CWS The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Lew Platt, described the outlook of KM as "If we knew what we know, we'd be three times as profitable! " (Polley, 2003).
In his book, Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice, Dalkir (2005) provides a comprehensive definition of KM (taken from the text's glossary) as being the "deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization's people, technology, processes, and organizational structure in order to add value through reuse and innovation. This value is achieved through the promotion of creating, sharing, and applying knowledge as well as through the feeding of valuable lessons learned and best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning."
Further, Dalkir (2005) indicates that "Knowledge resides in communities in the form of social capital." Social capital is the extent to which an environment whether society or a community come together (collaborate) and act as one (cooperate) to accomplish a goal.
In the article, Share the Wealth: What Knowledge Management Could Mean to Your Legal Department, Polley (2003) describes KM as "a systematic process designed to collect, validate, and reuse the knowledge and experiences of an organization, promoting consistency and reducing costs. Successful KM projects follow a recipe that gives equal attention to people, process and technology."1 Some companies that have successfully used KM techniques include, among others: HP; the US Army; the World Bank; and MultiCo (in 1999 a multinational company facing competitive business pressures restructured its legal department to incorporate a KM strategy - the department challenges were divided into three (3) areas: people; technology; and culture.
Looking at the above definitions, we begin to see where the concept of collaborating comes into play. The coming together (i.e., collaboration) of an organization's resources that include people, technology, processes, culture and the structure of the organization have resulted in what we now term Collaborative Work Systems ("CWS").
Collaboration "is a coalition of diverse people with diverse values and expectations working together at the community level to solve problems; a social skill involving working together with two or more persons. Collaboration is the process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own" (Dalkir, 2005).
Collaboration is a principle-based approach to leading, managing and working. The implicit principles of hierarchy (authority and control) are replaced with the explicit principles of collaboration: ownership and alignment. Ownership is defined as, "the degree to which people operate in the same way and/or toward the same end."2 The difference in approaches leads to a team-based system in which everyone is in sync and allows for sharing to take place versus direction coming from the top towards the bottom of the pyramid in the group or organization. Collaboration is teamwork, and it is also a system. A work system can then be derived from collaboration.
 A work system can be thought of as a system whereby processes, resources and individuals work together to achieve a common goal or result. Collectively, collaboration and work systems give way to a CWS.
Beyerlein and Harris describe a CWS as "an organizational unit that occurs any time that collaboration takes place, whether it is formal or informal or occurs intentionally or unintentionally. Intentional focus on CWS requires the conscious and deliberate arrangement of organizational systems aimed at enabling collaboration and limiting impediments to collaborative work" (Guiding the Journey to CWS: a Strategic Design Workbook, 2003).
In order for CWS to improve an organization's KM, group members need access to data, information, knowledge and resources (which may include technology) that will allow them to participate towards a common objective collectively. The quality of the participation depends on the ability of group members to establish relationships with other individuals and groups so that decision making and accountability are clearly communicated and mutually understood within the context of support systems and enabling structures.3
CWS can work within an organization between its functional departments or within the same department as well as between organizations in which two (2) or more companies may have merged, taken on a joint venture/partnership or been acquired by another company. These types of partnerships and/or relationships - CWS - can be undertaken locally or globally.
The phrase CWS has been used synonymously with collaborative networks, work group, work teams, self-directed work team, self-managing team and other similar meanings.
Note: It should be noted that the term CWS is defined somewhat differently by the various authors and throughout the academics or fields of study. Home Next
1 Share the Wealth: What Knowledge Management Could Mean to Your Legal Department (ABA's Business Law Today, Nov./Dec. 2003) - http://www.abanet.org/buslaw/blt/2003-11-12/polley.shtml.
2 The Collaborative Organization by Rachel Conerly, Tim Kelley and John Mitchell - www.collaborativeleaders.us/TheCollaborativeOrganization.pdf.
3 Learn the Basics of Collaborative Work Systems (Chap. 2) - http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/82/07879678/0787967882.pdf. |
KM - Group Research Projects
