Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know: Amazon.de: Nancy M. Dixon: Englische Bücher

Kurzbeschreibung

Breakthrough research on knowledge transfer reveals five proven methods for making knowledge sharing a reality - which are right for your company? While external knowledge - about customers, about competitors - is critical, it rarely provides a competitive edge for companies because such information is equally available to everyone. But internal 'know-how' that is unique to a specific company - how to introduce a new drug into the diabetes market, how to decrease assembly time in an automobile plant - is the stuff of which sustained competitive advantage is made. Nancy Dixon, an expert in the field of organizational learning, calls this knowledge borne of experience 'common knowledge', and argues that in order to get beyond talking about knowledge management to actually doing it, companies must first recognize that all knowledge is not created - and therefore can't be shared - equally. Creating successful knowledge transfer systems, Dixon argues, requires matching the type of knowledge to be shared to the method best suited for transferring it effectively. Based on an in-depth study of several organizations - including Ernst & Young, Bechtel, Ford, Chevron, British Petroleum, Texas Instruments, and the U.S. Army - that are leading the field in successful knowledge transfer, "Common Knowledge" reveals groundbreaking insights into how organizational knowledge is created, how it can be effectively shared - and why transfer systems work when they do. Until now, most organizations have had to rely on costly 'trial and error' to find a knowledge transfer system that works for them. Dixon helps managers take the guesswork out of this process by outlining three criteria that must be considered in order to determine how a transfer method will work in a specific situation: the type of knowledge to be transferred, the nature of the task, and who the receiver of that knowledge will be. Drawing from the successful - but very different - practices of the companies in her study and providing compelling illustrative stories based on the experiences of real managers, Dixon distills five distinct categories of knowledge transfer, explains the principles that make each of them work, and helps managers determine which of these systems would be most effective in their own organizations. "Common Knowledge" gets to the heart of one of the most difficult questions in knowledge transfer today: what makes a system work effectively in one organization but fail miserably in another? Going beyond 'one-size-fits-all' approaches and simple generalities like upper management involvement and cultural issues, this important book will help organizations of every kind construct knowledge transfer systems tailored to their unique forms of 'common knowledge' - and in the process create the best kind of competitive advantage there is: the kind that can't be copied.

Synopsis

Based on an in-depth study of several organizations - including Ernst & Young, Bechtel, Ford, Chevron, British Petroleum, Texas Instruments, and the U.S. Army - that are leading the field in successful knowledge transfer, "Common Knowledge" reveals groundbreaking insights into how organizational knowledge is created, how it can be effectively shared - and why transfer systems work when they do. Until now, most organizations have had to rely on costly 'trial and error' to find a knowledge transfer system that works for them. Dixon helps managers take the guesswork out of this process by outlining three criteria that must be considered in order to determine how a transfer method will work in a specific situation: the type of knowledge to be transferred, the nature of the task, and who the receiver of that knowledge will be.

Drawing from the successful - but very different - practices of the companies in her study and providing compelling illustrative stories based on the experiences of real managers, Dixon distills five distinct categories of knowledge transfer, explains the principles that make each of them work, and helps managers determine which of these systems would be most effective in their own organizations. "Common Knowledge" gets to the heart of one of the most difficult questions in knowledge transfer today: what makes a system work effectively in one organization but fail miserably in another? Going beyond 'one-size-fits-all' approaches and simple generalities like upper management involvement and cultural issues, this important book will help organizations of every kind construct knowledge transfer systems tailored to their unique forms of 'common knowledge' - and in the process create the best kind of competitive advantage there is: the kind that can't be copied.

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Common knowledge, another view 5. April 2000

Von Denham Grey

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

Nancy Dixon's new book gives 5 knowledge transfer methods that result from the interaction between the intended receiver (similarity of task and context), the nature of the task (how routine & frequent) and the type of knowledge (explicit vs. tacit) being transfered.

Serial transfer: Same team, same task, different settings. After action reviews, learning histories and set meetings, open diaglog, local facilitation.

Near transfer: Explicit knowledge of frequent & routine tasks moved across organizational boundaries. Electronic dissemination, supplemented by personal interaction, 'push', best practices are shared where context is not an issue.

Far transfer: Tacit knowledge is moved by coaching and consulting, same task different context, reciprocal exchange, peers travel to assist.

Strategic transfer: Infrequent and non-routine, complex system, knowledge is gathered by specialists, multiple 'voices' are synthesized mostly in realtime.

Expert transfer: Explicit knowledge is pulled from forums, summarized and recorded in terms of solutions, rules and distinctions. Context is the same but the task differs, e.g. technical questions to 2nd level helpdesks.

Somehow the whole notion of knowledge transfer does not sit too well with me, feels too much like an object is being exchanged rather than an individual or group learning experience! Are we starting to see greater clarity and the emergence of some KM theory here? I'm thinking of Dixon's transfer types, KM models from Don Mezei, Bo Newman and others, knowledge validation practices from KMCI, ontologies and classifications of tool sets, KM strategy options.....

Task characteristics and knowledge sharing:

Nancy uses, how routine the task is, not in the sense of similariry, but how easily the task can be expressed in terms of explicit steps and the frequency. These are important attributes for knowledge transfer (along with an appreciation of key changes in context). I'm not so sure these are the best task characteristics when we look at learning and knowledge sharing, which are important aspects of to consider when looking at transfer in a holistic (ecosystem) perspective. Here I tend to favor the generic task ontology developed by Chandrasekaran and colleagues: e.g. classification, diagnosis, problem solving and others.

Transfer & learning:

There is little attention to reciprocity, dialog and generative knowledge exchanges in Nancy's categories. I get the feeling Nancy favors knowledge transfer as passing objects and only recognizes transfer resulting in greater than the parts in "far transfer" (tacit exchange). Seems in true knowledge sharing there is always some measure of reciprocity, knowledge creation and learning on both sides. One of the most effective ways to share knowledge is to take time to share meanings, surface assumptions through constructing ontologies, practicing deep dialog and crafting distinctions.

I missed FAQs, co-location, yellowpages and boundary spanning between communities as alternative promising ways to share. Knowledge travels via relationships and I think this aspect could have received more attention in the book. Knowledge transfer goes far deeper than just passing information and Nancy's treatment of context and absoption potential was new and through. It is encouraging to see an entire book devoted to this key knowledge practice, think this is an important text, deserving of a place alongside Brown and Duguid's "The social life of information".

Use of simulation and cases, in particular, Time-Revealed Senarios (TRS) are recent advances to assist with knowledge sharing: TRS as used in Wisdom Tools.

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Nice academic classification of some type of kn. transfer 27. Juni 2000

Von Daniel

The book gives an interesting overview of all situations in which a very particular type of knowledge is transfered: the conscious transfer of experiences.

There might be much more to know about transfer, but the writer certainly wanted to restrict to this particular domain.

Even if interesting, I can't imagine that the content of this book is usefull for a knowledge manager in a company. It could even make him run into the error of simplifying too much and wanting to see every problem as a nail to hammer.

Well, it was still interesting, because the book is written very structured.

Excellent analysis of Knowledge Management 6. Juni 2000

Von Jose Solera

Ms. Dixon does an excellent job of describing knowledge management and its role in making an organization more successful. Through the various models she builds, she makes it clear when to use which model and more important, for a technical person like myself, when to use technology and when not to use it. In these days when everything has a technological solution, it is refreshing to see a perspective that positions technology as the tool that it is. Excellent!