Pathways for Knowledge: How Companies Learn Through People

William R. Truran

40 citations0/0 files storedEngineering Management Journal

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Knowledge Management and Sharing Innovation and Knowledge Management Organizational Learning and Leadership

Abstract

Many reports state that an organization may be more successful if the company exhibits a high level of learning. Learning and storage of the knowledge gained is of great importance to this end. Where do the people within R&D, the area generating new products for a company, look for knowledge? What are the means by which the knowledge is conveyed, and between whom? This paper explores the issue of how a company learns through investigation of the pathways by which people convey information. A structured interview process elicited the avenues by which R&D personnel in top American companies find and transmit knowledge. Several interesting and provocative opinions were obtained: 1) on the average, when people look for knowledge, they consider that about 64% of the knowledge base resides outside of the company boundaries; 2) more than half of all company knowledge transmission flows verbally and informally through ad hoc channels, giving evidence that the communication means has changed greatly over the past decade. Ten years ago, most large company information was sent by explicit means (e.g., formal documents). Today, a growing amount of company information sharing is taking place via fax and, to a greater degree, email. From near zero at that time, to the present range of 25%. A number of interesting indicators of successful learning people and learning companies were described, in addition to the documented success rates and good ROI. Measures for people were the diversity of projects given and the breadth of questions asked. A measure of successful learning companies was the ability to hire good people. This study gives significant new dimensions of needs beyond the company boundaries. It also reinforces the concept of the tacit and informal nature of core competencies. A further descriptive study is anticipated to confirm these findings.

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References

1995The Knowledge-Creating Company 1998The Knowledge-Creating Company 1995Building the Learning Organization 2000Teaching Smart People How to Learn 1932The fundamentals of learning.1997Winning through innovation 1990The knowledge link

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