition a national imperative'. The conference addressed this imminent need to ensure sustained higher harvests to adequately address the pressing need to raise productivity and combat the food crisis. The unique feature of AGROMAX was that it saw participation on a common intellectual platform from top government officials, opinion leaders, thought leaders from industry and academia, research scholars, scientists, agribusiness students and farmers
4. The National Tuberculosis Institute (NTI), Bangalore (ntiindia.kar.nic.in) - The steadily growing knowledge in TB control brought with it a type of pressure that urged the NTI to find newer paths to tread than lecturing, teaching, training, conducting seminars and writing papers because every path had its own objective oriented limitations. The NTI had ambitious plans to reach out. One thing it did on priority was the expansion of library facilities. By 1970, its annual budget was doubled to one lakh rupees and its floor area more than doubled. In addition to the regular services, the library started the following activities: current awareness service, indexing service, selective dissemination of information, compilation of mailing addresses, user education programmes and systematising information to different levels for e.g., programme supervisors, state TB demonstration and training centres, health institutions, academic institutions, functioning health centres, allied teaching and research institutions. The library and dissemination services rapidly became a cynosure for all the trainees, visitors and distinguished TB workers. In fact, its services contributed to the growth of the NTI by taking cues from contemporary events elsewhere and helpful to inform others.
5. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) - Systematic Approach to Training (SAT) is recognised internationally as the best practice of training. SAT approach adopted in NPCIL has helped the organisation to achieve effectiveness in knowledge management because the knowledge dissemination through this methodology ensures that need based knowledge is imparted to the concerned employee. SAT approach identifies training needs in respect of an individual after taking into account his/her present competencies and required competencies based on his/her duty areas. This competence gap analysis provides direction for training needs. This approach has been adopted in O&M organisations and same approach is being considered for construction and HQ personnel. This training need analysis is continuous process as there would be changes in competence requirements of persons due to job rotation, up gradation, and technological up gradation/changes.(Moolani, Mago and Umesh Chandra, 2009)

 Tacit knowledge is difficult to be imparted, yet it is possible to make its' dissemination easier through effective training settings. In NPCIL Nuclear Training Centres (NTCs) are equipped with various provisions of effective training settings in this regard. These NTCs are equipped with various workshops having working models, cutaway- views of complex equipment, exploded views through drawings and charts for providing sound knowledge on foundation courses for all technical personnel and have helped in achieving of multidisciplinary knowledge and skills among technical personnel.

Earlier, Control Room engineers used to learn under guidance and close supervision of their superiors. Now such learning has become easier through Nuclear Power Plant Simulators. This facility provides structured progressive learning, under the guidance of qualified instructor, of about 5 to 7 weeks duration, covering all phases of plant operations thus making it easier to license incumbents in shorter duration for control room positions. The human error will not result into any actual incident as this is only simulation but at the same time would provide opportunity to the incumbent to learn managing of such incident.

Considering difficulties in transfer of tacit knowledge from the difficult to be located experts, computer based or web based training (CBT/WBT) packages have become powerful tools. Here using services of training expert, structured presentations on the selected topic in form of multimedia training package are developed. For explaining the operation of complex mechanism, the dynamic simulation of such mechanism through computer mimics or video clips is enforced and progressive learning concept ensures that phase wise learning takes place. Unless the incumbent knowledge is not verified through built in test mechanism, he/she would not be permitted to visit next phase of learning. The incumbent can replay the part not understood by him any number of times he desires till he has understood it. For conventional part of core competency such packages are available in the market, however for Nuclear System knowledge, in house custom built package is the only solution. KM group has started putting the efforts in this direction. As these training packages are also accessible through intranet easy availability for learning by larger work force is another advantage of this approach.

STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (KM) TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

Tools and techniques are a means and not an end in themselves. First, the objectives must be clearly identified, and then a consensus must be reached on priority application areas to be addressed. For example, an initial KM application will typically be some form of content management system on an internally managed intranet site. This is a good building block for subsequent application such as yellow pages or expertise finders and groupware tools to enable newly connected knowledge workers to continue to work together.

A number of the techniques presented here address the phenomenon of emergence that can help discover existing valuable knowledge, experts, communities of practice, and other valuable intellectual asses that exist within an organization. Once this is done, the intellectual assets can be better assessed, leveraged, disseminated and employed or utilized. The KM tools and techniques have an important enabling role in ensuring the success of KM applications (Kimiz Dalkir, 2005).

CONCLUSIONS

Major conclusions are summarized as follows:

• Dissemination is a process requiring a careful match among (a) the creation of products or knowledge, and the context of that creation, (b) the needs, contexts, prior experiences, values, and beliefs of target audiences, and (c) the content, media, formats, and language used in getting the outcomes into the hands, minds, and activities of those target audiences.
• The goal of all dissemination should be utilization. Utilization may mean different things to different members of a target audience. The critical element of utilization is that the outcome must be critically and thoroughly digested, and the individual (or organization) must fit the new information with her or his prior understandings and experience.
• One of the most effective ways to increase utilization is to involve potential users in planning and implementation of the dissemination design itself.
• Effective dissemination requires an understanding of knowledge use as a process of learning, and of change.
• Effective dissemination is critically linked to its timeliness and comprehensiveness.
• Effective dissemination of knowledge requires careful planning and effort.
• Dissemination requires ongoing support and personal intervention in order to achieve utilization.

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