Week 3: Human Resources and KM

Introduction

According to Sidney Poitier, keynote speaker at the Society for Human Resources Management Conference held in Chicago in June 2008, “Our lives must be much more and deeper than what we see on the surface. When surface appearances become all we see, then they will become all we know.”

Knowledge management (KM) deals with the information each individual carries and shares to enrich others. KM also deals with creating a communal learning and work environment in which each individual helps the other learn and prosper. The human resource department primarily works toward retaining employees, nurturing the employees’ relationships with the organization, providing corporate education, and creating a holistic environment in which employees can work and prosper. Considering this, we can safely say that the human resource department has a huge role to play in the development of KM. The question that arises is, how?

This week, you will become familiar with the role of human resource managers in implementing KM programs. You will understand the need for integrating KM and human resource management initiatives in an organization. You will also analyze different strategies that human resource managers deploy to develop KM.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Evaluate the role of motivation, leadership, and culture within a learning organization.
• Evaluate the challenges of employee behavior with respect to sharing or hoarding knowledge.

Resources

• Access Resources

  Learning Resources
  Please read and view this week’s Learning Resources before you complete the Discussion.Reading

  • Course Text: Collison, C., & Parcell, G. Learning to fly: Practical knowledge management from leading and learning organizations.
    • Chapter 8, “Learning Whilst Doing—Time to Reflect”

      Chapter 8 introduces the concept of an After Action Review (AAR), a technique that is used by the U.S. Army involving a professional discussion of an event. You will understand how to use your learning from a previous project to remove weaknesses and retain strengths required for any new project.

      Focus on the subject-related case study, and go through the contents of the CD-ROM “Learning to Fly,” provided with the course text, for examples of AARs.

  • Articles
    • Hendriks, P. (1999). Why share knowledge? The influence of ICT on the motivation for knowledge sharing.Knowledge and Process Management, 6(2), 91–100. Click here to download the article (PDF format)

      This article explains the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) in KM. The article also examines the most important aspect of KM—knowledge sharing. A few modes of knowledge sharing and examples of ICT support are also describe

  • • Thite, M. (2004). Strategic positioning of HRM in knowledge-based organizations. The Learning Organization,11(1), 28–44. Click here to download the article (PDF format)
    • 
      This article focuses on the major challenges that human resource managers face while trying to manage knowledge. In addition, the article discusses various guidelines for planning effective human resource strategies for KM.

1.Discussion – Week 3

COLLAPSE

Knowledge Management Site
One of the challenges organizations face is workers’ reluctance to share knowledge. This reluctance is fostered by the belief that retaining knowledge increases a person’s value to the organization. Another common reason for not sharing knowledge stems from personal issues such as insecurity. At times, organizations are also to blame. They create an environment of secrecy and a closed work atmosphere. In such situations, employees feel that if they share any work-related knowledge, they might hamper their job security.

In this Discussion, you will analyze ways and reasons that will help increase knowledge sharing among employees.

Based on your reading for this week, answer the following questions:
1. What role does leadership play in creating an environment that supports knowledge sharing?
2. Which tools may be used to encourage workers to share knowledge?

With these thoughts in mind: