Establishing knowledge management for competitive advantage in an enterprise

138 Pages·2012·1.6 MB·English

by  Ndlela, Lorna Thembisile.

ESTABLISHING KNOWLE GE MANAGEMENT FOR
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN AN ENTERPRISE
by
LORNA THEMBISILE NDLELA
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree Magister Informationes in the
Department of Information Studies
Faculty of Arts
at the
RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY
October 1999
Study leader: Prof. A.SA du Toit
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to express my special thanks to the following people who encouraged and
supported me through the many months of working towards my lifelong dream and
making this study come to fruition:
To God the Father Almighty for giving me patience and the strength to
persevere during hard times and through His love made it possible for me to
strike the balance between my work and studies;
To Eskom Transmission Group my employer for making this study a reality and
the opportunity of numerous discussions and interviews with various helpful
employees and for their valuable inputs.
To my supervisor and promoter, Prof. Annelize du Toit, for her constant support,
guidance and advice.
To my sister, brother and especially my mother for taking care of my daughter
and for their unending love and support.
To my daughter Refiloe although not knowing, was my source of inspiration.
To my friends for their endless support.
My search for the best articles to include in the study led me to the literatures of
Britain, United States of America and beyond. This drive led me to KPMG
Management Consulting in London and I would like to express my sincere thanks to
Kate Spalding and Kim Haddon of KPMG London, for supplying me with relevant
documentation and thank KPMG Consulting Services for sham. g the fruits of their
labour.
In locating original materials, the Eskom Information Centre was of course very
supportive and invaluable. It is very hard to imagine compiling work like this without
a superb resource at hand.
Although many people have contributed to the creation of this dissertation, the
author admits final responsibility for what you are about to read. Opinions expressed
and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author.
SUMMARY
Enterprises are becoming more dependent on people than ever before and in the
twenty first century, an enterprise's survival and success will highly depend on the
ability to manage knowledge as a source for competitive advantage. This study is
concerned with the establishment of a knowledge management program that will
ensure sustainable competitive advantage within the enterprise.
The main problem under investigation is to assess the importance of knowledge
management within an enterprise and to ascertain how knowledge management can
ensure sustained competitive advantage in an enterprise. In the first three chapters of
the study a literature survey is done to get a better understanding of what knowledge
management is, the importance of corporate culture when implementing a knowledge
management program and how knowledge management can be a source for
sustainable competitive advantage or business edge. The advancement in information
technology has allowed enterprises to leverage people's knowledge onto higher
competitive level by improving competencies and processes, reducing mistakes, etc.
and the optimal application of knowledge in a knowledge-based environment is
playing an ever-increasing role in enterprise success.
The second part of the study was an empirical study where a qualitative research was
conducted in the Eskom Transmission Group. The aim of the research was to
investigate understanding of the knowledge management concept amongst business
leaders, determine enablers and barriers to implementing a knowledge management,
and to also determine whether knowledge is seen as a source for competitive
advantage. Structured interviews were conducted with ten business leaders in the
Eskom Transmission Group. The data obtained from the interviews were analysed
and interpreted according to the grounded theory.
iv
It was found that although knowledge management is old but as a formalised concept
in the business environment in South Africa it is new and there is no common
definition or understanding of the concept. It is however evident that the need to
manage knowledge is understood and its importance to the sustainability of the
business. The majority of the respondents agree that people issues are critical to the
success of knowledge management in an enterprise, as people own knowledge.
It is suggested that enterprises should adopt a holistic and integrated approach when
establishing a knowledge management program. The holistic approach together with
the framework and guidelines as given in chapter six would afford enterprises the
ability to manage and harness their knowledge for sustainable competitive advantage.
Broad recommendations for establishing a knowledge management program that will
be a source of sustainable competitive advantage are proposed.
(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)(cid:9)
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1 (cid:9) The two dimension of knowledge development
Figure 3.1 (cid:9) Culture in an enterprise
Figure 6.1 (cid:9) Principles of managing knowledge across the
enterprise
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 (cid:9) Culture types
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
CEO (cid:9) Chief Executive Officer
CKO (cid:9) Chief Knowledge Officer
CLN (cid:9) Customer Load Network
ED (cid:9) Executive Director
K (cid:9) Knowledge
MW(cid:9) Megawatt
RAU(cid:9) Rand Afrikaans University
VRIO (cid:9) Value, Rareness, Imitability and Organisation
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
(cid:9)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ll
(cid:9)
SUMMARY iv
(cid:9)
LIST OF FIGURES vt
(cid:9)
LIST OF TABLES vi
(cid:9)
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS vi
CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM AN !1 ITS CONTEXT (cid:9) 1
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM (cid:9) 1
1.2 THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS SETTINGS (cid:9) 3
1.2.1 The statement of the problem (cid:9) 3
1.2.2 The subproblem (cid:9) 3
1.2.3 The hypotheses (cid:9) 3
1.2.4 The limitations (cid:9) 4
1.2.5 Assumptions (cid:9) 4
1.3 OUTLINE OF THE STUDY (cid:9) 4
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CHAPTER 2: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CONTEXT (cid:9) 5
2.1 BACKGROUND AND DEFINITIONS (cid:9) 5
2.1.1 Knowledge (cid:9) 6
2.1.2 The development of knowledge (cid:9) 8
2.1.3 Management (cid:9) 11
2.1.4 What is knowledge management (cid:9) 12
2.2 IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 15
2.3 CONCLUSION (cid:9) 16
CHAPTER 3: CORPORATE CULTURE AS A FOUN S ATION FOR 18
SUCCESSFUL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
3.1 WHY IS CORPORATE CULTURE OVERLOOKED? (cid:9) 18
3.2 DEFINING CORPORATE CULTURE (cid:9) 19
3.3 CULTURE SHAPING FACTORS (cid:9) 22
3.4 TYPES OF CORPORATE CULTURE (cid:9) 24
3.5 CULTURE CREATION AND DETERMINATION(cid:9) 27
3.5.1 The role of leadership (cid:9) 27
3.5.2 The role of employees (cid:9) 28
3.5.3 Determining corporate culture (cid:9) 28
3.6 HAVING A SUPPORTIVE CULTURE FOR (cid:9) 29
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
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3.7 CONCLUSION(cid:9) 31
CHAPTER 4: IMPLEMENTING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 33
AS A SOURCE FOR A SUSTAINABLE
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
4.1 THE RESOURCE BASED VIEW OF COMPETITIVE 34
ADVANTAGE
4.2 THE VRIO FRAMEWORK (cid:9) 36
4.2.1 The question of Value (cid:9) 36
4.2.2 The question of Rareness (cid:9) 37
4.2.3 The question of Imitability (cid:9) 39
4.2.4 The question of Organisation (cid:9) 40
4.3 STEPS FOR ESTABLISHING A KNOWLEDGE (cid:9) 42
MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
4.3.1 Enterprise analysis (cid:9) 42
4.3.2 External analysis (cid:9) 43
4.3.3 Decide and formulate a suitable knowledge
management strategy (cid:9) 43
4.3.4 Developing a plan for establishing a knowledge
management program (cid:9) 45
4.3.5 Implement and evaluate knowledge management
strategies (cid:9) 45
4.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 46
4.4.1 Sustainable competitive advantage stems from
enterprise specific more than general knowledge
(cid:9)
management 46
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4.4.2 Sustainable competitive advantage comes from
teams more than individuals (cid:9) 48
4.4.3 Sustainable competitive advantage stems from
knowledge management systems than single
(cid:9)
knowledge management practices 49
4.5 CONCLUSION (cid:9) 50
CHAPTER 5: EMPJ[RICAL SURVEY (cid:9) 53
5.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY (cid:9) 53
5.1.1 Qualitative research (cid:9) 53
5.1.2 Application of the qualitative approach for this (cid:9) 54
research
5.1.3 Research objectives (cid:9) 55
5.1.4 Sample for research (cid:9) 56
5.1.4.1 Methodology (cid:9) 56
5.1.4.2 The population sampled (cid:9) 57
5.1.4.3 Unit of analysis (cid:9) 57
5.1.4.4 Procedure for gathering data (cid:9) 57
5.2 ESKOM TRANSMISSION GROUP(cid:9) 58
5.2.1 Background history on the Eskom
Transmission Group (cid:9) 58
5.2.2 Changes in the Eskom Transmission
Group (cid:9) 61
5.2.3 The Eskom Transmission Group culture (cid:9) 64
x