Applying Social Technical Theory in Knowledge Management

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Knowledge management has become a major practice in many large business organizations, as managers understand that much of organization’s value depend on the firm’s capability to create and manage knowledge.

Substantial part of business value is normally related to the intangible asserts, of which knowledge is one important component, together with computer software, business statuses, and unique business models. Knowledge management is a systematic and active management of knowledge, ideas, and concepts derived from organization’s employees (Levinson, n.d).

Information Technology alone cannot be considered as knowledge management. It requires the integration of technical and social aspects to come up with a proper knowledge base.

The incorporation of people and technology in organizations toward organizational development, in this case knowledge management, is considered to be the concept of socio-technical theory (Cartelli, 2007). This paper focuses on how socio-technical theory can help organizations in improving their knowledge management systems.

Due to the dynamism of knowledge management, businesses can realize great returns provided that resources are directed in the process of acquiring, representing, validating, and drawing explanation from knowledge; also known as knowledge engineering. Knowledge acquisition is the difficult part of knowledge engineering since explicit and tacit knowledge must be effectively acquired.

Lavison (2007) argues that tacit knowledge is always difficult to acquire because it is the idea contained in individuals’ mind. The major challenge common with tacit knowledge is determining how to record, generate, and manage it.

While technology like computers can help manage the explicit knowledge, which is documented, it requires the collaboration of employees and technology to successfully represent knowledge. Managers should involve employees through good relations, proper communication, and good rewards in ensuring that correct ideas are elicited.

The concept of socio-technical strategy is that the required fit in knowledge management is realized by a design approach aiming at the collective optimization of the subcomponents; the technical subsystem and the social subsystem. Any knowledge management system maximizes performance if the technical aspects and the social aspects of the system are explicitly recognized.

That is why many knowledge management systems, such as expert systems, integrate user-centered design in generating solutions that are inline with the user requirements. Knowledge management systems incorporate knowledge engineers, users, knowledge bases, inference engine, and interfaces (Laudon & Laudon, 2006); these can be though of as the application of socio-technical theory in managing knowledge.

Well executed knowledge based projects have been known to produce extraordinary returns on investment, although such investments are difficult to measure. This can be attributed to NASA, an organization that has sufficiently applied knowledge management strategies supplemented with socio-technical theory to ensure safe flight and respond to knowledge-based issues.

Through generations, NASA has been able to focus on society, community, individuals, and common interests. The key knowledge management success factors within the company are creating an acceptable culture, supporting services, building knowledge architecture, and having a diverse IT infrastructure (Holm & Murphy, 2008).

In knowledge management framework, people enable remote cooperation and support communities of practice; processes enhance knowledge capture and manage information, while technology is essential in system incorporation and data mining.

Sometimes there exist factors contributing to difficulties in implementing knowledge management systems. These are:

insufficient resources: this is due to poor estimation technique and staff resources assigned to the knowledge management projects without necessary skills. If there are insufficient hardware and software resources required to structure and configure systems, the implementation process is deemed to fail;
poor quality and high variability that result from insufficient validating mechanisms. Knowledge management systems are, in most cases, unable to meet the expectations of various project teams as knowledge contained in knowledge bases are not consistent and tend to change rapidly; and
when employees are not rewarded on their contribution towards knowledge management program, they always fear sharing knowledge with others on the job (Laudon & Laudon, 2006).

Applying socio-technical theories in knowledge management improves participation and reduces the challenges of implementing knowledge management systems. There are both managerial and technological solutions to improve participation of knowledge creation in any firm. Practice communities are essential in providing motivation to employees and help provide context to knowledge.

Properly designed knowledge taxonomies are also helpful in managing knowledge. Organizations can also review the rewards given to employees to cater for participation in knowledge sharing. Turban and Aronson (2001) suggest that knowledge management should assess a company’s business process by choosing a high-value business process.

A knowledge management program requires a strong case in order to succeed. It is also important that the knowledge management strategy should have a set of vision, considering both the social and technical aspects of the system. Besides, knowledge management team should take into consideration the readiness of users or employees in addition to technical requirements.

The actual implementation of a knowledge management program should follow staged implementation instead of implementing the program as a “plunge”. Following strategies like pilot or phased implementation approach is much better. This is due to the fact that users’ requirements change and the knowledge that they might have now is deemed to change over time.

Technical aspects and social aspects of an organization tend to change at different levels. Thus the society should confirm their duty in knowledge creation and development, while IT or technical structures should contribute in the construction of novel technologies with the aim of catering for the changing organizational requirements (Cartelli, 2007).

Therefore, organizations are called upon to consider the theory of socio-technical systems in knowledge management. Knowledge management systems are always difficult to implement and in most cases they are unable to grant the expected benefits.

The interaction between people and technical structures in an organization enable an organization to manage its knowledge through the incorporation of tacit and explicit knowledge from the employees and IT systems. Despite the challenges in the implementation of knowledge, participation and stepwise implementation strategy is seen as effective strategies in knowledge engineering.

References

Cartelli, A., (2007). “Socio-Technical Theory and Knowledge Construction: Towards New Pedagogical Paradigms?” Issues in Information Science and Information Technology. Web.

Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2006). Management information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm. (9th Ed).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Levinson, M. (n.d) Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions. Web.

Holm J. & Murphy K. (2008) Knowledge Management at NASA: Supporting Missions and Collaboration. Web.

Turban, E., & Aronson, J. (2001). Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems. (6th Ed). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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Applying Social Technical Theory in Knowledge Management

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