Incorporating artificial intelligence in knowledge creation processes in organizations

PurposeTotal quality management (TQM) and knowledge management (KM) are two similar and complementary management philosophies synergistic combinations that can form a cycle of improvement and development. This paper aims to investigate the impact of TQM factors on knowledge creation in the organizations of Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachA list of TQM factors was identified through reviewing the relevant literature. Knowledge creation was analyzed through the framework proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire survey among 450 top and mid-level managers of the organizations. A quantitative research approach, namely, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in the study. The data were analyzed in SmartPLS 3.FindingsFrom the study, it is found that a positive and significant relationship exists between leadership, employee empowerment, benchmarking, customer focus and information technology with the knowledge creation process and four knowledge conversion modes. In contrast, a negative and significant relationship has been found between employee training and continuous improvement with the knowledge creation process and three knowledge conversion modes.Research limitations/implicationsPrevious researches in Bangladesh empirically validated the effect of TQM on organizational performance, competitive advantage, financial performance, market performance and productivity. But, no such study was undertaken to empirically validate the effect of TQM on knowledge creation process for organizations of Bangladesh. Here, the study has a unique contribution. The empirical support for the hypotheses to explain and predict the contribution of the TQM in promoting knowledge creation.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the role of leadership practices. Organizational leadership needs to focus more on following issues: gathering required knowledge from the superior sources; transforming prevailing knowledge into a meaningful format to perform activities in better and innovative ways; employing opinions from experiences; facilitating mechanism for employees to update their knowledge; creating a virtual network; implementing customer relationship management system and providing tools and technologies to employees for performing KM activities more efficiently. On the other hand, negative effect of employee training and continuous improvement on knowledge creation sheds light on understanding the reasons for this kind of relationship and formulating effective strategies to resolve problems inside the organizations. In this regard, employees need to be well equipped through regular and appropriate training. Also, employees need to use problem-solving approach to identify problems inside the organizational system thereby availing opportunities for continuous improvement.Originality/valueThis study was conducted to identify factors that enable knowledge creation in organizations from developing countries like Bangladesh. TQM has been adopted in many organizations. But, its effect was mostly measured to determine its impact on improving organizational performance or competitiveness or identifying its critical success factors of implementation. Hence, this study sheds light on identifying the effect of TQM from a new perspective.

We commented on the emergence of knowledge science, including epistemology, knowledge engineering, management science with knowledge management, sociological (soft) systems science, technology management, and technological (hard) systems science. As opposed to philosophic macro-theories of knowledge creation on long historical scale, many new micro-theories of knowledge creation for today and tomorrow emerged since 1990. All such micro-theories take into account the interplay of intuitive and emotional, tacit aspects of knowledge with rational and explicit aspects. A contemporary theory of intuition explains rationally why intuitive and emotive aspects are much stronger sources of creative ideas. There is a qualitative difference between group-oriented organizational processes of knowledge creation in industrial and market organizations and individual-oriented academic processes of knowledge creation; the latter can be described by a Triple Helix of academic knowledge creation. Combining both organizational and academic processes of knowledge creation is the prescriptive Nanatsudaki model of seven creative processes. The importance of diverse elements of these models was empirically supported by the results of a survey of creativity conditions in a Japanese university, using multiple criteria decision making for knowledge acquisition from large data bases.

Organisational knowledge creation is different from individual knowledge creation. Since 1990, the theoretical and empirical study of knowledge creation in organisations revealed that knowledge and the capability to create it is one of the most important sources of a company’s sustainable competitive advantage. The theory of organisational knowledge creation, first presented by Nonaka (Harward Business Review, Nov.–Dec., 96–104, 1991), is a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organisational knowledge creation processes. Its central theme is the SECI model as a knowledge creation process as played out through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. As it has developed since the early 1990s, it has broadened in scope and is now linked to a huge range of topics, such as leadership styles, organisational forms, cultural aspects and organisational learning. This chapter gives a comprehensive introduction of Nonaka’s SECI model as the core of his theory which remained relatively unchanged, while Nonaka’s knowledge creation theory has evolved. Furthermore, the knowledge creation theory is explained while the SECI model is reviewed from several perspectives. As a business example of its implementation, the organisational application of the model at a German airport is described. This critical evaluation suggests future requirements regarding practical implications of the theory.

Collective processes of organizational knowledge creation remain poorly explored. Yet efficient knowledge management has to focus on those processes as far as it aims at dealing with sustaining knowledge development and knowledge sharing rather than solely its memorization. In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of two processes of knowledge creation within a business intelligence unit. This analysis leads to a five stages model that can be used either as a descriptive or prescriptive tool for knowledge management.

Thanks to reputation and gamification mechanisms, collaborative question answering systems coordinate the process of topical knowledge creation of thousands of users. While successful, these systems face many challenges: on one hand, the volume of submitted questions overgrows the amount of new users willing, and capable, of answering them. On the other hand, existing users need to be retained and optimally allocated. Previous work demonstrates the positive effects that two important aspects, namely engagement and expertise valorisation, can have on user quality and quantity of participation. The magnitude of their effect can greatly vary across users and across topics. In this paper we advocate for a more in-depth study of the interplay that exists between user engagement factors in question answering systems. Our working hypothesis is that the process of knowledge creation can be accelerated by better understanding and exploiting the combined effects of the interests and expertise of users, with their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. We perform a study over 6 years of data from the StackOverflow platform. By defining metrics of expertise and (intrinsic and extrinsic) motivations, we show how they distribute and correlate across platform’s users and topics. By means of an off-line question routing experiment, we show how topic-specific combinations of motivations and expertise can help accelerating the knowledge creation process.

Organisational knowledge creation (OKC) is a complex and relatively uncharted path, especially in terms of the dynamic journey that new knowledge makes from its generation to crystallisation. This journey is crucial for managers to understand in order to allocate limited resources effectively. In this paper, we employ a qualitative approach and explore this journey as it unfolds during the early phases of the new product development process in 10 cases of discontinuous innovation. We develop a knowledge-conceptualisation framework which not only illustrates the OKC journey as it progresses along a number of empirically derived stages and how these overlap with one another, but also how individual and teams contribute to or interact along these stages to create new knowledge. We thus provide a solid basis for the much-needed theoretical advances in knowledge creation and present specific benchmarks required for managers to facilitate the knowledge-creation process within their organisations.

This article takes an ecological perspective that views management systems and information systems as dimensions of the overall business platform. The concepts of double-loop learning and knowledge creation are found to be useful in contemplating, explaining and evaluating the role of Information Systems in organisations. It is argued that the role of information systems is to support, facilitate and improve the knowledge creation and knowledge implementation processes in the organisation the skills of awareness and reflection need to be enacted within the communication processes of organizations. Dialogue is considered fundamental to learning and creativity.

Purpose - The researcher investigates the extent to which knowledge sharing moderates the relationship between knowledge creation and business process re-engineering (BPR) outcomes of financial services offered by financial institutions in Uganda. Design/Methodology - The study adopted cross-sectional survey design to collect data at one point in time using self-administered questionnaire to examine the relationship between knowledge creation and business processes. The study at first used statistical package for social scientists to establish clusters among the surveyed financial services and later a model was derived using R programming software to test for knowledge creation and business process re-engineering performance outcomes. Findings - The study found a significant conditional effect of knowledge sharing on knowledge creation and business process re-engineering outcomes. Implying that investment in knowledge sharing creates awareness about the financial services outcomes of financial institutions using business process re-engineering to provide financial services. Originality - This study contributes to business process re-engineering literature by advancing the idea that BPR is an important economic resource that enhanced through instituting knowledge creation and sharing practices in a complex environment. Ideally, creating and sharing knowledge is one of the drivers of customer value, efficiency, and effectiveness of financial services in financial institutions. Practical Implications - Managers of financial institutions need to pay keen interest in managing business processes using relevant knowledge and transforming in new products, new processes, and new markets to boost business process re-engineering outcomes by building a strong knowledge creation system through training and development programs for senior managers.

Many firms that once relied primarily on internal labor markets (ILMs), which refer to employment systems primarily governed by a set of organization-specific internal rules and procedures, have shifted to greater use of external markets to meet their employment needs. Some argue that ILMs have become an outdated HR strategy because the use of ILMs may inhibit the firms’ capabilities to adapt to uncertain environments. In this paper, I challenge this conventional wisdom and propose that ILMs have the potential to enhance a firm’s adaptability by facilitating its knowledge creation process. Drawing on panel data from 271 manufacturing firms, this study demonstrates that firms making greater use of ILMs in competitive industries exhibit more effective implementation of organizational learning practices – leading to higher knowledge creation.

Managing knowledge is a value creating process in most organisations and is particularly important in knowledge-intensive firms. This paper asks the question: how can GroupWare specifically facilitate processes of knowledge creation within knowledge intensive firms? Based on an analysis of an expert consultancy where e-mail is used successfully for information and knowledge search, and Lotus Notes is used with mixed results in project working, it is argued that the complexity of articulating the knowledge creation process can be reduced by using e-mail. Furthermore e-mail when considered in context is potentially a rich medium for the development of collective knowledge over time. It is also concluded that although distributed Lotus Notes databases can alleviate temporal and spatial complexity, this media lacks the richness required for complex processes of knowledge creation. Thus where temporal and spatial constraints do not exist, there will be substantial barriers for using GroupWare to support the knowledge creation process, in this type of knowledge-intensive firm.

Through the lens of organizational learning theory, we develop and test a moderated mediation model of commitment‐based HR practices (CBHRP), absorptive capacity, organization structure and routines, and knowledge creation in ambidextrous organizations. We test two new individual‐level dimensions of absorptive capacity (AC) in ambidextrous organizations: ambidexterity and flow experience. This empirical investigation is based on 377 expatriates who responded to our survey over two time periods working in various multinational organizations' R&D centers in India. Our findings suggest that CBHRP is critical in predicting knowledge creation and AC in an ambidextrous organizational context. Furthermore, we find that AC mediates the linkage between CBHRP and knowledge creation, and organization structure and routines (OSR) act as a moderator. Focusing on expatriates in ambidextrous organizations, our study extends contextual understanding of ambidextrous organizations and integrates organizational learning and knowledge creation theory into strategic human resources management (SHRM) research.

This study examines leadership factors that affect knowledge creation in Sri Lankan software industry. For this study, transformational and transactional leadership styles are considered and their effect on knowledge creation is assessed. Organizational culture is considered to have a moderating effect on the relationship between leadership behaviors and knowledge creation. The study is based on four variables; two independent variables, transformational leadership and transactional leadership, one moderating variable, organizational culture and one dependent variable, knowledge creation. According to the findings of the research with participant (n=152) feedback, both transformational leadership and transactional leadership have strong positive correlations with knowledge creation. Organizational culture moderates the correlation between transactional leadership and knowledge creation. Among the individual factors of transformational and transactional leadership, Individualized consideration has the highest positive correlation with knowledge creation. Organizational culture found to be moderating the knowledge creation through transactional leadership while culture has no moderating effect on knowledge creation through transformational leadership. The research suggests that affective leadership practices can positively contribute to the knowledge creation in software development organizations.

This study examined the creation of knowledge in two embedded cases of Open Innovation (OI) in a complex technological setting. The study focused on the role of boundaries in knowledge flow and knowledge creation and sought to understand how boundaries shape the trajectory of an OI project. While the OI literature is well-developed, most studies are at the level of the organisation and have examined instances of innovation, rather than longitudinal OI processes. In addition, most have taken a cognitive view of knowledge in theorising OI, which can result in an overly simplified understanding of how agents from different knowledge domains achieve sufficient mutual understanding to create new knowledge. For this reason, I took the novel approach of using a practice-based view of knowledge as the theoretical lens through which to explore knowledge creation, to generate a richer theorisation of knowledge creation in OI projects.In line with this practice-based perspective, the study took a qualitative research approach and used ethnographic methods to collect data over seventeen months, thereby enabling novel insights not available from elsewhere in the literature. The first case examined involved the development of a new diagnostic practice for detecting pre-cancerous changes in human cells in-vivo, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and was at a mature stage of technological development. The second case involved applying the MRS technology developed in the first case, to create a novel diagnostic practice for detecting a mental health condition and was at an early phase of development.The study identified three types of practices involved in knowledge creation: project-specific practices, occupation-specific practices and framework practices. Distinguishing between the practices involved in overcoming knowledge boundaries enabled a detailed theorisation of the processes involved. Differences between agents’ occupation-specific practices (knowledge boundaries), rather than organisational boundaries, impacted the OI projects and caused interruptions that stopped project progress. Each of the three practice types played a specific role in enabling knowledge creation by the agents, who co-developed project-specific practices to overcome their knowledge boundaries. Agents embedded the new project-specific knowledge created, in each case study, into the new or modified project-specific practices.To explicate these findings, I argue that the interruptions to progress in the OI projects due to knowledge boundaries, caused the agents to shift from a state of absorbed coping to one of theoretical detachment. In that state, the agents had the opportunity to self-distanciate, a known precursor activity for knowledge creation, and from that state, to co-create new project-specific knowledge. This process was repeated each time an interruption was encountered, resulting in the accumulation of new knowledge over time as the knowledge creation process unfolded. As successive knowledge boundaries were overcome, agents embedded the increments of project-specific knowledge created into project-specific practices and project-specific objects, with the result that these practices and objects co-evolved over time. Thus, repeated interruptions over time created knowledge cumulatively. I theorised this phenomenon, which has not previously been reported, as practice maturation. I articulated this relationship between interruptions and the cumulative creation of new project-specific knowledge in a proposed processual model of knowledge creation. The finding that repeated interruptions over time created knowledge cumulatively and this relationship between interruptions and cumulative knowledge creation findings, enabled conceptualising an OI project as a continuous, iterative process of individual agents overcoming their mutual knowledge boundaries through a process of self-distanciation, induced by the interruptions they encountered, to create new shared practices and objects. I therefore argue that an OI project is a situated and ongoing process of project-specific knowledge creation and that it is practice maturation that enables an OI project to progress.The study’s main contributions to the Knowing-in-practice literature include the identification of three types of practice enacted to create new project-specific knowledge; the novel concept of practice maturation; the identification of interruptions caused by knowledge boundaries as an alternative means of bringing about self-distanciation, and the repeated encountering and overcoming of knowledge boundaries to cumulatively create knowledge over time, as articulated in the processual model of knowledge creation presented. The study contributes to the OI literature by demonstrating that OI project processes are considerably more complex than how they are portrayed in the dominant OI literature, and by drawing attention to the significant role of knowledge boundaries in knowledge creation involving agents from different knowledge domains. Further, the study highlights the constructive role of interruptions that are otherwise often perceived as evidence that something is ‘wrong’ with an OI project. Finally, the study provides an alternative conceptualisation of OI to the accepted understanding, by identifying the different types of practices involved in it and the role of each in co-creation.

This paper argues that it is possible (and recommendable) to develop a new conceptual frame-work based on the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics to address what one could call “the human factor” within knowledge creation in organisations. This is done firstly through a review of the epistemological roots of three main theories of knowledge creation in organisations (systemic theory, complexity theory, and social constructionism). We examine these theories along two axes: a) their understanding of the relation between person and language, and b) the controllability of knowledge creation. Secondly, we restate the question of knowledge creation in organisations from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, arguing that knowledge creation takes place as an event in language, that is as an uncontrollable process which nonetheless requires courage, trust, and persistence and thereby requires that certain “ethical actions” should happen. This, finally, leads us to develop a model for knowledge creation called LUGS, which insists on the intrinsic relation between epistemology and practice, i.e. between what people come to know and how they decide to be — and it is this intrinsic relation between knowledge and being that we take as the “message” of this article.

Perhaps you are a doctoral student, mapping out how to parcel your dissertation; perhaps you are a junior scholar, strategizing your research plan; perhaps you are a senior scholar, who is thinking about what you want to say to the field. No matter what stage you are at as a management researcher, you might be looking to the Academy of Management (AOM) journals as a natural home for any and all of these creative research pursuits. However, it might not always be crystal clear how you should craft your work for the AOM journals, what contribution you might make at each journal, and consequently to which journal you should target your intellectual contributions.
\n
\n