1. Human Resource Development Strategy and Tactics CHAPTER 2: Conceptual issues impacting on the contribution of HRD at Strategic and Operational Levels
BUS 314

2. Contribution of HRD at Strategic and Operational Levels
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
OL has become the focus of organizational survival
It is the core organizational competence
For companies to be effective, application of existing knowledge is required and new knowledge needs to be created at a rapid rate.

4. Theoretical Frameworks for Definition of OL
Attempts to develop a framework for integration
Focus on cognition and behavior
Before attempting to define OL, current perspectives need to be understood
Suggestions:
OL encompasses both cognition and behavior
Includes individual, group, and organizatinal levels of aggregation
Applies to various disciplines, needs to be entertained and the ambiguity accepted

5. Summary of various perspectives on OL
Level(s) of aggregation – whether the individual, group or organization can learn?
Orientation – emphasis on actual or potential behavioral or cognitive elements
Learning outcome – What is the outcome of the OL process

6. OL Perspectives

7. OL Perspectives continued

8. OL Perspectives continued

9. OL Perspectives continued

10. Can an Organization Learn
Can an Organization Learn? Comparing the individual and the organization.
Researchers tend to view organizations as entities (units)with qualities that promote and enable learning
Organization can be seen as a vehicle of learning
Intricate (complex) learning processes can be seen as located within the organization fiber – organizational memory, routines, systems of belief, and patterns of behavior
Organizations learn when they encode(convert)inferences (suggestions)from history into the routines that guide their behavior
Organizations learn when any of its components have acquired information, either by other components or itself, on behalf of the organization

11. Can an Organization Learn?
One view: Individual cognitive aspect emphasized - Organizations are made up of individuals, therefore, organizations learn when these individuals learn
Organizations are product of thought and action of their members. Learning, in this view, takes place when thought structure changes
Problem: Organizations may know more or less than individual members (organizational memory)

12. Can an Organization Learn?
Second View: The ‘communities of practice’ approach - Clusters of individual members are the agents who learn and act on behalf of the organization.
The communities of practice can be defined as a ‘naturally occurring and evolving collection of people who engage in particular kinds of activity together, and come to develop and share ways of doing things – ways of talking, beliefs, values, and practices – as a result of their joint involvement in that activity’
Problem: The learning outcomes of these clusters may not be diffused through the larger organization

13. Can an Organization Learn?
View 3: Organizations are living organisms with personalities, histories, and memories. These organizations are characterized by channels of communication, information systems, procedures and routines, systems of incentives, and common patterns of behavior

14. OL and Aim of HRD
Understand the wider organizational challenges and the capabilities needed to compete in the future
Establish organization-wide processes to enable the organization, as well as its members, to learn

15. Perspectives on OL: Cognition or Behavior
Most definitions of OL combine aspects of cognitive and behavioral changes
Cognition: knowledge, understanding and insights(vision)
Behavior: potential (lessons learned) and actual (observable changed behavior)

16. Behavior vs Cognition Learning
Some researchers separate behavior from cognitive learning

17. Comprehensive definition of OL
OL is a process through which an entity employs enabling abilities to create permanent cognitive and behavioral change within a system. This change must be evident in the organizational memory

18. The outcome of OL process
OL outcome may differ according to:
Level of outcome
Behavioral change –
Change in cognitive structure
Type of learning
Single-loop (error detection & correction)
Double-loop (transformational, rationalizing)
Deuterolearning (learning how to learn)
Continuity/discontinuity of learning

19. Organizational Learning and Learning Organization
Learning Organizations are more committed to the achievement of a desirable end state
Eclectic (varied) in evaluating ideas according to their applicability
Derive from an action research agenda, where there is a close link between generating change and studying the nature of that change
More prescriptive stance(position) and teaches the managers how to learn

20. Organizational Learning and Learning Organization
Garvin: A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights
The process of knowledge creation is the foundation upon which a learning organization is built

21. OL and the Learning Organization

22. Learning Organizations need to be skilled at the following processes
Systemic problem solving
Controlled testing with accuracy and precision
Understand the dynamic linkages between separate subsections of a larger system – balance scientific problem- solving with a more creative and holistic approach to seeing a problem
Experimentation with approaches
Systematic searching and testing of new knowledge – knowledge creation
Learning from own experience and past history
Notice and reflect upon mistakes
Skilled incompetence

23. Learning Organizations need to be skilled at the following processes
Learning from experience and best practice of others
Belong to knowledge networks and share
Need open and attentive managers
Transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization
Transfer quickly and efficiently (important strategic concern) – avoid redundancies (without jobs) in experimentation and errors

24. HRD contribution at Strategic & Operational level
Organizational Learning
Learning Organization
Knowledge and Knowledge Management

25. Organizational memory
Knowledge
Knowledge is central to the OL process
Significant input as well as output of the learning organization
Key Capital of the Learning Organization
Drucker: only key to sustainable competitive advantage
Unique resource that cannot be copied
Knowledge as Output
Intellectual Capital
That adds value to
Firm and individual
capability
Knowledge as Input
Individual skills and
Organizational memory
Knowledge as Process
Experimentation and
Problem Solving

26. Knowledge Management
Conscious strategy of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time
Helping to share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organizational performance
Conversion process: converting information into action
Element of efficiency: making sure that knowledge is timely and relevant

27. Concept of Knowledge
Knowledge is fluid and personal and cannot be forced, structured, or managed willfully. Knowledge management is, therefore, an odd couple
Knowledge is made up of ‘separate units’ that can be added to an extant heap of knowledge and transformed from one type of knowledge to another
Data: Information system that may or may not contribute to a wider understanding . Often in the form of structured records
Information: Data that have been contextualized and categorized

28. Defining Knowledge
Knowledge is derived from data and information. It is subjective in nature, and is intimately linked to individuals generating it.
Experience-based and personal in nature
When the information is compared and contrasted, further searching strengthens particular understandings and these understandings are then acted upon

29. KNOWLEDGE defined
A fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practies, and norms

30. Categorization of Knowledge
Tacit Knowledge: We always know more than we can tell
Embodied skills: Highly personal and diffuclt to formalize and communicate
Subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches
Key to sustainable competitive advantage
Tacit Knowledge (Subjective) Explicit Knowledge (Objective)
Knowledge of experience
Know-how
Element of a system
Simultaneous knowledge (here and now)
Complex
Analogue knowledge (Practice)
No observable
Knowledge of rationality
Know-what
Independent
Sequential knowledge (there and then)
Simple
Digital knowledge (theory)
Observable

31. Modes of Knowledge Conversion
Shared
tacit knowledge
Socialization
Externalization
Individual
tacit knowledge
Individual
explicit knowledge
Internalization
Combination
Shared
explicit knowledge
These four modes integrate via certain processes to form the spiral of knowledge creation

32. Spiral of Knowledge Characteristics of knowledge spiral:
Discussion will be generated
All participants will be viewed as equal
Knowledge-creating discussions will generate new meaning
Many alternatives in a particular situation will be generated
The need for the sharing and collection of facts will be discussed
Subjective experiences will be shard to create organizational meaning
Team work and interactive learning is important in the process of knowledge creation

33. Channels of Knowledge Creation
Knowledge Creation: process that adds to the knowledge network (or memory) of the organization through the knowledge created by individuals
Channels of knowledge creation may include:
Language and signs
Must be aware of the knowledge and capable of expressing it
Tools
For problem solving
Marks
Results of acts established by the actor
Combine knowledge and knowing to create knowledge (tacit and explicit knowledge)

34. Learning and Knowledge
Experience-based learning will enable both knowledge and knowing to combine in the overarching learning experience
There is no knowledge other than the tacit knowledge
Explicit knowledge and knowing is learning and not knowledge (Polyani)

35. Model of Tacit Knowing: Three intertwined strands
Representation
Mental pictures and embedded patterns of how the system will work
Reflection and Creative Dialogue
Review our mental pictures: questioning and revise
Practice and Participation
The picture and the reflection will guide and inform: collective action or dialogue

36. Knowledge Types Reason & Heron
Experiential Knowledge: through direct encounter
Practical Knowledge: knowing how to do something (skills or competence)
Propositional Knowledge: knowledge expressed in theory – grounded in experiential and practical knowledge
Presentational Knowledge: Order our tacit experiential knowledge into spatiotemporal patterns of imagery

37. Knowledge Types
Blackler: Knowledge is an active process that is mediated, situated, provisional, pragmatic, and contested
Forms of Knowledge:
Embrained Knowledge: depends upon conceptual skills and cognitive abilities
Embodied Knowledge: action-oriented and partially explicit
Encultured Knowledge: shared understandings
Embedded Knowledge: in systemic routines
Encoded Knowledge: information conveyed in signs and symbols
Oblique distinctions

38. Knowledge and HRD
Knowledge is a complex, fluid, and situational construct that cannot be managed in the strict sense of the word.
Creation and retention of knowledge can be facilitated through HRD processes and practices

39. Knowledge Management Enablers
Establish a fit between the informal processes across the formal organization and knowledge requirements
Culture of the Organization:
It is the combination of shared history, unwritten rules and social norms that affect the behavior of everyone in the organization from top to bottom
Set of underlying beliefs to guide perceptions and communications
Cultural barriers: fragmentation, time-is-money, lack of incentive
Infrastructure of the Organization
3 levels of knowledge infrastructure:
self-directed transfer
knowledge services and networks
Facilitated transfer structure (boundary spanners)
Technology
key KM strategy

40. Knowledge Management Strategies
Two main categories of KM Strategies
Personalization Strategies
Applicable when individuals work with novel complex problems – who innovate to compete. The emphasis is on is knowledge creation rather than knowledge re-use
Key practices:
Interpersonal, cross-boundary and cross-organization networks
multidisciplinary teams
Open plan working spaces
Culture
Codification Strategies
Suitable for firms who need to focus on use and reuse of explicit knowledge and information
Company databases
Specification records, procedure manuals
Error detection, and correction records
Standardized formats for communication
Post project reports