Knowledge transfer
Encyclopedia
Knowledge transfer in the fields of organizational development and organizational learning
is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another (or all other) part(s) of the organization. Like Knowledge Management
, Knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users. It is considered to be more than just a communication
problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum
, an e-mail
or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because (1) knowledge resides in organizational members, tools, tasks, and their subnetworks and (2) much knowledge in organizations is tacit
or hard to articulate. The subject has been taken up under the title of Knowledge Management
since the 1990s.
Szulanski's doctoral dissertation ("Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm") proposed that knowledge transfer within a firm is inhibited by factors other than a lack of incentive. How well knowledge about best practices remains broadly accessible within a firm depends upon the nature of that knowledge, from where (or whom) it comes, who gets it, and the organizational context within which any transfer occurs. Stickiness refers to a concept that derives from the difficulty of circulating fluid around an oil refinery (including effects of the fluid's native viscosity). It is worth noting that his analysis does not apply to scientific theories, where a different set of dynamics and rewards apply.
Three related concepts are "knowledge utilization", "research utilization" and "implementation", which are used in the health sciences to describe the process of bringing a new idea, practice or technology into consistent and appropriate use in a clinical setting. The study of knowledge utilization/implementation (KU/I) is a direct outgrowth of the movement toward evidence-based medicine
and research concluding that health care practices with demonstrated efficacy are not consistently used in practice settings.
Knowledge transfer within organisations and between nations also raises ethical considerations particularly where there is an imbalance in power relationships (e.g. employer and employee) or in the levels of relative need for knowledge resources (e.g. developed and developing worlds)
Knowledge transfer includes, but encompasses more than, technology transfer
.
The underlying assumption that there is a potential for increased collaboration between industry and universities is also underlined in much of the current innovation literature. In particular the Open Innovation http://www.openinnovation.eu approach to developing business value is explicitly based on an assumption that Universities are a "vital source for accessing external ideas". Moreover Universities have been deemed to be "the great, largely unknown, and certainly underexploited, resource contributing to the creation of wealth and economic competitiveness."
Universities and other public sector research organisations (PSROs) have accumulated much practical experience over the years in the transfer of knowledge across the divide between the domains of publicly produced knowledge and the private exploitation of it. Many colleges and PSROs have developed processes and policies to discover, protect and exploit intellectual property (IP) rights, and to ensure that IP is successfully transferred to private corporations, or vested in new companies formed for the purposes of exploitation. Routes to commercialisation of IP produced by PSROs and colleges include licensing, joint venture, new company formation and royalty-based assignments.
Organisations such as AUTM in the US, The Institute of Knowledge Transfer in the UK, SNITTS in Sweden and the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals
in Europe have provided a conduit for knowledge transfer professionals across the public and private sectors to identify best practice and develop effective tools and techniques for the management of PSRO/college produced IP. On-line Communities of Practice for knowledge transfer practitioners are also emerging to facilitate connectivity (such as The Global Innovation Network and the knowledgePool).
Business-University Collaboration was the subject of the Lambert Review
in the UK in 2003.
s comprise an enterprise. If knowledge is the basis for all that we do these days, then gaining an understanding of what types of knowledge exist within an organization may allow us to foster internal social structures that will facilitate and support learning in all organizational domains. Blackler expands on a categorization of knowledge types that were suggested by Collins (1993), being: embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded and encoded. It is important to note that these knowledge types could be indicative of any organization, not just those that are knowledge-based heavy.
Embrained knowledge is that which is dependent on conceptual skills and cognitive abilities. We could consider this to be practical, high-level knowledge, where objectives are met through perpetual recognition and revamping. Tacit knowledge may also be embrained, even though it is mainly subconscious.
Embodied knowledge is action oriented and consists of contextual practices. It is more of a social acquisition, as how individuals interact in and interpret their environment creates this non-explicit type of knowledge.
Encultured knowledge is the process of achieving shared understandings through socialization and acculturation. Language and negotiation become the discourse of this type of knowledge in an enterprise.
Embedded knowledge is explicit and resides within systematic routines. It relates to the relationships between roles, technologies, formal procedures and emergent routines within a complex system.
Encoded knowledge is information that is conveyed in signs and symbols (books, manuals, data bases, etc.) and decontextualized into codes of practice. Rather than being a specific type of knowledge, it deals more with the transmission, storage and interrogation of knowledge.
Everett Rogers
pioneered diffusion of innovations
theory, presenting a research-based model for how and why individuals and social networks adopt new ideas, practices and products. In anthropology, the concept of diffusion also explores the spread of ideas among cultures.
. Furthermore information
should not be confused with knowledge
, nor is it, strictly speaking, possible to "transfer" experiential knowledge to other people. Information
might be thought of as facts
or understood data
; however, knowledge
has to do with flexible and adaptable skills—a person's unique ability to wield and apply information
. This fluency of application is in part what differentiates information
from knowledge
. Knowledge tends to be both tacit and personal; the knowledge one person has is difficult to quantify
, store, and retrieve for someone else to use.
Organizational learning
Organizational learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts....
is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another (or all other) part(s) of the organization. Like Knowledge Management
Knowledge management
Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
, Knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users. It is considered to be more than just a communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum
Memorandum
A memorandum is from the Latin verbal phrase memorandum est, the gerundive form of the verb memoro, "to mention, call to mind, recount, relate", which means "It must be remembered ..."...
, an e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because (1) knowledge resides in organizational members, tools, tasks, and their subnetworks and (2) much knowledge in organizations is tacit
Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. For example, stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient...
or hard to articulate. The subject has been taken up under the title of Knowledge Management
Knowledge management
Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
since the 1990s.
Background
Argote & Ingram (2000) define knowledge transfer as "the process through which one unit (e.g., group, department, or division) is affected by the experience of another" (p. 151). They further point out the transfer of organizational knowledge (i.e., routine or best practices) can be observed through changes in the knowledge or performance of recipient units. The transfer of organizational knowledge, such as best practices, can be quite difficult to achieve.Szulanski's doctoral dissertation ("Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm") proposed that knowledge transfer within a firm is inhibited by factors other than a lack of incentive. How well knowledge about best practices remains broadly accessible within a firm depends upon the nature of that knowledge, from where (or whom) it comes, who gets it, and the organizational context within which any transfer occurs. Stickiness refers to a concept that derives from the difficulty of circulating fluid around an oil refinery (including effects of the fluid's native viscosity). It is worth noting that his analysis does not apply to scientific theories, where a different set of dynamics and rewards apply.
Three related concepts are "knowledge utilization", "research utilization" and "implementation", which are used in the health sciences to describe the process of bringing a new idea, practice or technology into consistent and appropriate use in a clinical setting. The study of knowledge utilization/implementation (KU/I) is a direct outgrowth of the movement toward evidence-based medicine
Evidence-based medicine
Evidence-based medicine or evidence-based practice aims to apply the best available evidence gained from the scientific method to clinical decision making. It seeks to assess the strength of evidence of the risks and benefits of treatments and diagnostic tests...
and research concluding that health care practices with demonstrated efficacy are not consistently used in practice settings.
Knowledge transfer within organisations and between nations also raises ethical considerations particularly where there is an imbalance in power relationships (e.g. employer and employee) or in the levels of relative need for knowledge resources (e.g. developed and developing worlds)
Knowledge transfer includes, but encompasses more than, technology transfer
Technology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
.
Knowledge transfer between public and private domains
With the move of advanced economies from a resource-based to a knowledge-based production, many national governments have increasingly recognised "knowledge" and "innovation" as significant driving forces of economic growth, social development, and job creation. In this context the promotion of 'knowledge transfer' has increasingly become a subject of public and economic policy.The underlying assumption that there is a potential for increased collaboration between industry and universities is also underlined in much of the current innovation literature. In particular the Open Innovation http://www.openinnovation.eu approach to developing business value is explicitly based on an assumption that Universities are a "vital source for accessing external ideas". Moreover Universities have been deemed to be "the great, largely unknown, and certainly underexploited, resource contributing to the creation of wealth and economic competitiveness."
Universities and other public sector research organisations (PSROs) have accumulated much practical experience over the years in the transfer of knowledge across the divide between the domains of publicly produced knowledge and the private exploitation of it. Many colleges and PSROs have developed processes and policies to discover, protect and exploit intellectual property (IP) rights, and to ensure that IP is successfully transferred to private corporations, or vested in new companies formed for the purposes of exploitation. Routes to commercialisation of IP produced by PSROs and colleges include licensing, joint venture, new company formation and royalty-based assignments.
Organisations such as AUTM in the US, The Institute of Knowledge Transfer in the UK, SNITTS in Sweden and the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals
Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals
The Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals is a non-profit organisation created in December, 1999, through the initiative of a multinational group of technology transfer professionals...
in Europe have provided a conduit for knowledge transfer professionals across the public and private sectors to identify best practice and develop effective tools and techniques for the management of PSRO/college produced IP. On-line Communities of Practice for knowledge transfer practitioners are also emerging to facilitate connectivity (such as The Global Innovation Network and the knowledgePool).
Business-University Collaboration was the subject of the Lambert Review
Lambert Review
The Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration was a report published by Her Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom in 2003, which made "a series of recommendations aimed at smoothing out the path between Britain’s strong science base and the business community" [HM Treasury 2003a]...
in the UK in 2003.
Knowledge transfer in landscape ecology
By knowledge transfer in landscape ecology, means a group of activities that increase the understanding of landscape ecology with the goal of encouraging application of this knowledge. Five factors will influence knowledge knowledge transfer from the view of forest landscape ecology: the generation of research capacity, the potential for application, the users of the knowledge, the infrastructure capacity, and the process by which knowledge is transferrd (Turner, 2006).Types of knowledge
Knowledge is a dominant feature in our post-industrial society, and knowledge workerKnowledge worker
Knowledge workers in today's workforce are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development. They use research...
s comprise an enterprise. If knowledge is the basis for all that we do these days, then gaining an understanding of what types of knowledge exist within an organization may allow us to foster internal social structures that will facilitate and support learning in all organizational domains. Blackler expands on a categorization of knowledge types that were suggested by Collins (1993), being: embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded and encoded. It is important to note that these knowledge types could be indicative of any organization, not just those that are knowledge-based heavy.
Embrained knowledge is that which is dependent on conceptual skills and cognitive abilities. We could consider this to be practical, high-level knowledge, where objectives are met through perpetual recognition and revamping. Tacit knowledge may also be embrained, even though it is mainly subconscious.
Embodied knowledge is action oriented and consists of contextual practices. It is more of a social acquisition, as how individuals interact in and interpret their environment creates this non-explicit type of knowledge.
Encultured knowledge is the process of achieving shared understandings through socialization and acculturation. Language and negotiation become the discourse of this type of knowledge in an enterprise.
Embedded knowledge is explicit and resides within systematic routines. It relates to the relationships between roles, technologies, formal procedures and emergent routines within a complex system.
Encoded knowledge is information that is conveyed in signs and symbols (books, manuals, data bases, etc.) and decontextualized into codes of practice. Rather than being a specific type of knowledge, it deals more with the transmission, storage and interrogation of knowledge.
Challenges
What complicates knowledge transfer? There are many factors, including:- The inability to recognize & articulate "compiled" or highly intuitive competencies—tacit knowledge idea
- Geography or distance
- Limitations of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
- Lack of a shared/superordinate social identity
- Language
- Areas of expertise
- Internal conflicts (for example, professional territoriality)
- Generational differences
- Union-management relations
- Incentives
- The use of visual representations to transfer knowledge (Knowledge visualization)
- Problems with sharing beliefs, assumptions, heuristics and cultural norms.
- Previous exposure or experience with something.
- Misconceptions
- Faulty information
- Organizational culture non-conducive to knowledge sharing (the "Knowledge is power" culture)
- Motivational issues
- Lack of trust
- Capability
Everett Rogers
Everett Rogers
Everett M. Rogers was a communication scholar, sociologist, writer, and teacher. He is best known for originating the diffusion of innovations theory and for introducing the term early adopter....
pioneered diffusion of innovations
Diffusion of innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
theory, presenting a research-based model for how and why individuals and social networks adopt new ideas, practices and products. In anthropology, the concept of diffusion also explores the spread of ideas among cultures.
Process
- Identifying the knowledge holders within the organization
- Motivating them to share
- Designing a sharing mechanism to facilitate the transfer
- Executing the transfer plan
- Measuring to ensure the transfer
- Applying the knowledge transferred
Practices
- MentorshipMentorshipMentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
- Guided experience
- Simulation
- Guided experimentation
- Work shadowing
- Paired work
- Community of practiceCommunity of practiceA community of practice is, according to cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members' common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created...
- Narrative transfer
- Practices
Incorrect usage
Knowledge transfer is often used as a synonym for trainingTraining
The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...
. Furthermore information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
should not be confused with knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
, nor is it, strictly speaking, possible to "transfer" experiential knowledge to other people. Information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
might be thought of as facts
Facts
Facts usually refers to the usage as a plural noun of fact, an incontrovertible truth.Facts may also refer to:*Carroll, Lewis, who wrote a poem called "Facts"*FACTS , program produced by Asia Television in Hong Kong....
or understood data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
; however, knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
has to do with flexible and adaptable skills—a person's unique ability to wield and apply information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
. This fluency of application is in part what differentiates information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
from knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
. Knowledge tends to be both tacit and personal; the knowledge one person has is difficult to quantify
Quantify
Quantify may refer to:* Quantification, the act or process of quantifying* in computing: IBM Rational Quantify, a profiling software, part of IBM Rational Purify...
, store, and retrieve for someone else to use.
See also
- Institutional memoryInstitutional memoryInstitutional memory is a collective set of facts, concepts, experiences and know-how held by a group of people. As it transcends the individual, it requires the ongoing transmission of these memories between members of this group...
- Instructional theoryInstructional theoryAn Instructional theory is "a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." Instructional theories focus on how to structure material for promoting the education of human beings, particularly youth...
- Knowledge ManagementKnowledge managementKnowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
- Knowledge tagging
- Communities of practice
- Technology transferTechnology transferTechnology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
- Transfer of learningTransfer of learningTransfer of learning is the study of the dependency of human conduct, learning, or performance on prior experience. The notion was originally introduced as transfer of practice by Edward Thorndike and Robert S. Woodworth...
- Media richness theoryMedia Richness TheoryMedia richness theory, sometimes referred to as information richness theory, is a framework to describe a communications medium by its ability to reproduce the information sent over it. It was developed by Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel. For example, a phone call will not be able to reproduce...
External links
- Optimized Knowledge Transfer Methodology in Credit Suisse AG
- The Global Food Security and Nutrition Forum (FSN Forum)
- Project of knowledge transfer of the CIPRA "Future in the Alps"
- National Library for Health Knowledge Management Specialist Library - collection of resources about mobilising knowledge.