In today’s world, there is hardly any organization that enjoys monopoly due to liberation of trade. This is because in every sector there are many traders and thus, each business entity must up its game to remain ahead.
Gone are the days when legendary businessmen used to sabotage the businesses of their rivals by collaborating with the authorities, just to eject them from the market place. Consumers are in praise of this stiff competition because they get the worth of their money at subsidized rates.
It is said that knowledge is the strongest source of power, and the organizations that are ranked at the top in business world, such as Apple, Google, and Southwest Airways are investing lots of money on knowledge because they know lack of it will cost them their fortunes.
O’Keeffe (2002) explains that in organizational knowledge, getting at the top is not a problem as long as the organization is willing to pay the price.
What matters the most is retaining the position because learning is a continuous process and if an organization stops its employees from upgrading themselves, then that marks the beginning of the end for that particular organization.
In organizational knowledge, an organization has to learn more than its rival companies and this means that they have to learn quickly. Learning entails observing what competitors are doing, and repackaging their approach to make it much better.
Organizational learning is initiated by the administrators because employees would take ages to take the initiative unless they are assured it will come with appraisals.
There are several benefits of organizational knowledge. The first one is that it enhances the quality of output. Besides, it enables organizations to come up with techniques of completing the processes involved in production faster thus saving time.
Similarly, a knowledgeable work force is able to cope with the challenges as opposed to when it’s not informed. This is because learning provides early warning to the expected challenges and thus, organizations prepare adequately for those challenges.
For instance, British Airways uses learning as the platform to improve the quality of its services. This has been done in collaboration with its suppliers after trimming them.
Processes and Systems
There are various approaches of acquiring organizational knowledge, but the most common ones are mastery and team learning. Team learning entails gathering employees through seminars and workshops and it’s the most preferred mode of learning.
Mastery learning revolves around an individual and in this approach an individual is sponsored by the organization to upgrade his/her skills with expectations that he/she will make a positive contribution to the success of the organization.
Hardie, Bontis, and Serenko (2007) argue that most organizations do not like this approach because there are many cases where employees are trained only for them to leave the company that paid for their training because they have identified another employer who can pay them better.
Organizational knowledge should be based on trust and this can be achieved by appreciating what employees are already doing which will make them hold on to their current position.
In addition, appropriate communication channels should be established to enhance sharing of knowledge. This is because the few employees who will be trained should share what they have learnt with their colleagues in various departments.
This is necessary because they are not the ones who will carry out all the tasks involved in production. For communication to be effective there must be working relationships among employees to eliminate the fear that the juniors have towards their seniors.
Organizations can succeed in encouraging their employees to gain more knowledge by sharing the benefits that are achieved by the organization with the employees.
For instance, the suppliers of British Airways were resentful to learning because they felt that the changes were coming to throw them out of the business. This is why organizations should counsel their employees so that they can understand why it is necessary to learn.
This will make the employees change their attitude towards learning because they will be assured that their efforts will eventually pay when the organization thrives.
In another example, companies like Toyota and Ford were successful in the implementation of lean manufacturing because information about the new technology was shared among the stakeholders, and everyone’s view was considered.
Therefore, organizational learning should not be mandatory because it will imply that the employees are only learning for the betterment of the organization. This suggests that learning should be voluntary and no one should be victimized for declining it.
References
Hardie, T., Bontis, N., and Serenko, A., 2007. Organizational size and knowledge flow: a proposed theoretical link. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 8 (4): pp. 610-627.
O’Keeffe, T., 2002. Organizational learning: a new perspective. Journal of European Industrial Training, 26 (2): pp. 130-141.