Nicolas

As the new economy demands the faster information processing to produce a better strategic decision, the knowledge management is one of the most important things that the organization should have to adapt the hyper competition in business world today. According to McElroy (2003) there are 2 perspectives of knowledge management, the first one sees knowledge management as a knowledge sharing (organizational learning) and the second one as a knowledge making (innovation management). This article focuses on the first perspective where knowledge management is used as a organizational learning.

Then first we should know the definition of the organizational learning,

Organizational learning as known as organizational development is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts. For Organizational development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_learning).

In that definition, we identify the characteristic of learning organization as the adaptive organization. That means the organization is able to response very well from stimulus either comes from inside or outside. But in fact, the organization or even a big organization like corporations, don’t have the ability to accept the changes that happen from inside the body of organization nor from the outside. This problem is the manager’s responsibility and requires a good leadership to solve it. Kasali (2007) mentioned 5 things that changes demand to the organization to have, they are vision, skills, incentives, resources and action plans. Those 5 things are the area of manager should be concerned to support the learning organization.

Toyota can be the best practice of the organizational learning. Liker (2004) described how Toyota manages its organization to be the learning organization. Toyota made an internal document as its sharing knowledge called Toyota Way, the document contained 14 principles and famous with its 4 main points, which are philosophy, process, people and partners, and problem solving. The document also focuses on Kaizen, a continuous improvement and learning philosophy. Then we can identify Toyota as a corporation that use knowledge management for sharing knowledge.

Knowledge Management is a foundation for every organizations or companies to survive. It helps organization/company to grow with continuous improvement and adapts with the changing business environment. The concept of knowledge management as a sharing knowledge should be clearly understood by top management in a company. The good sharing knowledge in a company may enable people in organization to make an innovation as a making knowledge. The sharing and making knowledge in organization enables a company to stay competitive in changing market environment.

The information manager should first identify and understand the characteristic of a company and people where he/she works. There are 3 areas how we implement in an organization; they are Techno-Centric, Organizational and Ecological approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management). A company using techno-centric approach may establish the strong intranet and internet connection and permit people in organization using mobile devices frequently. After selecting the approach, the information manager could create or design the system and distribute it to whole organization members to enable continuous improvement as a learning organization.

reference :

http://ekstra.kompasiana.com/group/english/2009/11/05/knowledge-management-as-a-learning-organization-foundation/