Essay Sample on Knowledge Management in UAE Organizations

Knowledge management (KM) is the systematic handling of a firm's information assets to meet strategic and tactical requirements and create value in the organization. Knowledge management comprises strategies, initiatives, systems, and processes that enhance and sustain the creation, storage, sharing, assessment, and refinement of the company's knowledge (Girard & Girard, 2015). It, therefore, means a strong connection to the organizational strategies and goals, and it includes the management of information that gets used for a purpose and establishes value for the firm.

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Knowledge management includes the understanding of what the company requires to know, in what forms and where to find the information, how to develop a conducive learning culture, knowledge creation and sharing, how to avail the right information to the respective persons at the right time, how to acquire or generate relevant new knowledge/information and the best management approach for all these factors in order to improve performance as they are stated in the organizations short term opportunities, strategic goals, and threats (Girard & Girard, 2015). KM should, therefore, provide the right knowledge, tools, structures, culture, and people, among other factors. KM must provide these influencing factors in order to improve learning, help understand the applications and value of the newly developed information, assist in the storage of this knowledge and avail it to the respective individuals at the ideal time, and it should continuously apply, remove, refine and assess the knowledge and information in relation to the clearly defined short and long term influencing factors.

A knowledge management system involves identifying, evaluating, sharing, capturing, and retrieving information and knowledge assets in an organization (Oliva & Kotabe, 2019). These knowledge assets include documents, procedures, databases, policies, and all the uncaptured experience and expertise of each employee. There are operational components of a sound KM system in an organization which include;

Content Management

Knowledge management involves making organizations' information and data available to the stakeholders and employees of an organization through portals, dashboards, and using systems that manage content. Content management is the primary component of KM and can also be referred to as enterprise content management. This KM aspect can be said to putting organizational data and information online and providing the capability of easy searching the entire company web.

Expertise Location

Knowledge lives in people, and the best way to acquire knowledge and expertise is to talk directly to the expert. It is always a considerable challenge to locate the correct experts who have the specific expertise that is required. The primary duty of the system responsible for finding experts is to identify individuals in the company who possess knowledge in a particular area or field. The three new sources used to provide data to expertise locator systems include worker resumes, self-identification of expertise areas by employees, and algorithmic analysis of an employee's all electronic communications.

Lessons Learnt

These are databases that try to capture and avail information precisely "how-to" knowledge that has been obtained operationally and would not have been typically captured. In the context of knowledge management, the emphasis is on capturing information that is embedded in individual expertise and making it clear.

Communities of Practice

These are groupings of people with common interests who come together virtually or in-person to narrate stories, discuss and share opportunities and challenges, discuss ideal practices, and talk about the lessons taught (Girard & Girard, 2015). Communities of practice build upon, emphasize, and take advantage of the learning nature, which is social across all organizations.

Impacts of Knowledge Management in Organizations

Knowledge and information are becoming valuable assets in most organizations, and the urge to manage it is becoming popular among managers and researchers. KMs primary objective is to ensure efficient and effective use of the diverse resources like capital, energy, labor, information, and materials in their quest to increase productivity as well as achieve competitiveness that must be managed. In the current rapid technological change, organizations are always struggling through market differentiation to preserve competitive advantage by providing higher quality services and goods (Inkinen, 2016). Management in various organizations is focusing more on employees' past experiences, know-how, and skills in their effort to achieve their goals. Knowledge has turned out to be a vital asset for a firm's functionalities.

Knowledge management systems enhance several healthy commerce activities such as;

Recording of Knowledge Experts

Information becomes shareable, reusable, and manageable only when recorded or turned into an artifact, which makes it readily available. Any knowledge or information piece used in a particular business location, over the cubical or even down the hallway, will not likely be shared unless recorded and stored (Kwahk & Park, 2016). KM emphasizes the need for capturing know-how and experience in a modern format that is easy to categorize and avail knowledge through a workers' portal or another channel.

Quality Knowledge Management.

The information that an organization wants to share should always be of high quality. Sharing, reusing, or re-implementing low-quality information may lead to increased challenges. It is, therefore, crucial to select individuals responsible for improving, approving, and reviewing the quality of the information intended to be shared. Knowledge systems also allow the tracking of artifact review dates that individuals use to identify the perfect time to review. Since KM systems enhance the sharing of individual expertise, it becomes more critical to record and maintain our knowledge in a quality way.

Exploiting Lessons Acquired Through Past Experiences and Decisions

Making a wrong move in a business is always costly in terms of finances and other resources. Making the wrong decision twice increases the expense and the issue. These additional costs could have been potentially avoided if the individual making the second decision learned a lesson from the first one. Companies want to reuse effective decision making procedures and approaches that have benefitted the organization (Kwahk & Park, 2016). Knowledge comes from experience, having addressed the challenge before or having been in a similar situation before. People are expected to learn from these experiences when repeating what works in a case and not to repeat the mistake.

The building of Consistent Procedures and Sharing of Best Practices

Management teams develop best practices for performance enhancement. In firms with diverse departments, many buildings spread out over states, countries, or cities; best practices are designed for every respective location (Kwahk & Park, 2016). This type of development sometimes works well, but there is a cost that comes with effort duplication when these practices are not shared. This cost comprises of human resources wasted to recreate practices that already exist.

Knowledge Management Analysis in UAE Organizations

From the two knowledge management surveys conducted; one from the department of community development and the other from human resources authority, knowledge management is being used by organizations in the UAE (Haak-Saheem, Darwish & Al-Nasser, 2017). Responses from both departments indicate that intellectual capital or knowledge is critical to both the organization's success. This came from respondents in the public sector who have worked in their respective fields for over three years.

From the surveys, it is clear that knowledge management is very beneficial to organizations in the UAE. KM systems played an essential role in the performance of the respective organizations. According to the respondents, KM helps in the sharing of information and data between departments and employees at all hierarchical levels. Knowledge management also helps in service provision and work efficiency. It gives the two organizations an excellent platform for healthy competition with rivals. Great knowledge systems ensure that these organizations acquire and store quality information, and it is not removed from the firm.

The respondents indicated that they interact with over 15 individuals in their respective organizations, and they share and withhold knowledge freely regarding the importance of the information. In the authority of the human resource, workers share knowledge because they must do so, communication is easy, and there is a lot of trust between departments and individual groups. The department of community development, on the other hand, shares knowledge because of their job security and the trust between departments.

In the authority of the human resource, knowledge sharing activities like mentorship, formal and informal meetings, external training and emails, among others, occur regularly. These activities ensure that the slightest piece of knowledge is shared among individuals and departments for performance improvement. In the community development department, very few knowledge sharing activities take place. Formal meetings, one on one conversations, emails, and mentorship programs occur regularly. Important events meant for sharing information such as external and internal training courses and telephone conversations rarely take place.

Both respondents indicated that the culture of their respective organizations strongly encourages knowledge sharing among groups and departments. They also both agreed that the national culture of the UAE strongly encourages the sharing of information across all fields. Respondents from the respective organizations indicated that multiple languages, short term contracts, subgroups, lack of trust between workers, and inadequate education regarding knowledge management as the most robust KM barriers in their organizations. These barriers block information transfer from one person or department to the other, which negatively affects organizational performance.

Both respondents stated that suggestions and ideas they offer regarding knowledge sharing mechanisms to their respective supervisors and managers are often taken into consideration. According to the respondents, opinions given to administration regarding knowledge management if often rewarded through recognition and no-financial rewards such as vouchers. Promotions and financial bonuses were much often in the community development department as compared to the human resource authority.

Respondents from both surveys indicated that both organizations are very supportive of their workers in terms of resources when information is not readily available in the firm. The organizations provided research materials such as finances and labor. Both respondents stated that they were unsure of any employee preference from their seniors regarding training and knowledge sharing.

Responses indicated that recorded or written processes are the effective channels of knowledge sharing, which affects KM uptake since they require time and effort. The majority of technological tools used in the retention and sharing of knowledge were effective, according to the respondents. Respondents indicated that they were unsure whether the KM systems used in their organizations were too complicated, time-consuming, and provided outdated information. They were uncertain whether the knowledge sharing systems they use in their organizations have problems.