Knowledge Management. Made in Hong Kong KM Summer School July 2005

Transcription

1 Knowledge Management Made in Hong Kong KM Summer School July 2005 Waltraut Ritter President The HK Knowledge Management Society

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3 Agenda HK as Knowledge-based Economy: The socio-economical background The perception of KM in Hong Kong Cultural observations The way ahead

4 Competitiveness of Companies and Nations The ultimate competitiveness of nations and corporations is determined by the capabilities and skills of people. Then who will survive? Those who depend on knowledge workers. Who are knowledge workers? They are individuals who work with knowledge accumulated through continuous learning and innovative thinking. Dae Whan Chang, Ph.D., Executive Chairman, World Knowledge Forum 2000, Seoul

5 HK Knowledge Advantage - its location in the heart of East Asia on China's southern coast - industrial efficiency - its transparent common law legal system and impartial judiciary - state-of-the-art infrastructure - free flow of information - its entrepreneurial spirit

6 Affecting KM Readiness: Role of conglomerates Competition? Risk adversity? Confucian culture? High tech high loss?

7 Knowledge Economies derive value from Intangible Assets: nonphysical source of value (claims to future benefits) generated by innovation, discovery, organisational design or human resource practices. Baruch Lev, Stern School of Business at NYU

8 Drivers of wealth Creation in Knowledge-based Economies 1. R&D initiatives 2. Education initiatives 3. Networking and Trade Development 4. Industrial Efficiency Sources: Worldbank, OECD A.Bounfour/L. Edvinsson: The Intellectual Capital for Communities: Nations, Regions, and Cities, 2005

9 Leading Business Sectors in HK Trading Property Logistics Financial industry Type of knowledge: largely relational capital and know-how Relatively few KM initiatives

10 Top listed companies in Hong Kong HSBC Holdings Hutchison China Mobile Cheung Kong Sung Hung Kai Properties PetroChina Hang Seng Bank CLP Holdings Swire Pacific HK&China Gas

11 Understanding information and knowledge workers

12 Increasing awareness of value of knowledge

13 Knowledge resides in people and is a product of their ability to see meaning in information and its context.

14 KM perception in HK The KM standard specifies the requirements of a management system of knowledge resources and knowledge flows within an organisation in order to improve business performance and results KM processes and techniques for the creation, collection, indexing, organization, distribution, and evaluation of institutional knowledge for re-use

15 ..but Knowledge cannot be codified, re-used or standardized, or put into any form system

16 KM perception in HK 90 % of activities, programmes, curricula, and projects under the label of knowledge management are dealing with information management issues only The nonsense of 'knowledge management, T.D.Wilson Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield, UK

17 KM perception in HK Deadly sins of KM 1. Not developing a working definition of knowledge 2. Emphasizing knowledge stock to the detriment of knowledge flow 3. Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the heads of individuals 4. Not understanding that a fundamental intermediate purpose of managing knowledge is to create shared context 5. Paying little heed to the role and importance of tacit knowledge 6. Disentangling knowledge from its uses 7. Downplaying thinking and reasoning 8. Focusing on the past and the present and not on the future 9. Failing to recognise the importance of experimentation 10. Substituting technological contact for human interface 11. Seeking to develop direct measures of knowledge Fahey, L. and Prusak, L. The eleven deadliest sins of knowledge management. California Management Review, 40 (3), Spring 1998,

18 Outlook The biggest obstacles to managing knowledge are cultural and behavioral. Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation and Business Intelligence

19 Organisational Culture Outlook Influence of Confucian Thought on Business culture, work dynamism and behaviour? - Respect for authority - Harmony (oneness between heaven and men) Louis Lock 2003, Challenges of Control, Automation, and Instrumentation Engineers in the 21 st Century

20 How is knowledge created? Conversations Individual insights Everyday interactions Dialogues Networking

21 Human Capital If you want one year of prosperity, cultivate grains. If you want ten years of prosperity, cultivate trees. If you want one hundred years of prosperity, cultivate people. Chinese proverb

22 KM as Social Science No tradition in classical information and knowledge education Hardy present: Information science, sociology

23 KM adopters in Hong Kong Professional services firms (law firms, advisory services) Public sector Large, foreign companies early stage: local companies No comprehensive market research available on: - Size of market - Annual spending on KM - Key players, strategies and activities

24 Started as a network in 1998, now registered professional society Professional community for information and KM professionals Non-profit, independent Linked with similar organisations across the Asia Pacific region Since 1999 organiser of Asia Pacific KM conferences Since 2002 accredited UN professional organisation in World Information Society Project

25 Intangible Assets The Wealth of Knowledge-based Economies International Conference and Research on Hong Kong s Position as a Knowledge Society Results will be published in August 2005