Case Study

Model Answers
Knowledge Management:
An Integrated Approach
Second Edition

Ashok Jashapara

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ISBN: 978-0-273-72686-9

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First published 2011

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 Contents
Chapters Pages

Chapter 1 Introduction to knowledge management 4

Chapter 2 The nature of knowing 6
Chapter 3 Intellectual capital 8
Chapter 4 Strategic management perspectives 10
Chapter 5 Organisational learning 12
Chapter 6 The learning organisation 14
Chapter 7 Knowledge management tools: component technologies 16
Chapter 8 Knowledge management systems 18
Chapter 9 Enabling knowledge contexts and networks 20
Chapter 10 Implementing knowledge management 22

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 CHAPTER 1

Introduction to knowledge management

Ernst & Young

(US)

1. What are potential ways forward to overcome the problem of an ageing workforce at
Ernst & Young?

• Employing ‘boomerangs’ with the necessary expertise

• Employing retired employees on specialist contracts or through other legal entities

• Carefully managing succession planning in all parts of the organisation, particularly

where specialist skills and expertise are required

• Codifying specialist knowledge in ‘Powerpacks’ such as sector knowledge

• Mentoring and coaching programmes for younger employees by older employees

• Involving retired employees in training and development programmes

2. How would you codify critical knowledge of clients and industries currently being
lost when employees retire?

• Getting line managers, partners and managing partners to help articulate knowledge,
learning and expertise gained from Clients and industries

• Video taping knowledge in the form of a dialogue and linking it to a corporate video
sharing database

• Getting employees to articulate their knowledge explicitly in the form of documents,

prior to retirement

• Engaging employees in succession planning prior to retirement

• Engaging retired employees in master-classes linked to specific industries and

knowledge bases’

• Involving retired employees in research and development activities particularly in the

Centre for Innovation

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 Jashapara: Knowledge Management: An Integrated Approach, 2nd Edition, Case Study Model Answers

3. What are the strengths and pitfalls of using social networking sites such as Facebook
for Ernst & Young?

Strengths

• Allows 16,000 employees space to interact and develop social capital in a globalised firm

• Ability to pool expertise from throughout the organisation

• Partially solves the problem of the 'dispersed knowledge' of 80,000 employees

• Reduces emails

Pitfalls

• Security risk in terms of loss of documents and information outside the firm

• Inability to track large numbers of discussions throughout the firm

• Members providing consultancy services over the social network rather than formally
through the firm

• Cost effectiveness of social networks may be debatable where managers lose control over
the length of time spent engaged in them

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 CHAPTER 2

The nature of knowing

World Bank

(US)

1. What advice would you give Bruno Laporte on potential interventions for the next
phase of growth in the World Bank’s knowledge management activities?

• Developing a video-based searchable online database of lessons learnt, stories and

‘know how’; like a World Bank’s corporate ‘You Tube’

• Encouraging thematic groups to be more focused on organisational and Cliental

problems

• Developing current portal to allow access and interaction with external partners,
especially Clients

• Including external partners and Clients with thematic groups where possible, or
engaging World Bank employees in external communities of practice (CoP)

• Conducting an independent review of training and development interventions and

examining areas for improvement to allow greater application of knowledge on core
business activities

2. How could knowledge management activities be applied more centrally to the World
Bank’s core business?

• Leadership at senior and middle management levels to ensure organisational

knowledge processes are focussed in core business areas

• Reviewing knowledge repositories to ensure that they are focused primarily towards
poverty reduction and ensuring repository gatekeepers keep this focus for future
entries, viz. helping the poorest people in the poorest nations

• Eliminating unnecessary knowledge processes that add to overall costs

• Improving speed of knowledge processes linked to core business

• Examining current procedures and practices to see if quality of service to Clients in

developing countries can be improved through various feedback loops (single- and
double-loop)

• Encouraging innovation by testing out new approaches that focus knowledge processes
more on core business and Clients

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3. What interventions would allow the World Bank’s knowledge to be used strategically
for the aid of clients in developing countries?

• Nigeria national transport strategy was an excellent example of how knowledge from
different parts of the world can be used strategically

• Try to encourage thematic groups to look at Client problems around the world rather
than becoming talking shops

• Try to integrate advisory groups with thematic groups and focus on Client problems

• Look at reward mechanisms for employee contributions that strategically help Clients

• Look at recognition awards for outstanding contributions

• Examine training and development interventions to encourage employees to use their

knowledge strategically for Clients

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 CHAPTER 3

Intellectual capital

Infosys

(India)

1. Discuss critically Infosys’ current and future strategy. What advice would you give
Kris Gopalakrishnan?

• Current strategy is towards low-cost back office functions to support ERP systems such
as SAP

• KM strategy is towards a codification strategy

• Over-reliance on technology

• Global downturn is unpredictable; recommend to move cautiously

• Competitive pressures to increase as rivals move to low-cost centres in India

• Focus on learning and knowledge creation to provide innovative services for Clients

2. KShop has resulted in information overload among staff. What operational measures
would you suggest to overcome such challenges?

• Encourage KM steering group to explore development of CoP

• Promote champions and coordinators of CoP to develop ‘just-in-time knowledge’

• Develop systems that allow employees to ask questions and receive prompt replies
from around the world

• Devise reward and recognition schemes to engage employees in dialogue with one
another to resolve problems and issues

• Promote greater mobility of staff between and across projects

3. If Infosys is committed to providing strategic consulting services internationally,

what cultural changes would you recommend over and above those currently
instigated?

• Much greater local presence in international markets with local staff

• Local staff with local cultural sensitivities and training of Indian staff on cultural issues

• Ability to adapt culturally in local contexts, e.g. shifts from family to individual
orientations

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• Focus on novel solutions aligned to Client problems rather than servicing SAP or other
system solutions

• Excellent understanding of Client industry, business and problems

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 CHAPTER 4

Strategic management perspectives

Unilever

(UK/Netherlands)

1. What advice would you give Cathy Bautista on improving the strategic focus of
Unilever’s knowledge management activities?

• Look at the balance between codification and personalisation strategies. Is it right or

does it need to change?

• The current CoP are more conducive to efficiency improvements rather than innovation.
Could they be made more flexible to encourage greater innovation?

• Do knowledge creation processes extend existing knowledge or do they probe it to

create new knowledge in line with strategic goals?

• How far do knowledge transfer processes manage knowledge of strategic value either
from internal or external sources?

• Useful to review the success stories and gaps in KM interventions and activities

• Determine the extent to which different groups and communities pay lip service to
strategic focus

2. What changes, if any, would you make to Unilever’s communities of practice?

• Current CoP are more like professional networks of practice which have greater
management control

• Consider trying some pilot CoP that are more self-selecting to see if they produce more
creative ideas and innovative solutions

• Examine the nature of stories and storytelling to determine if changes need to be made
in terms of the community’s culture to promote greater trust

• Explore the role of boundary spanning individuals across CoP and whether sufficient
leverage opportunities are pursued

• Investigate the nature of strong and weak ties in the most dynamic CoP and see
whether lessons could be shared with other communities

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3. How could ‘learning histories’ be further developed to capture organisational memory?

• Change narrative-based approach to a video-based corporate ‘You Tube’ approach with

a search engine

• Extend learning histories to organisational experts and project managers and perform
them regularly

• Provide reward and recognition incentives for engaging with learning histories

• Ask project managers of any new projects to review relevant learning histories,
particularly those related to preventing costly mistakes and previous learning points

• Store learning histories related to transactional memory of successful projects and

interventions particularly those involving people from geographically dispersed areas
and diverse functional backgrounds

• Develop wikis on ‘learning histories’

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 CHAPTER 5

Organisational learning

Toyota

(Japan)

1. What advice would you give Akio Toyoda about the Toyota Tundra plants in North
America?

• In your answer, explore the pros and cons of each option

• Replace Toyota Tundra plant with manufacturing line for smaller cars. Main problem is
that demand for small cars may also be diminishing due to global recession

• Close Toyota Tundra plant making workforce redundant and leading to job losses

• Redeploy Toyota staff from Toyota Tundra to other plants and opportunities within
supplier networks in North America

• Redeploy experienced staff to training functions within Toyota University, Learning

Management Solution (LMS), Global Knowledge Centre or Global Production Centre
(GPC)

2. How could you help improve Toyota’s learning and human capital?

• Development of greater CoP across functional and geographical boundaries

• Use of technology in terms of chat rooms and forums to engage CoP across plants,
dealer and supplier networks

• Greater questioning of the status quo and encouraging ‘double-loop’ learning

• Engage experienced personnel face-to-face over common trends in problems arising

from the Analytical Problem Solving Tool

• Engage employees more to innovate in future cars and services

• Adopt video-based learning tools to help capture Toyota’s tacit knowledge base

3. What are the benefits and shortfalls of having contradictory viewpoints at Toyota?

• The benefits are that:

• it challenges the status quo
• it encourages creativity from the tension of contradictory viewpoints
• employees are continually striving to improve practices

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• The shortfalls are that:

• contradictory viewpoints may become an end in themselves rather than helping
Toyota grow
• it may prevent effective consensual decision-making that is important to Toyota’s
working practices
• it may accentuate power and political struggles in terms of which viewpoint gains
currency

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 CHAPTER 6

The learning organisation

Honda

(Japan)

1. How can Honda improve their learning and competitiveness of battery technologies?

• Strategically decide whether it is better to be a leader or follower in battery

technologies. Currently, they have decided to be a follower and pursue NiMH batteries,
due to their lower costs. However, this may change as battery technologies develop.

• Invest significant resources in Honda R&D engineers exploring and experimenting with
the next level of battery technologies beyond Lithium ion batteries with higher levels of
power, lower weight and lower costs

• Engage in vicarious learning through borrowing competitor strategies and technologies

such as Toyota’s

• Graft R&D employees from around the world with the latest knowledge and thinking
around new battery technologies

• Engage with external partners, especially universities and research institutes with
leading expertise and knowledge in battery technologies

2. What role do slogans play in the innovation process at Honda?

• Allows tacit knowledge to be articulated in groups

• Allows people to use their imagination and play with abstract ideas

• Allows hunches, intuitions and insights to raise to the surface

• Allows a creative tension to exist between the world of the figurative language and
reality

• Allows team members to express the inexpressible even though there may be multiple
meanings, which are contradictory

3. How can Honda improve its ‘talent management’ processes in the UK?

• Question underlying assumptions of 10:20:30:40 model at regular intervals and explore

double-loop learning

• Explore whether on-the-job training may be more effective in certain instances,

especially action learning

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• Explore options for job rotation to develop multi-skilled employees and secondments to
other Honda subsidiaries

• Examine the role for self-managed learning especially e-learning

• Examine the value of in-house training versus external courses that may lead to
qualifications

• Assess whether mentoring may be more appropriate than coaching for some employees

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 CHAPTER 7

Knowledge management tools: component

technologies

Royal Dutch Shell

(Netherlands/UK)

1. What benefits have wikis brought to Shell?

• Fast and effective medium for creating and sharing knowledge

• All employees can access and publish wikis anywhere and at anytime. No logins are
required

• Individuals and teams can easily edit and update content

• There are links to unfamiliar terminology making understanding of content much easier
and enabling sharing across disciplines

• Wikis provide a shared platform so that Shell can continuously develop its knowledge
base

2. How would you promote greater user engagement with wikis in Shell?

• Ensure you have a critical mass of users

• Ensure that you have high profile entries of ‘movers and shakers’ within Shell

• Send all employees a monthly update highlighting new wiki content, new updates in
software, interviews with wiki users and any training material deemed appropriate

• Provide regional training and support to managers to help promote wikis in their line of
business

• Create regular competitions and prizes for best wiki content, effective use of wiki
functionality, innovative layouts, high levels of interactivity with other articles and so on

• Offer online awareness, training and support sessions for all employees

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3. What are the benefits of virtual worlds such as Second Life for Shell?

• Principally, as a learning and collaboration tool

• Creates learning islands to allow learning and meetings to occur between staff based
across the globe

• Creates islands for project management activities

• Encounters are close to face-to-face experiences and reduce any transport costs of
engaging people around the world. There are no planes to board!

• Allows greater collaboration of people from different disciplines and industries

potentially leading to greater levels of innovation

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 CHAPTER 8

Knowledge management systems

Tata Consultancy Services

(India)

1. What advice would you give Mr N. Chandrasekaran about the potential strategic
alliance with Cisco?

• Examine compatibility and alignment of global goals and ambitions between TCS and
Cisco

• Good focus on learning and knowledge transfer through development of Cisco

Technology Lab

• Explore potential of business and market loss from remaining independent and not
aligning with Cisco’s competitors such as Juniper, F5, Alcatel and Nortel

• Start alliance with one or a few projects, gain feedback and review working alliance
from both sides

• Think about employee transfer to both businesses, to facilitate learning

• Explore opportunities for joint learning apart from the formal training centres

2. What are the current weaknesses in Tata Consultancy Services approach to

knowledge management?

• TCS is more technology-oriented rather than people-oriented

• TCS has a more formalised structure evidenced by the PEEP initiative

• TCS lacks any major informal networks or CoP

• TCS shows low levels of learning from the main Tata industrial conglomerate

• TCS hasn’t taken advantage of opportunities for greater cultural learning with its 9%
foreign employees. Currently, cultural sensitivities come predominantly from formal
training programmes

• TCS hasn’t formalised ways to encourage greater levels of innovation in highly

competitive global markets

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3. How could these weaknesses be improved?

• Encourage greater development of CoP face-to-face as well as using online forums,

chat rooms, help desks and so on. These could be arranged around themes developed
through PEEP and PROPEL

• Encourage greater questioning of the status quo and pursue ‘double-loop’ learning

• Encourage the use of quality circles by project teams to improve processes

• Encourage transfer of employees between the Tata subsidiaries to transfer important

knowledge and learning between them

• Encourage informal social events to develop cultural sensitivities in their 150 offices

• Encourage concrete actions related to suggestion of ideas associated to technologies,

people and processes

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 CHAPTER 9

Enabling knowledge contexts and networks

Fluor

(United States)

1. What changes to Knowledge OnLine should John McQuary recommend to Alan

Boeckmann in light of Fluor’s rapid expansion in South America?

• Key issue is language barrier rather than functional or business barriers

• Language barriers less likely to be an issue among professional workers

• Suggest the use of community leaders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who can
span between language communities – boundary spanning individuals or the use of
language translators and interpreters when required

• Ensure that Knowledge OnLine is part of induction of all new recruits in South America
and explore whether language is likely to be a problem

• Consult with Country Directors in South America to see whether separate language or
regional communities were needed or whether they could be included as sub-sets of
each of the 43 communities

2. What are the shortcomings of Fluor’s online communities and how could they be
improved?

• More like networks of practice rather than CoP

• Difficult to have informal discussions when you may have 1000+ members (or 13,000
members in the Engineering Community) listening in, and with potential concerns over
management interference

• More focused on explicit knowledge such as their knowledge objects, rather than
articulation of tacit knowledge

• Suggest small face-to-face meetings by location where possible

• Suggest use of video phones or webcams to share expertise globally rather than purely
using text based media such as email or discussion forums

• Suggest ways to get communities to think outside the box such as use of slogans,
metaphors and figurative language

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3. How can Fluor get employees to share project mistakes on Knowledge OnLine for the
benefit of other employees and the organisation?

• Potential cultural change of ‘error harvesting’ rather than sweeping mistakes under the
carpet using interventions such as quality circles and action learning

• Leadership from the top demonstrating, by example, their own mistakes

• Asking all project managers to produce a 10 minutes video (maximum time limit)
reflecting on mistakes committed by the team, in their project, and how they would
overcome them. Placing videos on Knowledge OnLine with a search function similar to
You Tube

• Making sharing project mistakes an important part of annual performance appraisal

• Providing recognition awards for sharing project mistakes and resulting value to the
organisation in cost savings, innovation and so on

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 CHAPTER 10

Implementing knowledge management

Woods Bagot

(Australia)

1. What advice would you give Mark Mitcheson-Low to set up a virtual community
between their Dubai and Adelaide studios?

• Ask Directors and Principals to provide leadership and to lead by example

• Look at optimal technological infrastructure to support virtual communities, including

use of webcams and video-conferencing

• Provide staff with necessary training in use of technology

• Market virtual community pilot through internal newsletters, PUBLIC magazines and
other sources

• Link engagement of community with staff appraisal

• Provide awards for best stories and examples of knowledge sharing and recognition of
excellence in knowledge sharing by peers

2. What changes can Woods Bagot make to their offices to encourage greater
engagement and interaction between staff?

• Think about the architectural features of their offices that are likely to encourage greater
interactions

• Open plan offices

• Circulation pathways to encourage serendipitous meetings

• Enforce all staff to have lunch together and possibly subsidise canteens

• Use of prominent lounge and ‘coffee area’ to encourage meetings

• Greater job/staff rotation between projects

• Use of virtual spaces such as Second Life for virtual meetings with staff from all 14
studios

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3. What knowledge management strategy is most appropriate for Woods Bagot?

• ‘PUBLIC’ journal provides one strand to promote double-loop learning, challenging

assumptions and conventional thinking

• Personalisation strategy most appropriate as each building design solution is unique

and needs exchange of ideas through dialogue rather than re-using ideas stored in a
computer

• Webcams and video-conferencing technologies may be best to bring people together to

exchange ideas and save on plane fares

• Database could be held on standard architectural details and specifications to avoid

repetition

• Design of Woods Bagot offices to encourage serendipitous meetings

• Promoting greater interaction between architects and engineers to develop new ideas
and thinking

• Greater interaction with architectural research institutes across the world to challenge
their own thinking and generate new ideas

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