Organizational Knowledge Essay Example

Organizational Knowledge Essay We live in an information economy in which the major source of wealth and prosperity is the production and distribution of information and knowledge. An era in which the key economic resource is knowledge is startlingly different from an era in which the key resources were capital, raw materials, land and labor. Emerging service economy trend lead many organizations towards the information base strategies to face and fight with the current business competitions. In that case knowledge plays a major role in every organization. In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. (Harvard Business Review) Therefore an organization? s most valuable assets are the people it employs. The ideas, experiences, expertise and knowledge contained in the mind of an individual may be worth more to an organization. In this case, Knowledge can be recognized as an important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage in organizations and many companies are beginning to manage organizational knowledge. Any organization that dynamically deals with a changing environment ought not only to process information efficiently but also create information and knowledge. (Lee Choi, 2003) 3 Organizational Knowledge It is often said that an organization? s most valuable assets are the people it employs. We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The ideas, experiences, expertise and knowledge contained in the mind of an individual may be worth more to an organization than can be quantified with respect to how that knowledge is applied each day to save time, reduce costs, and advance the organization? s initiatives. How can an organization capitalize on individual knowledge? How do individuals contribute to subunits or groups within the organization to build and perpetuate group knowledge? How does individual and group knowledge become organizational knowledge that can be captured, reused, and applied to achieve measurable positive effects for the organization? When might extraorganizational knowledge be used to further increase or enhance the capabilities of an organization? In line with the topic; Organizational knowledge, we have to explores these questions, first by defining each knowledge type, then by examining how knowledge moves through an organization and becomes valuable organizational intellectual capital. Defining Knowledge Knowledge is a cognitive, a spiritual, event that take place inside people? s heads. There are two primary definitions of the knowledge as the Tacit Knowledge and the Explicit Knowledge. In simply knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has not been documented is called tacit knowledge, whereas knowledge that has been documented is called explicit knowledge. Tacit Knowledge Tacit Knowledge can be defined as knowledge that has not yet been codified from the outside the individual? s mind. On another words, knowledge that comes from experience and is difficult or impossible to communicate. It is intangible and consists of knowledge which is difficult to express and to communicate to other people. Also it is more difficult to transmit than codified knowledge and hard to formalize due to belonged personal qualities. Examples for tacit knowledge are; Awareness Mental models Wisdom Skills Expertise Corporate memory 4 Explicit Knowledge Explicit knowledge, in contrast, is the knowledge that can be codified and is transmittable in formal systematic language. (Nonaka 1994) It consists of knowledge which can be expressed in symbols, and which can be communicated through these symbols to other people. Knowledge can reside in e-mail, unstructured documents, hand books, manuals can be listed under this category. Examples for explicit knowledge are; Databases, statistics, collections Books, publications, reports, documents, correspondence Photographs, diagrams, illustrations Computer code, expert systems, decision support systems Presentations, speeches, lectures Recorded experiences, stories Materials for education, teaching and training Laws, regulations, procedures, rules, policies Individual Knowledge Individual knowledge can be defined simply as knowledge possessed by the individual. This knowledge is most often tacit unless the individual possesses explicit knowledge that is not shared with anyone or any organization other than the individual. A private journal or private blog might be considered explicit individual knowledge. Individual knowledge can be acquired through experiences, and at times it can be acquired without language. When an individual is acquiring knowledge from observing another person? s actions, and once the individual applies his or her own experiences and background to what is learned it becomes individual knowledge. The creation of new „individual? knowledge derived from observation, imitation and practice is called socialization, or tacit to tacit knowledge sharing. Individual knowledge can certainly develop from explicit knowledge. What a person reads, for example, can contribute to new thoughts and ideas in the mind of the individual. This method of knowledge creation is referred to as internalization – turning explicit knowledge into 5 tacit knowledge. By reading or acquiring explicit knowledge, independent thought and analysis can develop into new, individual knowledge. An individual can make a greater contribution to the knowledge sharing and creation process by allowing their knowledge to be internalized by others or socializing their knowledge with others, which leads to the creation of group knowledge. Group Knowledge Group knowledge might be defined as individual knowledge that multiple individuals rely upon as truth, share and understand. Group knowledge is â€Å"broadcast information† (Correa da Silva Cullell, 56), but is not necessarily information shared „publicly? (i. e. â€Å"common knowledge†). Group knowledge can be generated and disseminated through socialization and often results in the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, or externalization. When groups come together and exchange ideas, â€Å"individual knowledge is synthesized to arrive at group knowledge, which eventually becomes routing at the organizational level. Thus, the transformation of individual knowledge into organizational routines leads to complex and embodied organizational knowledge. When group knowledge from several subunits or groups is combined and used to create new knowledge, the resulting tacit and explicit knowledge can be called organizational knowledge. 6 Important Dimensions of Knowledge Knowledge is a firm asset Knowledge is an intangible asset. Knowledge is not subject to the law of diminishing returns as physical assets, but its value increases as more people share it. Knowledge has different forms Knowledge can be either tacit or explicit (codified) Knowledge involves know-how, craft and skill Knowledge involves knowing how to follow procedures Knowledge has a location Knowledge is a cognitive event involving mental models and maps of individuals There is both a social and an individual basis of knowledge Knowledge is sticky, situated, and contextual Knowledge is situational Knowledge is conditional: Knowing when to apply a procedure is just as important as knowing the procedure Knowledge is related to context SOURCE: Laudon and Laudon, 2008. Management Information Systems Knowledge Creation New knowledge always begins with the individual. Making personal knowledge available to others is the central activity of the knowledge creating company. It takes place continuously and at all levels of the organization. Organizational knowledge creation may be explicated by the interchange between tacit and explicit knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), â€Å"tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize, making it difficult to communicate or to share with others. Subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches fall into this category of knowledge†. On the other 7 hand, explicit knowledge is more easily transmitted as it is characteristically codified. As such, explicit knowledge is more easily processed and shared with others. According to the theory, the process of knowledge conversion proceeds through four different modes: 1. Socialization (the conversion of tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge) 2. Combination (the conversion of explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge) 3. Externalization (the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge) and 4. Internalization (the conversion of explicit to tacit knowledge) Socialization During the socialization mode, tacit knowledge is transferred through interactions between individuals, which may also be accomplished in the absence of language; individuals may learn and gain a sense of competence by observing behavior modeled by others. For example, mentoring and apprenticeships instruct tacitly through observation, imitation, and practice. Combination The combination mode of knowledge conversion embodies the aggregation of multiple examples of explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). Explicit knowledge may be exchanged during meetings or conferences in which a diversity of knowledge sources combines to shape a new and enhanced conception. Externalization The externalization mode of the knowledge conversion spiral references the translation of tacit knowledge into explicit. Metaphors are recommended as a way to facilitate this translation (Nonaka, 1994). Metaphors assist individuals in explaining concealed (i. e. , tacit) concepts that are otherwise difficult to articulate by assisting individuals in forming impressions based on â€Å"imagination and intuitive learning through symbols†. Internalization The conversion of explicit to tacit knowledge, i. e. , the internalization mode occurs through a series of iterations in which concepts become concrete and ultimately absorbed as an integral 8 belief or value. Where externalization utilizes metaphors to facilitate knowledge conversion, internalization represents an active process of learning. Nonaka (1994) describes this as â€Å"participants†¦.. sharing explicit knowledge that is gradually translated, through interaction and a process of trial-and-error, into different aspects of tacit knowledge. It is found most commonly at highly successful Japanese companies such as Honda, Canon, Matushita and Sharp are in focusing to the knowledge creation. Managers in these companies recognize that creating new knowledge is not simply a matter of mechanistically â€Å"Processing† objective information. The knowledge creation process The mutual exchange of tacit and explicit knowledge that describes the knowledge creation process is initiated at the level of the individual employee or organizational member. Because individuals are an integral component of this conversion process, their commitment to knowledge creation is critical. According to Nonaka (1994), knowledge creation may be activated when organizational members have freedom and sufficient purpose to pursue new knowledge. A continuous process of questioning and reconsidering existing premises by individual members of the organization fosters organizational knowledge creation† (Nonaka Takeuchi, 1995). Knowledge Management For hundreds of years, owners of family businesses have passed their commercial wisdom on to their children, master artificer have taught their trades to followers, and workers have exchanged their knowledge on the job. Therefore knowledge management is nothing new, but until the 1990s that managers were not talking about knowledge management. (Harvard Business Review) When the industrialized economies have shifted from natural resources to intellectual assets, managers have been constrained to censor the knowledge underlying their businesses and how that knowledge is used. At that same time rice of technological devices using; mainly computers has made it possible to codify, store, and share certain kind of knowledge more easily than ever. In current business environment, Knowledge management has become an important theme at many large business firms as managers realize that much of their firm? s value depends on firm? s ability to create and manage knowledge. (Laudon Laudon). Studies have found that a substantial part of a firm? s stock market value is related to its intangible assets, of which knowledge is one important component, along with brands, reputations, and unique business processes (Gu and Lev, 2001). Well executed knowledge-based projects have been known to produce extra ordinary returns on investment, although knowledge-based investments are difficult to measure (Blair and Wallman, 2001). Knowledge Management is the process of leveraging organizational knowledge to deliver longterm advantage to a business. This, in turn, requires technology to capture, codify, store, disseminate and reuse the knowledge. Any organization, before framing a strategy, should analyze the industry and should understand all relevant parameters of industry growth. This analysis would yield results on the industry parameters like growth/ recession buyer/supplier power leading to determining the attractiveness of competition. The competitor analysis would reveal the strategy adopted by the competitors and identify the possible future movements of the competitors and to predict the strategies that are likely to be adopted by them. An organization can gain competitive advantage and sustain it only if it is able to understand the needs of the customer and track the changes in the customer needs. In this context, the analysis of the needs of customer gains importance. An organization should assess the resources and capabilities, before formulating a strategy, since the resources and capabilities should aid the operationalization of the chosen strategy. The right combination of resources and capabilities in the context of a strategy can be discovered through the process of knowledge management. Knowledge Management Value Chain Knowledge management increases the ability of the organization to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into its business processes. Knowledge value is very difficult to measure and it is extracted when knowledge is used. Knowledge sharing increases the value of knowledge with abundance. Knowledge management value chain is a sequence of intellectual tasks by which knowledge workers build their employer? s unique competitive advantage and social and environmental benefits. There are four main value adding steps in the knowledge 10 management value chain; each stage adds value to raw data and information as they are transformed into usable knowledge. Acquisition Storage Dissemination Application Figure 02: Knowledge Management value chain Knowledge acquisition Organizations acquire knowledge in a number of ways, depending on the type of knowledge they seek. In a way, organizations acquire knowledge by developing online expert networks so that employees can â€Å"find the expert† in the company who has the knowledge in his or her head. Other than that firms have to create new knowledge by discovering patterns in corporate data or by using knowledge work stations where engineers can discover new knowledge. A coherent and organized knowledge system also requires systematic data from the firm? transaction processing systems (sales, payments, inventory, customers etc. ), news feeds, industry reports, legal opinions, scientific research and government statistics as well. Knowledge storage Knowledge storage generally involves the creation of a database. Expert systems also help corporations preserve the knowledge that is acquired by incorporating that knowledge into organiza tional process and culture. Management must support the development of planned knowledge storage systems to update and store documents properly. 11 Knowledge Dissemination Portal, e-mail, instant messaging and search engine technology have added to the existing technologies for sharing documents, data and graphics. Training programmes, informal networks and shared management experience communicated through a supportive culture help managers focus their attention on the important knowledge and information which is really important for their decisions and their work. Knowledge Application Knowledge that is not shared and applied to the practical problems facing firms and managers does not add business value. To provide a return on investment, organizational knowledge must become a systematic part of management decision making and become situated in decision support systems. An organizations can do this is to build online information databases that employees can access which works as an online knowledge bank. Other than this some knowledge management experts have suggest that organizations create â€Å"communities of practice†, which are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems or a passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in that area by interacting on an ongoing basis. Out of the four steps in knowledge management value chain, knowledge sharing is considered to be the most important one, and it is said â€Å"Knowledge sharing is the power† instead of â€Å"Knowledge is the Power†. In order to do this an organization must have a knowledge supporting culture, that management can support the knowledge creation and sharing. In line with that perfect human resource management is a prior functional area in an organization. Top management provides employees with a sense of direction by setting the standards for justifying the value of knowledge that is constantly being developed by the organization? members. Deciding which efforts to support and develop is a strategic task. (Harvard business review on Knowledge management, 2008) 12 Knowledge Applications in the Technological Aspect Business Problems ? ? ? Monitor service levels and costs Develop document access rules Management ? Document intensive business Fragmented information in legacy s ystems and manual processes ? ? ? Coordinate Documents and maintenance data Develop Document Access procedures Revise repair and maintenance procedures Organization Information systems Business solution ? ? Reduce time Reduse cost ? ? ? ? Implement oracle database Deploy laptops Technology Immediately access Equipment maintenance information Figure 03: Use of Technology in Knowledge Management Process The diagram shows how organizations can use technology in solving business problems and how an organization can reduce the time consumption and the cost by using information systems. These information systems would include transaction processing systems, management information systems, decision support systems, expert systems and intelligent systems etc. Knowledge Management Strategies There are mainly two types of knowledge management strategies. In some companies, the strategy centered on the computer. In that c knowledge is carefully codified and stored in databases, where it can be easily accessed and used by anyone in the company. This is called Codification Strategy. 13 Codification Strategy Codification strategy implies the theme; â€Å"people to documents†, pointing to develop an electronic document system that codifies, stores, disseminates, and allows reuse of knowledge. The companies that follow codification strategy rely on the† economics of reuse†. Once an organization invests in knowledge asset; they can reuse it many times. The reuse of knowledge saves work, reduces communication costs and allows a company to take on more projects. And the strategy focuses on generating large overall revenues. And also the organizations always think in the point of human resource management to hire new graduates who are suited to reuse knowledge and the implementation of solutions, to train people in groups and through computer based learning, to reward people for using and contributing to document databases. Earnest Young is an organization which uses this strategy as their knowledge management strategy. In other companies, knowledge is closely bounded to the person who developed it and is shared mainly through direct person to person contacts. In those companies main purpose of the computers is to help people to communicate knowledge, not to store it. This is called Personalization Strategy. Personalization Strategy And this strategy implies that â€Å"person to person† fact which points to develop networks for linking people so that tacit knowledge can be shared. In contrast to the codification strategy, the personalization strategy relies on the logic of â€Å"expert economics†. It focuses on maintaining high profit margins. But on the other hand the process of sharing deep knowledge is time consuming, expensive and slow. It can? t be made much efficient. The companies that applied this strategy as their knowledge management strategy; wish to hire people who like problem solving and can tolerate ambiguity and to reward people for directly sharing knowledge with others. Choosing the knowledge management strategy is not an arbitrary thing, it depends on the economics of the company, the way it serves its clients and the people it hires. Experts believe that the choice between codification and personalization is the central one facing virtually all 14 companies in the era of knowledge management. However an organization? s strategy for knowledge management reflects its competitive strategy; it creates value for customers; how that value support for customers; how that value supports an economic model and how the company? s people deliver on the value, because it is the leading fact and the base of all other functional areas in the organization for gaining the competitive advantage in the dynamic economy. Types of Knowledge Management systems in an Organization There are essentially three major types of knowledge management systems namely; enterprisewide knowledge management systems, knowledge work systems and intelligent techniques. Figure 3 shows the knowledge management system applications for each of these major categories. Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems Knowledge Work Systems Intelligent Techniques Structured knowledge systems Semi structured knowledge systems Knowledge network systems Computer aided design (CAD) Data mining 3 D Visualization Virtual reality -Neural networks Expert systems Intelligent Agents 1. Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems are general purpose firm wide efforts to collect, store, distribute and apply digital content and knowledge. They provide databases and tools for organizing and storing structured and unstructured documents and other knowledge objects for locating employees with expertise in a particular area including web based tools for collaboration and communication. Structu red knowledge systems: These systems perform the function of implementing the tagging, interface with corporate databases where the documents are stored and 15 reating an enterprise portal environment for employees to use when searching for corporate knowledge. Semi structured knowledge systems: These systems track, store and organize semi structured documents (folders, messages, proposals, e mails, slide presentations etc) Knowledge network systems: Knowledge network system addresses the problem that arises when the appropriate knowledge is tacit knowledge residing in the memory of expert individuals in the firm. Because such knowledge cannot be conveniently found, employees expend significant resources rediscovering knowledge. Knowledge network systems provide an online directory of corporate experts in well-defined knowledge domains and use communication technologies to make it easy for employees to find the appropriate expert in a company. 02. Knowledge work systems (KWS) are specialized systems built for professionals and other knowledge workers charged with discovering and creating new knowledge for an organization. The development of powerful networked work stations and software in the discovery of new knowledge has led to the creation of knowledge work systems. 03. Intelligent techniques have different objectives from a focus on discovering knowledge (through data mining and neural networks) to distilling knowledge (through expert systems and fuzzy logic) in the form of rules for a computer programme in order to discover optimal solutions for problems. Knowledge Portals Many organizations have integrated their content and document management capabilities with powerful portals and these will provide access to external sources of information, such as news feeds and research, as well as to internal knowledge resources along with capabilities for e mail, chat, discussion groups and video conferencing. Organizations are now using blogs, wikis and social book marking for internal use to facilitate the exchange of information between individuals and teams within organizations. 16 A learning Organization In more recent times, managers seem to be searching for new approaches to management. Fuelling this search is a range of new issues that modern managers face but that their historical counterparts did not. These issues include a concern about the competitive decline of western firms, the accelerating pace of technological change, the sophistication of customers, and an increasing emphasize on globalization. A new approach to management that is evolving to handle this new range of issues can e called as the learning organization approach. Organizational learning means the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding. Therefore under the organizational knowledge title organizational learning is another important fact which can be identified as a supportive term for the organizational knowledge. A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. Learning organizations emphasize systematic problem solving, experimentation, learning from their own experience and past history, transferring knowledge. These activities leading the organizations towards the fact of gaining competitive advantage by relying on the scientific method and data rather than assumptions, searching for and testing of new knowledge, reviewing their successes and failures, learning from others; specially from immediate environment, and spreading the knowledge throughout the organization quickly and efficiently. Actually the most important thing is that the using and sharing the knowledge which has collected. Otherwise there is no any created benefit from the knowledge to the organization, peculiarly learning from others and spreading the knowledge throughout the organization is become more important in this case. Learning occurs in two forms, those are single-loop and double-loop. Single loop learning asks a one dimensional question to expose one dimensional answer. Double loop learning takes an additional step or several additional steps. It might also ask why the current setting was chosen at the first place. In other words, it asks questions not only about objective facts but also reasons behind those facts. 17 A learning organization is focusing to create, acquire and transfer knowledge continuously from the environment and there by modify its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. This involves mainly three areas. An organization has to follow ongoing programmes, designed to produce incremental gains in knowledge. An example to indicate that an organization can import new ideas from outside and apply it to daily operations; a case study, General Electric’s impact program originally sent manufacturing managers to Japan to study factory innovations, such as quality circles and kanban cards, and then apply them in their own organizations. This program was one of the major reasons that General Electric recorded productivity gains averaging nearly 5 % over the last four years. (Harvard business review on Knowledge Management, 2008) Successful ongoing programmes also require an incentive system that favors risk taking. Employees must feel that the benefits of experimentation exceeds the costs; if not they will not participate. This is challenging for managers, since they must maintain accountability and control over experiments without stifling creativity by unduly penalizing employees for failures. Companies must learn from past experiences and should review their successes and failures, assess them systematically and record the lessons in a form that employees find open and accessible. 18 Learning and the Knowledge Management The knowledge continuum shows the process of transforming data in to knowledge and wisdom. The knowledge continuum In this continuous process organizations acquire knowledge throughout its life cycle. Therefore learning plays very important role in the knowledge management process. Its probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this as a basis for thought relating to the following diagram. ? ? ? ? A collection of data is not information. A collection of information is not knowledge. A collection of knowledge is not wisdom. A collection of wisdom is not truth. The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a synergy of its own. 19 8 Average Time (Hours) 4 6 Learning curve 2 10 20 quantity 60 30 40 120 180 240 Figure 07 – Learning Curve 20 Conclusion Organizations can achieve competitive advantage by focusing their knowledge Management efforts in harnessing their assets and competences in their core areas of operation, which can be identified by the value chain analysis approach. An organization progressively discover that value creating activities change over a period of time, and helps to identify value-creating activities faster thereby providing a strategic direction. As organizations evolve into more effective and efficient knowledge creators and knowledge consumers, the effects of knowledge management efforts should be measurable as knowledge management itself requires an investment of time, resources and manpower. Perhaps organizations will continue to create their own frameworks for valuation or be able to rely on a common methodology for such measurement regardless of the type of organization doing the evaluating. On the other hand, any organization, before framing a strategy, should analyze the industry and should understand all relevant parameters of industry growth. This analysis would yield results on the industry parameters like growth/ recession buyer/supplier power leading to determining the attractiveness of competition. The competitor analysis would reveal the strategy adopted by the competitors and identify the possible future movements of the competitors and to predict the strategies that are likely to be adopted by them. An organization can gain competitive advantage and sustain it only if it is able to understand the needs of the customer and track the changes in the customer needs. In this context, the analysis of the needs of customer gains importance. An organization should assess the resources and capabilities, before formulating a strategy, since the resources and capabilities should aid the operationalization of the chosen strategy. The right combination of resources and capabilities in the context of a strategy can be discovered through the process of knowledge management. In short, today? s organizations act with the theme of â€Å"Knowledge sharing is the power† instead of â€Å"Knowledge is the Power†, in order gain competitive advantages, by keeping a knowledge supporting culture, that management can support the knowledge creation and sharing, maintaining a perfect human resource policy which lead to minimize the employee turnover for the purpose of securing organizational memory in the organization. Organizational Knowledge Essay Example Organizational Knowledge Essay We live in an information economy in which the major source of wealth and prosperity is the production and distribution of information and knowledge. An era in which the key economic resource is knowledge is startlingly different from an era in which the key resources were capital, raw materials, land and labor. Emerging service economy trend lead many organizations towards the information base strategies to face and fight with the current business competitions. In that case knowledge plays a major role in every organization. In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. (Harvard Business Review) Therefore an organization? s most valuable assets are the people it employs. The ideas, experiences, expertise and knowledge contained in the mind of an individual may be worth more to an organization. In this case, Knowledge can be recognized as an important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage in organizations and many companies are beginning to manage organizational knowledge. Any organization that dynamically deals with a changing environment ought not only to process information efficiently but also create information and knowledge. (Lee Choi, 2003) 3 Organizational Knowledge It is often said that an organization? s most valuable assets are the people it employs. We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Knowledge specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The ideas, experiences, expertise and knowledge contained in the mind of an individual may be worth more to an organization than can be quantified with respect to how that knowledge is applied each day to save time, reduce costs, and advance the organization? s initiatives. How can an organization capitalize on individual knowledge? How do individuals contribute to subunits or groups within the organization to build and perpetuate group knowledge? How does individual and group knowledge become organizational knowledge that can be captured, reused, and applied to achieve measurable positive effects for the organization? When might extraorganizational knowledge be used to further increase or enhance the capabilities of an organization? In line with the topic; Organizational knowledge, we have to explores these questions, first by defining each knowledge type, then by examining how knowledge moves through an organization and becomes valuable organizational intellectual capital. Defining Knowledge Knowledge is a cognitive, a spiritual, event that take place inside people? s heads. There are two primary definitions of the knowledge as the Tacit Knowledge and the Explicit Knowledge. In simply knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has not been documented is called tacit knowledge, whereas knowledge that has been documented is called explicit knowledge. Tacit Knowledge Tacit Knowledge can be defined as knowledge that has not yet been codified from the outside the individual? s mind. On another words, knowledge that comes from experience and is difficult or impossible to communicate. It is intangible and consists of knowledge which is difficult to express and to communicate to other people. Also it is more difficult to transmit than codified knowledge and hard to formalize due to belonged personal qualities. Examples for tacit knowledge are; Awareness Mental models Wisdom Skills Expertise Corporate memory 4 Explicit Knowledge Explicit knowledge, in contrast, is the knowledge that can be codified and is transmittable in formal systematic language. (Nonaka 1994) It consists of knowledge which can be expressed in symbols, and which can be communicated through these symbols to other people. Knowledge can reside in e-mail, unstructured documents, hand books, manuals can be listed under this category. Examples for explicit knowledge are; Databases, statistics, collections Books, publications, reports, documents, correspondence Photographs, diagrams, illustrations Computer code, expert systems, decision support systems Presentations, speeches, lectures Recorded experiences, stories Materials for education, teaching and training Laws, regulations, procedures, rules, policies Individual Knowledge Individual knowledge can be defined simply as knowledge possessed by the individual. This knowledge is most often tacit unless the individual possesses explicit knowledge that is not shared with anyone or any organization other than the individual. A private journal or private blog might be considered explicit individual knowledge. Individual knowledge can be acquired through experiences, and at times it can be acquired without language. When an individual is acquiring knowledge from observing another person? s actions, and once the individual applies his or her own experiences and background to what is learned it becomes individual knowledge. The creation of new „individual? knowledge derived from observation, imitation and practice is called socialization, or tacit to tacit knowledge sharing. Individual knowledge can certainly develop from explicit knowledge. What a person reads, for example, can contribute to new thoughts and ideas in the mind of the individual. This method of knowledge creation is referred to as internalization – turning explicit knowledge into 5 tacit knowledge. By reading or acquiring explicit knowledge, independent thought and analysis can develop into new, individual knowledge. An individual can make a greater contribution to the knowledge sharing and creation process by allowing their knowledge to be internalized by others or socializing their knowledge with others, which leads to the creation of group knowledge. Group Knowledge Group knowledge might be defined as individual knowledge that multiple individuals rely upon as truth, share and understand. Group knowledge is â€Å"broadcast information† (Correa da Silva Cullell, 56), but is not necessarily information shared „publicly? (i. e. â€Å"common knowledge†). Group knowledge can be generated and disseminated through socialization and often results in the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, or externalization. When groups come together and exchange ideas, â€Å"individual knowledge is synthesized to arrive at group knowledge, which eventually becomes routing at the organizational level. Thus, the transformation of individual knowledge into organizational routines leads to complex and embodied organizational knowledge. When group knowledge from several subunits or groups is combined and used to create new knowledge, the resulting tacit and explicit knowledge can be called organizational knowledge. 6 Important Dimensions of Knowledge Knowledge is a firm asset Knowledge is an intangible asset. Knowledge is not subject to the law of diminishing returns as physical assets, but its value increases as more people share it. Knowledge has different forms Knowledge can be either tacit or explicit (codified) Knowledge involves know-how, craft and skill Knowledge involves knowing how to follow procedures Knowledge has a location Knowledge is a cognitive event involving mental models and maps of individuals There is both a social and an individual basis of knowledge Knowledge is sticky, situated, and contextual Knowledge is situational Knowledge is conditional: Knowing when to apply a procedure is just as important as knowing the procedure Knowledge is related to context SOURCE: Laudon and Laudon, 2008. Management Information Systems Knowledge Creation New knowledge always begins with the individual. Making personal knowledge available to others is the central activity of the knowledge creating company. It takes place continuously and at all levels of the organization. Organizational knowledge creation may be explicated by the interchange between tacit and explicit knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), â€Å"tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize, making it difficult to communicate or to share with others. Subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches fall into this category of knowledge†. On the other 7 hand, explicit knowledge is more easily transmitted as it is characteristically codified. As such, explicit knowledge is more easily processed and shared with others. According to the theory, the process of knowledge conversion proceeds through four different modes: 1. Socialization (the conversion of tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge) 2. Combination (the conversion of explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge) 3. Externalization (the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge) and 4. Internalization (the conversion of explicit to tacit knowledge) Socialization During the socialization mode, tacit knowledge is transferred through interactions between individuals, which may also be accomplished in the absence of language; individuals may learn and gain a sense of competence by observing behavior modeled by others. For example, mentoring and apprenticeships instruct tacitly through observation, imitation, and practice. Combination The combination mode of knowledge conversion embodies the aggregation of multiple examples of explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). Explicit knowledge may be exchanged during meetings or conferences in which a diversity of knowledge sources combines to shape a new and enhanced conception. Externalization The externalization mode of the knowledge conversion spiral references the translation of tacit knowledge into explicit. Metaphors are recommended as a way to facilitate this translation (Nonaka, 1994). Metaphors assist individuals in explaining concealed (i. e. , tacit) concepts that are otherwise difficult to articulate by assisting individuals in forming impressions based on â€Å"imagination and intuitive learning through symbols†. Internalization The conversion of explicit to tacit knowledge, i. e. , the internalization mode occurs through a series of iterations in which concepts become concrete and ultimately absorbed as an integral 8 belief or value. Where externalization utilizes metaphors to facilitate knowledge conversion, internalization represents an active process of learning. Nonaka (1994) describes this as â€Å"participants†¦.. sharing explicit knowledge that is gradually translated, through interaction and a process of trial-and-error, into different aspects of tacit knowledge. It is found most commonly at highly successful Japanese companies such as Honda, Canon, Matushita and Sharp are in focusing to the knowledge creation. Managers in these companies recognize that creating new knowledge is not simply a matter of mechanistically â€Å"Processing† objective information. The knowledge creation process The mutual exchange of tacit and explicit knowledge that describes the knowledge creation process is initiated at the level of the individual employee or organizational member. Because individuals are an integral component of this conversion process, their commitment to knowledge creation is critical. According to Nonaka (1994), knowledge creation may be activated when organizational members have freedom and sufficient purpose to pursue new knowledge. A continuous process of questioning and reconsidering existing premises by individual members of the organization fosters organizational knowledge creation† (Nonaka Takeuchi, 1995). Knowledge Management For hundreds of years, owners of family businesses have passed their commercial wisdom on to their children, master artificer have taught their trades to followers, and workers have exchanged their knowledge on the job. Therefore knowledge management is nothing new, but until the 1990s that managers were not talking about knowledge management. (Harvard Business Review) When the industrialized economies have shifted from natural resources to intellectual assets, managers have been constrained to censor the knowledge underlying their businesses and how that knowledge is used. At that same time rice of technological devices using; mainly computers has made it possible to codify, store, and share certain kind of knowledge more easily than ever. In current business environment, Knowledge management has become an important theme at many large business firms as managers realize that much of their firm? s value depends on firm? s ability to create and manage knowledge. (Laudon Laudon). Studies have found that a substantial part of a firm? s stock market value is related to its intangible assets, of which knowledge is one important component, along with brands, reputations, and unique business processes (Gu and Lev, 2001). Well executed knowledge-based projects have been known to produce extra ordinary returns on investment, although knowledge-based investments are difficult to measure (Blair and Wallman, 2001). Knowledge Management is the process of leveraging organizational knowledge to deliver longterm advantage to a business. This, in turn, requires technology to capture, codify, store, disseminate and reuse the knowledge. Any organization, before framing a strategy, should analyze the industry and should understand all relevant parameters of industry growth. This analysis would yield results on the industry parameters like growth/ recession buyer/supplier power leading to determining the attractiveness of competition. The competitor analysis would reveal the strategy adopted by the competitors and identify the possible future movements of the competitors and to predict the strategies that are likely to be adopted by them. An organization can gain competitive advantage and sustain it only if it is able to understand the needs of the customer and track the changes in the customer needs. In this context, the analysis of the needs of customer gains importance. An organization should assess the resources and capabilities, before formulating a strategy, since the resources and capabilities should aid the operationalization of the chosen strategy. The right combination of resources and capabilities in the context of a strategy can be discovered through the process of knowledge management. Knowledge Management Value Chain Knowledge management increases the ability of the organization to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into its business processes. Knowledge value is very difficult to measure and it is extracted when knowledge is used. Knowledge sharing increases the value of knowledge with abundance. Knowledge management value chain is a sequence of intellectual tasks by which knowledge workers build their employer? s unique competitive advantage and social and environmental benefits. There are four main value adding steps in the knowledge 10 management value chain; each stage adds value to raw data and information as they are transformed into usable knowledge. Acquisition Storage Dissemination Application Figure 02: Knowledge Management value chain Knowledge acquisition Organizations acquire knowledge in a number of ways, depending on the type of knowledge they seek. In a way, organizations acquire knowledge by developing online expert networks so that employees can â€Å"find the expert† in the company who has the knowledge in his or her head. Other than that firms have to create new knowledge by discovering patterns in corporate data or by using knowledge work stations where engineers can discover new knowledge. A coherent and organized knowledge system also requires systematic data from the firm? transaction processing systems (sales, payments, inventory, customers etc. ), news feeds, industry reports, legal opinions, scientific research and government statistics as well. Knowledge storage Knowledge storage generally involves the creation of a database. Expert systems also help corporations preserve the knowledge that is acquired by incorporating that knowledge into organiza tional process and culture. Management must support the development of planned knowledge storage systems to update and store documents properly. 11 Knowledge Dissemination Portal, e-mail, instant messaging and search engine technology have added to the existing technologies for sharing documents, data and graphics. Training programmes, informal networks and shared management experience communicated through a supportive culture help managers focus their attention on the important knowledge and information which is really important for their decisions and their work. Knowledge Application Knowledge that is not shared and applied to the practical problems facing firms and managers does not add business value. To provide a return on investment, organizational knowledge must become a systematic part of management decision making and become situated in decision support systems. An organizations can do this is to build online information databases that employees can access which works as an online knowledge bank. Other than this some knowledge management experts have suggest that organizations create â€Å"communities of practice†, which are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems or a passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in that area by interacting on an ongoing basis. Out of the four steps in knowledge management value chain, knowledge sharing is considered to be the most important one, and it is said â€Å"Knowledge sharing is the power† instead of â€Å"Knowledge is the Power†. In order to do this an organization must have a knowledge supporting culture, that management can support the knowledge creation and sharing. In line with that perfect human resource management is a prior functional area in an organization. Top management provides employees with a sense of direction by setting the standards for justifying the value of knowledge that is constantly being developed by the organization? members. Deciding which efforts to support and develop is a strategic task. (Harvard business review on Knowledge management, 2008) 12 Knowledge Applications in the Technological Aspect Business Problems ? ? ? Monitor service levels and costs Develop document access rules Management ? Document intensive business Fragmented information in legacy s ystems and manual processes ? ? ? Coordinate Documents and maintenance data Develop Document Access procedures Revise repair and maintenance procedures Organization Information systems Business solution ? ? Reduce time Reduse cost ? ? ? ? Implement oracle database Deploy laptops Technology Immediately access Equipment maintenance information Figure 03: Use of Technology in Knowledge Management Process The diagram shows how organizations can use technology in solving business problems and how an organization can reduce the time consumption and the cost by using information systems. These information systems would include transaction processing systems, management information systems, decision support systems, expert systems and intelligent systems etc. Knowledge Management Strategies There are mainly two types of knowledge management strategies. In some companies, the strategy centered on the computer. In that c knowledge is carefully codified and stored in databases, where it can be easily accessed and used by anyone in the company. This is called Codification Strategy. 13 Codification Strategy Codification strategy implies the theme; â€Å"people to documents†, pointing to develop an electronic document system that codifies, stores, disseminates, and allows reuse of knowledge. The companies that follow codification strategy rely on the† economics of reuse†. Once an organization invests in knowledge asset; they can reuse it many times. The reuse of knowledge saves work, reduces communication costs and allows a company to take on more projects. And the strategy focuses on generating large overall revenues. And also the organizations always think in the point of human resource management to hire new graduates who are suited to reuse knowledge and the implementation of solutions, to train people in groups and through computer based learning, to reward people for using and contributing to document databases. Earnest Young is an organization which uses this strategy as their knowledge management strategy. In other companies, knowledge is closely bounded to the person who developed it and is shared mainly through direct person to person contacts. In those companies main purpose of the computers is to help people to communicate knowledge, not to store it. This is called Personalization Strategy. Personalization Strategy And this strategy implies that â€Å"person to person† fact which points to develop networks for linking people so that tacit knowledge can be shared. In contrast to the codification strategy, the personalization strategy relies on the logic of â€Å"expert economics†. It focuses on maintaining high profit margins. But on the other hand the process of sharing deep knowledge is time consuming, expensive and slow. It can? t be made much efficient. The companies that applied this strategy as their knowledge management strategy; wish to hire people who like problem solving and can tolerate ambiguity and to reward people for directly sharing knowledge with others. Choosing the knowledge management strategy is not an arbitrary thing, it depends on the economics of the company, the way it serves its clients and the people it hires. Experts believe that the choice between codification and personalization is the central one facing virtually all 14 companies in the era of knowledge management. However an organization? s strategy for knowledge management reflects its competitive strategy; it creates value for customers; how that value support for customers; how that value supports an economic model and how the company? s people deliver on the value, because it is the leading fact and the base of all other functional areas in the organization for gaining the competitive advantage in the dynamic economy. Types of Knowledge Management systems in an Organization There are essentially three major types of knowledge management systems namely; enterprisewide knowledge management systems, knowledge work systems and intelligent techniques. Figure 3 shows the knowledge management system applications for each of these major categories. Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems Knowledge Work Systems Intelligent Techniques Structured knowledge systems Semi structured knowledge systems Knowledge network systems Computer aided design (CAD) Data mining 3 D Visualization Virtual reality -Neural networks Expert systems Intelligent Agents 1. Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems are general purpose firm wide efforts to collect, store, distribute and apply digital content and knowledge. They provide databases and tools for organizing and storing structured and unstructured documents and other knowledge objects for locating employees with expertise in a particular area including web based tools for collaboration and communication. Structu red knowledge systems: These systems perform the function of implementing the tagging, interface with corporate databases where the documents are stored and 15 reating an enterprise portal environment for employees to use when searching for corporate knowledge. Semi structured knowledge systems: These systems track, store and organize semi structured documents (folders, messages, proposals, e mails, slide presentations etc) Knowledge network systems: Knowledge network system addresses the problem that arises when the appropriate knowledge is tacit knowledge residing in the memory of expert individuals in the firm. Because such knowledge cannot be conveniently found, employees expend significant resources rediscovering knowledge. Knowledge network systems provide an online directory of corporate experts in well-defined knowledge domains and use communication technologies to make it easy for employees to find the appropriate expert in a company. 02. Knowledge work systems (KWS) are specialized systems built for professionals and other knowledge workers charged with discovering and creating new knowledge for an organization. The development of powerful networked work stations and software in the discovery of new knowledge has led to the creation of knowledge work systems. 03. Intelligent techniques have different objectives from a focus on discovering knowledge (through data mining and neural networks) to distilling knowledge (through expert systems and fuzzy logic) in the form of rules for a computer programme in order to discover optimal solutions for problems. Knowledge Portals Many organizations have integrated their content and document management capabilities with powerful portals and these will provide access to external sources of information, such as news feeds and research, as well as to internal knowledge resources along with capabilities for e mail, chat, discussion groups and video conferencing. Organizations are now using blogs, wikis and social book marking for internal use to facilitate the exchange of information between individuals and teams within organizations. 16 A learning Organization In more recent times, managers seem to be searching for new approaches to management. Fuelling this search is a range of new issues that modern managers face but that their historical counterparts did not. These issues include a concern about the competitive decline of western firms, the accelerating pace of technological change, the sophistication of customers, and an increasing emphasize on globalization. A new approach to management that is evolving to handle this new range of issues can e called as the learning organization approach. Organizational learning means the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding. Therefore under the organizational knowledge title organizational learning is another important fact which can be identified as a supportive term for the organizational knowledge. A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. Learning organizations emphasize systematic problem solving, experimentation, learning from their own experience and past history, transferring knowledge. These activities leading the organizations towards the fact of gaining competitive advantage by relying on the scientific method and data rather than assumptions, searching for and testing of new knowledge, reviewing their successes and failures, learning from others; specially from immediate environment, and spreading the knowledge throughout the organization quickly and efficiently. Actually the most important thing is that the using and sharing the knowledge which has collected. Otherwise there is no any created benefit from the knowledge to the organization, peculiarly learning from others and spreading the knowledge throughout the organization is become more important in this case. Learning occurs in two forms, those are single-loop and double-loop. Single loop learning asks a one dimensional question to expose one dimensional answer. Double loop learning takes an additional step or several additional steps. It might also ask why the current setting was chosen at the first place. In other words, it asks questions not only about objective facts but also reasons behind those facts. 17 A learning organization is focusing to create, acquire and transfer knowledge continuously from the environment and there by modify its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. This involves mainly three areas. An organization has to follow ongoing programmes, designed to produce incremental gains in knowledge. An example to indicate that an organization can import new ideas from outside and apply it to daily operations; a case study, General Electric’s impact program originally sent manufacturing managers to Japan to study factory innovations, such as quality circles and kanban cards, and then apply them in their own organizations. This program was one of the major reasons that General Electric recorded productivity gains averaging nearly 5 % over the last four years. (Harvard business review on Knowledge Management, 2008) Successful ongoing programmes also require an incentive system that favors risk taking. Employees must feel that the benefits of experimentation exceeds the costs; if not they will not participate. This is challenging for managers, since they must maintain accountability and control over experiments without stifling creativity by unduly penalizing employees for failures. Companies must learn from past experiences and should review their successes and failures, assess them systematically and record the lessons in a form that employees find open and accessible. 18 Learning and the Knowledge Management The knowledge continuum shows the process of transforming data in to knowledge and wisdom. The knowledge continuum In this continuous process organizations acquire knowledge throughout its life cycle. Therefore learning plays very important role in the knowledge management process. Its probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this as a basis for thought relating to the following diagram. ? ? ? ? A collection of data is not information. A collection of information is not knowledge. A collection of knowledge is not wisdom. A collection of wisdom is not truth. The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a synergy of its own. 19 8 Average Time (Hours) 4 6 Learning curve 2 10 20 quantity 60 30 40 120 180 240 Figure 07 – Learning Curve 20 Conclusion Organizations can achieve competitive advantage by focusing their knowledge Management efforts in harnessing their assets and competences in their core areas of operation, which can be identified by the value chain analysis approach. An organization progressively discover that value creating activities change over a period of time, and helps to identify value-creating activities faster thereby providing a strategic direction. As organizations evolve into more effective and efficient knowledge creators and knowledge consumers, the effects of knowledge management efforts should be measurable as knowledge management itself requires an investment of time, resources and manpower. Perhaps organizations will continue to create their own frameworks for valuation or be able to rely on a common methodology for such measurement regardless of the type of organization doing the evaluating. On the other hand, any organization, before framing a strategy, should analyze the industry and should understand all relevant parameters of industry growth. This analysis would yield results on the industry parameters like growth/ recession buyer/supplier power leading to determining the attractiveness of competition. The competitor analysis would reveal the strategy adopted by the competitors and identify the possible future movements of the competitors and to predict the strategies that are likely to be adopted by them. An organization can gain competitive advantage and sustain it only if it is able to understand the needs of the customer and track the changes in the customer needs. In this context, the analysis of the needs of customer gains importance. An organization should assess the resources and capabilities, before formulating a strategy, since the resources and capabilities should aid the operationalization of the chosen strategy. The right combination of resources and capabilities in the context of a strategy can be discovered through the process of knowledge management. In short, today? s organizations act with the theme of â€Å"Knowledge sharing is the power† instead of â€Å"Knowledge is the Power†, in order gain competitive advantages, by keeping a knowledge supporting culture, that management can support the knowledge creation and sharing, maintaining a perfect human resource policy which lead to minimize the employee turnover for the purpose of securing organizational memory in the organization.

Armada essays

Armada essays From 1586-1588 King Phillip II prepared a large fleet of ships to sail from Spain to the straits of Dover. The war ships of the Armada (armed feet), were to carry extra soldiers and protect the duke of Parmas Spanish army. The Spanish Armada of 1588 attacked England on July 12th. One hundred and thirty massive ships failed in its mission to end English meddling in Spanish affairs. King Phillip II of Spain saw England as a dangerous nuisance. King Phillip had many reasons to want to get rid of Queen Elizabeth. For twenty years English ships had attacked Spanish treasure ships and raiding some Spanish towns in the Americas. Queen Elizabeth refused to punish the privateers and would not give the riches back. King Phillip thought that it was wrong to punish the Catholics in England. Also Elizabeth funded money to the Spanish enemies and she had English soldiers fight along with the Dutch rebels. Kings Phillips plan to invade was actually a good plan but it wasnt well thought out by his soldiers. Phillip brought together a large army of soldiers in the Netherlands under the Duke of Parma and then got them ready to invade England. He had a large fleet of ships carry fighting men, equipment and supplies from Spain to the straits of Dover and join up with the Duke of Parmas army. As a result of the Armada England was a much more powerful nation. Elizabeth could be reasonably secure in the knowledge that another invasion was not likely, certainly within the next few years. The Spanish had fewer ships with which they could protect their trading ships and so English sailors could plunder with greater ease. The failure of the Armada made England a much more powerful nation. ...

The Causes and Psychological Effect of Bullying in High School Essay

The Causes and Psychological Effect of Bullying in High School - Essay Example These types of bullying are often carried out on the victims based on their sexuality, gender, race, religion, abilities, body size, and age among other features (Carey, P. 34). From these factors that promote bullying, it is apparent that the power imbalances that favor and promote bullying could be social, economic, and physical powers. Although bullying affects the bullied more than the bully, the stereotypical notion that the bullied is never affected by his/her actions should be revised. That is to say, the portrayal of a bully as some tough and self-confident individual who conquers all his/her victims no longer stands. Besides harming their victims, high school bullies are also emotionally, physically, and psychologically affected by their actions (Carey, P. 89). In fact, psychological instability has been identified as a major cause of bullying tendencies in high school bullies. It can therefore be asserted without fear of contradiction that ‘true bullies’ are qu ite rare since most bullies are also affected or bullied by their actions. This paper therefore explores the causes of bullying and the emotional and psychological effects of high school bullying on bullies. Causes of High School Bullying Despite the recently reported increased awareness of bullying in high schools, little has been achieved as far as reducing the cases of bullying in schools are concerned. This situation may be due to the fact that the identification and the tackling of the real causes of high school bullying are still quite big challenges to parents and teachers. There are numerous causes of high school bullying that are however quite apparent and concerned parties such as teachers and parents should take them into account. In other words, it appears that the only affective solution to high school violence is the identification of the variety of reasons for which high school students become bullies. The first cause of high school bullying is frustration. The cause of frustration in these cases could be impairments and such impaired students may be resentful if such impairment is not being recognized. These impairments include allergy, undiagnosed PTSD, learning disabilities, autism, deafness, and dyslexia among other difficulties. The frustration particularly stems from the fact that these impaired students are expected to perform at par with the other able-bodied classmates. The matter is made worse by the fact that no attempts are made to identify the source of their frustration. The second cause of high school bullying is bad or lack of role models for high school students at home and the larger communities they come from. Absence of proper role models to look up to results in high school students missing the opportunity to learn positive behavior skills. Coupled to this cause is abuse at home, which results in abused children expressing their anger on their classmates. Family neglect just like home abuse causes retardation in childrenâ₠¬â„¢s emotional, psychological, and behavioral developments. The other causes of high school bullying are undue influence from friends or crowds, conduct disorders, personality disorders, and antisocial disorders. Psychological and Emotional Effects of Bullying There are several psychological effects that researchers have found high school bullies to be prone to including low self-esteem, childhood and adulthood behavioral problems, and depression disorders and other psychological disorders. Besides

Financial Ratios. Jardine Cycle and Carriage Research Paper

Financial Ratios. Jardine Cycle and Carriage - Research Paper Example SWOT Analysis from Financial Perspective 13 5. Conclusion and Recommendation 14 6. References 16 16 7. Appendices 21 7.1 Appendix 1: Profit and Loss Account of Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd. (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007) 21 7.2 Appendix 2: Balance Sheet of Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd. (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007) 24 7.3 Summary/Workings for Financial Ratios 27 1. Introduction 1.1 Financial Health of the Company Jardine Cycle and Carriage Limited is an investment bearing company. The company is engaged in the processes of manufacturing, assembling, distributing and selling through retail chains various motorcycles and motor parts. The company operates in various parts of the world: Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia (Bloomberg Business Week, 2011). The paper has been designed with the aim of assessing the financial position of the company. Although Jardine Cycle and Carriage is a company dealing with diversifying businesses, the focus of the company is upon the market of Southeast Asia . In the list of Singapore’s top companies, Jardine Cycle and Carriage is raked within the top 20 positions. The company is holding a stake of 50.1% in Astra and has strong strategic interest upon it. However, the company undertakes its business within the automotive segment of the market. In the recent times, the financial health of the company is much influenced by its record performance due to its stake in Astra. Though the conditions of trading in Singapore and Vietnam stock markets are challenging, the company has depicted satisfactory performance for its stakeholders. The satisfaction was provided through announcement of proposed 69% enhancement in the full year dividend of the company. The financial health of the company can be summarised through the fact that the chief businesses of the company had achieved a tremendous growth during the year 2010. The financial health even strengthened through the firmness of Rupiah in Indonesia (Jardine Cycle & Carriage, 2010). 1.2 Investment (Investors’) Objective of the Company The investment objective of Jardine Cycle and Carriage from the perspective of enhancing investors’ stake in the company is to attain a wider foundation of earning for the investors. The company aims at continuously striving for investment opportunities with sustenance of its investment position in its various business segments, i.e., financial services, automotive, agribusiness, infrastructure and logistics, heavy equipment and mining and information technology (Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd., 2011). The group Managing Director (MD) is confident about the future outlook of the company in the coming days and hopes that the company would definitely succeed in sustaining its strong position within the region’s automotive market. The investment decision that the company wants to sustain for maintaining its strong position within the market is with regards to extension of its assortment of dealerships all around the wo rld (Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd., 2011). 2. Company Financial Background The financial background of the company is much dependent upon the business activities that it performs. The following figure depicts the groups of business activities performed by Jardine Cycle and Carriage: Source: ((Jardine Cycle & Carriage, 2010). Astra, where the company holds its major stake, had depicted great performance during the year 2010 with record profit earnings. Astra performed excellently in each segments of its businesses apart from contract mining. The functions of Astra with respect to its consumer finance segment were able to generate enormous profits with the improvement in the debt position, constant margin of interest rates and proficient liquidity

Public Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Public Policy - Essay Example The 2012/2013 budget plan of the state that was approved by the Governor and Legislature in June 2012. In the event that the voters reject this policy measure, the budget have a backup plan that demands reduction in spending, also referred to as trigger cuts. The policy affects the upper income tax payers because they are the one to pay additional tax for the funding of the state’s budgeted programs. However, the beneficiaries of the policy range from community colleges and schools, universities, department of development services, department of parks and recreation, department of fish and game, city police departments among other funded educational programs.The Proposition 30 will increase the rate of Sales Tax from 2013 all the way to 2016 by 9.3%. This policy measure will increase statewide rate of sales tax by almost one quarter for each dollar of purchased goods. The policy will be effective for four years. The Proposition 30 will also increase the rates of Personal Incom e Tax from 2012 to 2018. The policy measure will increase the already existing 9.3 percent rates on the higher incomes. The supplementary marginal rate of tax will increase with the increase in taxable income. The policy will add state revenue from 2018 through to 2019. Through the fiscal years in which both the personal income tax and sales tax increases as stated above due to phasing in and phasing out of the higher rates of taxes, the smaller increases in revenue are likely to be seen in 2011/2012, 2017/2018, and 2018/2019.

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) in the Recession

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) in the Recession Abstract In this assignment is presented briefly the world economic recession, the definition of strategic management and is analyzed the role of Strategic Human Resource Management as well as the HRM Policies during the economic crisis. Finally, are proposed some solutions of reducing HRM costs, following the minimizing cost strategy of the companies and presented the potential contribution to the long-term success of a company after the end of the recession. Introduction Every business adopts strategies of acting. The business strategy the that a company adapts and applies is directly linked with its day-by-day changing commercial, economic, technical, ethical and social environment. (Georgopoulos,2006) Until now, businesses were taking in account the factors of a continuously augmenting globalization of the markets and the non-stop pushing from the international competition (Scroggins W., Benson Ph., 2010), the poor ability of the company to protect itself from the increasing menaces from the external environment and technological and administrative opportunities are spread between the society and the business. (Georgopoulos, 2006) World Economic Recession In these factors that bring uncertainty to the company is added the economic recession that burst about two / three years ago. Recession is a phase of business cycle in which there is a significant reduction in economic activity, which is obvious in income, employment, industrial production and sales. As consequence a lot of companies are trying to survive, focused mostly in cost leadership strategy, a strategy that its goal is the minimizing of the costs of production. Strategic Management Strategic Management refers to the most difficult challenge that an organization confronts, on how through the competition for survival and prevalence in the market in the present, will put foundation for a success in the future.(Georgopoulos, 2006) Maximizing Performance is the main goal of all managers, which means the level that the organizations reach their organizational goals with efficiency and effectiveness. This will result the companys success in the long run. (Georgopoulos, 2006) Strategic Human Resource Management and its Role in Present Recession SHRM is a strategic approach of managing one of the most important elements of an organization, its working force. The need of SHRM is more intense in present days, as economies are under recession, businesses have losses and a vast number of people lose their jobs all around the world (Harness T., 2009). The administration of every firm has a cost reduction strategy, searching for potential cost savings and thinking twice of spending its income. The HRM costs are usually significant costs and are usually the first that are reduced in an economic crisis. In situations like this, the HRM has to react quickly, supporting the organization in protecting incoming cash and reducing its operational costs. This is pressing for HRM, as it has to change its focus rapidly, from the pleasant strategies of the economic growth, taken for granted by the employees, to unpopular cost cutting strategies. In this way, HRM contributes to the survival of the business, maximizing its performance if it is possible and to its success after the exit of the recession, having already recruited the most talented employees with the less possible cost, leading the organization to the competitive advantage in the future market (FergusonK., 2009). Unfortunately, for achieving this, HRM adopts unpopular innovations; policies and procedures may be cancelled or postponed; but also this could be helpful for HRM to introduce modern policies of high standard, making the organizations healthier after the recession. Until now, has been observed a trend of the businesses where the majority of companies has fired employees directly after the burst of the crisis and replaced low-performing employees with high performing. Also a big amount of them hire only temporary personnel and augment the size of IT applications. As a result, some of the HRM processes can be strongly affected and some other not to be affected at all. SHRM of Recession and HRM Policies There are policies of HRM that are heavily affected by the recession in the strategy of minimizing the costs, such as planning of workforce, recruitment, training, benefits already given to employees, performance management and appraisal, which have to be minimized immediately. Other practices are less affected, such as job analysis, recruitment, testing, selection, interviewing and development, in which the costs can be more easily reduced . Job Analysis, Planning and Recruitment during the recession In these activities of HRM, the one that has to be almost eliminated is the recruitment. Most of the businesses stop recruitment completely or they reduce it to minimum. This affects the activities of job analysis and planning, as there are no incoming employees. The HR department is really careful of identifying the needs in personnel of the company and designs work positions that cover a larger field of duties and have less specialization. Additionally, they can build a brand name this period, creating job campaigns that will attract talents with the minimum cost. They reschedule simultaneously the planning of the working force of the company and its organizational structure, redirecting the employees in other departments. In this way the costs in money and time from recruitment are almost eliminated instantly (Richbell S., 2010). Testing, Interviewing and Selection during the recession These three activities are not affected so much, as long as there is at least some recruitment, as there are ways to make their costs disappear, mostly through technological tools (Polychroniou P., 2009) that give the opportunity to the companies to test and interview with no cost of transportation, residence of the interviewers, materials etc. On the other hand, always businesses wish to have talented employees, thinking of their performance and success after the end of the recession. In this case, the crisis enables companies of mapping and targetting the really talented employees that maybe they are working for the competitors or are victims of the recession. And all these will cost to the company less than in a growth period (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2010). Training and Development during the recession Training will follow the pace of the recruitment as it is costly to train the new employees, as long as they exist. It has huge costs in time and money, so the companies prefer already experienced employees, victims of the recession, to avoid these costs. On the contrary, development is really significant during the recession time. This is the HR practice less affected by recession, as can be done with low cost, using IT solutions, and prepares the business for the exit of the economic crisis, maximizing the performance and contributing in the long-term success. The development can be diminished to the key personnel, identify the top performers and concentrate to the really capable of achieving good performance (Malik F., 2009). Performance management, Benefits and Appraisal during recession A company has after the check of performance of its employees to make a quick classification between good and average employees. This will make also the average or bad employees to be pressed to perform. Also, employees with average performance in a department can be redirected to another one, which will give them additional skills as well. Finally, for maximizing their performance the HR department has to listen to the employees, to keep them motivated and be sincere with them about the difficulties of the period, so that they will trust the administration, they will help it to face the appraising problems by feedback and will augment their willingness for higher performance. Additionally, creating a vision and making them part of it, will increase the level of commitment of the employees (Pate J., 2010). From what the business can save a huge amount of money are the bonuses that can be significantly reduced, without touching the base salaries of its employees, as they are really sensitive in this (Armstrong M., 2011). In the same manner, in the appraisal process, the promotions can be re-evaluated and can be done only the needed ones, trying to minimize the salary augmentation and strengthen their development programs(Armstrong M., 2011). SHRM Solutions for Companies during recession In bad economic periods, companies neglect investing in HRM, as they think of these periods suitable for cutting benefits and firing employees. In the contrary, companies should take advantage of these periods, to prepare themselves for the next period of strong economic growth. Innovation leads to competitive advantage Innovation results out of change, which demands an organizational culture willing to accept it. The contribution of HRM in organizational culture, makes it a really important function of the business nowadays. The innovations that HRM can implement in organizational culture of the company are (Benevene P., 2010): collaborate with ecological ways of communication reducing costs; increase the satisfaction of employees making them feeling important, sharing with them the vision of company; introduce the flexible working transforming it from an employee benefit to a cost controlling strategy (Atkinson C., 2011); increase the employee engagement to the performance of the company; attract and keep talented employees(Pate J., 2010). In this way, HRM, through innovative strategies contribute to the exit of a company from the recession, lowering the costs and maximizing business performance. Being focused on organizational culture, through its processes and the help of technology, HRM can offer real benefit to the company. Conclusion In this period of world economic recession, the HRM has to react in a fast and efficient way, as the longer an introducing solution needs, the less is appropriate. A company with HR department reporting, controlling and innovating all its processes, can be leaded in a huge competitive advantage after the crisis comparing to its competitors, improving or maximize the performance of its employees and as a consequence the performance of the organization and thus, considered to have achieved success in the long run (Kats M., 2010).

capital punishment :: essays research papers

Capital Punishment and Deterrence Abstract Capitol Punishment has been around since the beginning of mankind; eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Since then the public have debated for or against capital punishment revolving around issues of deterrence, retribution, discrimination and Irreversibility. Leaving us with the responsibility to analyze the factors surrounding capital punishment. A number of studies have also been done specifically on the deterrent effects of capital punishment. Many officials believes that capital punishment not only prevent s the offender from committing additional crimes but deters others as well. The research of Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon J. Hawkins demonstrated that punishment is an effective deterrent for those who are criminally inclined. Another research has been to examine murder rates in given areas both before and after an execution. Clear and cole(2000) have examined more than 200 studies evaluating the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring crime. A recent study found that a significant deterrent effect is associated with the increased use of capital punishment since 1977 ( Dezhbakhsh, Rubin and Shepherd, 2001). Michael Radelet and Ronald Akers attempted to determine if having the Death Penalty indeed act as a deterrent on criminal homicide. Is the theory of â€Å"Just Deserts† (Bedau, 1978; Finckenenauer, 1998) in anyway credible? It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, making criminals reap what they sow. Most believe that in order to assure deserts, the punishment should always fit the crime. It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishment on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict. ( Bedau 1978). However the principle of just deserts is understood to require that the severity of punishments must be proportional to the gravity of the crime, and that murder being the gravest crime deserves the severest punishment, then the principle is no doubt sound. But it does not compel support for the death penalty. What it does require is that crimes other than murder be punished with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the punishment of murder. Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and punished with severity appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits -- imposed both by justice and

Learning English through Social Issue

Sexy photos of teen models are polished in magazines and you fell that these photos have a negative impact. Write a letter to the editor describing the situation and suggesting what the media, teenagers and parents can do about it. Dear Editor, It has been brought to the limelight that sexy photo of teen models has become prevalent lately. Stakeholders from different walks of life have various perceptions about this issue. As a major stakeholder myself, a teenager, I would like to voice my opinion towards this hot topic.Seeing sexy photos of teen models on magazines is no longer a new thing to Hong Kong citizens. The emergence of teen model was fostered under the opening mindset of HonkKongers. I cannot deny the hard fact that teen model is the output of the change in citizens' mindset and people cannot exploit the existence of a certain industry, in this case the teen model industry, but my stance point is that the prevalence has gone too far. What I mean by â€Å"the prevalence ha s gone too far† is that provocative photos of teen models started to appear in places that they are not suppose to be.A case in point is the â€Å"intrusion† of teen model in the annual book fair. This sparked intense discussion and controversy while I opted to take the stance agreeing that it create negative trend to the practice. On a macro view, not only has the prevalence of teen model and their provocative photos create negative rend to the book fair practice, but also posed detrimental imparts to the community as whole. In the first place, the popularization of teen models sexy photos promotes pornography as well as inappropriate-open minds towards sex in teenagers.In the long run, it can constitute various serious problems, such as teen pregnancy, teen abortion and compensated dating etc. As Juveniles are the future pillars of the society, we cannot let them go astray. Secondly, it also worsens the reputation of some related industry such as the fashion and model industry in Hong Kong. Foreign industries may deem that of Hong Kong is low-profile and end up avoid cooperating or collaborating with Hong Kongs fashion workers. Consequently, Hong Kong may suffer a loss in foreign investors in this field.Before the negative influences have gone any further, media, teenagers and parents should put their heads together to address this situation and procrastination Media clearly has the responsibility to halt this situation. It should promote healthy image of models and avoiding publishing provocative photos of models considering the audience of their products. As for teenagers, since they are easily affected by things and people around, it is very important for them to learn how to distinguish between right and wrong, so as to make sure they don't receive any nappropriate information.Parents also play a vital role in adolescences' life especially when they hit puberty. They are at too tender an age to identify inappropriate messages on their own. T herefore, they need parental guidance. Parents are thus incumbent in leading their children through this tough period without letting them fall prey to obscene information. Problems cannot be solved without concrete efforts. I hope the current situation can be changed and wish the media and all teenagers healthy developments.

Profile of Toyo Ito, 2013 Pritzker Laureate

Profile of Toyo Ito, 2013 Pritzker Laureate Toyo Ito was the sixth Japanese architect to become a Pritzker Laureate. Throughout his long career, Ito has designed residential homes, libraries, theaters, pavilions, stadia, and commercial buildings. Since Japans ruinous tsunamis, Toyo Ito has become an architect-humanitarian known for his Home-for-All initiative. Background: Born: June 1, 1941 in Seoul, Korea to Japanese parents; family moved back to Japan in 1943 Education and Career Highlights: 1965: University of Tokyo, Department of Architecture1965-1969: Kiyonori Kikutake Architects and Associates (Kikutake is associated with the Metabolism Movement)1971: Founded Urban Robot (URBOT), renamed Toyo Ito Associates, Architects in 1979, Tokyo, Japan Selected Works by Ito: 1971: Aluminum House, Tokyo, Japan1976: White U House, Nakano-ku, Tokyo, Japan1984: Silver Hut House, Nakano-ku, Tokyo, Japan (1986 Architecture Institute of Japan award)1986: Tower of Winds, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa, Japan1991: Yatsushiro Municipal Museum, Yatsushiro-shi, Kumamoto, Japan1997: Dome in Odate, Odate-shi, Akita, Japan (Ministry of Education Award; Encouragement of Arts Aware; Japan Art Academy Prize)2000: Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai-shi, Miyagi, Japan (2001 Grand Prize of Good Design Award from Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization; 2003 Architectural Institute of Japan Prize; 2006 Public Building Award)2002: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, UK2004: Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre, Matsumoto-shi, Nagano, Japan2004: TODS Omotesando, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan2005: Mikimoto Ginza, Tokyo, Japan2006: Meiso no Mori Municipal Funeral Hall, Kakamigahara-shi, Gifu, Japan2007: Tama Art University Library, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo, Japan2008: Za-Koenji Public Theatre, Suginam i-ku, Tokyo, Japan 2009: Main Stadium for the World Games 2009, Kaohsiung, Republic of China (Taiwan)2010: Hotel Porta Fira, Barcelona, Spain2011: Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, Imabari-shi, Ehime, Japan2012: Yaoko Kawagoe Museum, Saitama, Japan The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, Taichung City, Republic of China (Taiwan) was begun in 2005 and is under construction. Selected Awards: 2000: Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters2006: Royal Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)2013: Pritzker Architecture Prize Ito, in His Own Words: Architecture is bound by various social constraints. I have been designing architecture bearing in mind that it would be possible to realize more comfortable spaces if we are freed from all the restrictions even for a little bit. However, when one building is completed, I become painfully aware of my own inadequacy, and it turns into energy to challenge the next project. Probably this process must keep repeating itself in the future. Therefore, I will never fix my architectural style and never be satisfied with my works.- Pritzker Prize Comment About the Home-for-All Project: After the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, Ito organized a group of architects to develop humane, communal, public spaces for survivors of natural disasters. The Sendai Mediatheque had been partially damaged during the 3.11 earthquake, Ito told Maria Cristina Didero of domus magazine. To the citizens of Sendai, this piece of architecture had been a beloved cultural salon....Even without a specific program, people would nonetheless gather around this place to exchange information and interact with one another....This led me to realize the importance of a small space like the Sendai Mediatheque for people to gather and communicate within disaster areas. This is the starting point of Home-for-All. Every community has its own needs. For Rikuzentakata, an area devastated by the 2011 tsunami, a design based on natural wooden poles with attached modules, similar to ancient pole or pile dwellings, was exhibited at the Japan Pavilion of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. A full-scale prototype was built onsite in early 2013. Itos public service work with the Home-for-All initiative was cited by the 2013 Pritzker Jury as a direct expression of his sense of social responsibility. Learn More About Home-for-All:Toyo Ito: Re-building from disaster, an interview with Maria Cristina Didero in domus online magazine, January 26, 2012Toyo Ito: Home-for-All, an interview with Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, Marà ­a Josà © Marcos in domus online magazine, September 3, 2012Home-for-All, 13th Venice Biennale of Architecture Learn More: Toyo Ito: Forces of Nature by Jessie Turnbull, Princeton Architectural Press, 2012Toyo Ito: Sendai Mediatheque by Gary Hume, Actar, 2002Toyo Ito Works Projects Writings by Andrea Maffei, 2002Toyo Ito: Blurring Architecture 1971-2005 by Ulrich Schneider, 1999Toyo Ito by Toyo Ito, Riken Yamamoto, Dana Buntrock, Taro Igarashi, Phaidon, 2014 Sources: Toyo Ito Associates, Architects, website at www.toyo-ito.co.jp; Biography, the Pritzker Architecture Prize website; Pritzker Prize Media Kit, p. 2 (at www.pritzkerprize.com/sites/default/files/file_fields/field_files_inline/2013-Pritzker-Prize-Media-Kit-Toyo-Ito.pdf)  ©2013 The Hyatt Foundation [websites accessed March 17, 2013]

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