Learning is a never-ending process. Individuals learn from experiences, through intuitions, by reading and training. The attitude to learn determines how well the knowledge of employees can be aligned with the organizational mission, for developing intellectual assets, establishing best practices and creating competence. Nevertheless, all organizations practice knowledge management. Transformation into a knowledge organization demands practice of active learning and willingness to share. This article discusses the making of a knowledge-based organization.
What characteristics a knowledge organization possesses, perhaps, is the right thing to discuss first. However, prior to that we must accept that the individuals must share similar opinions about their contribution to the fulfillment of organizational goals. A knowledge organization accordingly develops the need to learn. From learning through experiences, trainings and teaching methods, we tend to improve upon the production processes. Of course, in case the employee leaves the organization, the skills acquired from any of these sources go waste for the organization. The learning process system thus needs to be regenerated from the initial level. This consumes time, adds up to costs, slows down the process and produces gap between process layouts. Even a well-formulated strategy could fail in such circumstances. The challenges of globalization era and information age have created a dynamic competitive workforce and changed the job environment as well.
The diversity of behavior and culture is shrinking while there is an upsurge of skills and creativity. It is vital that an organization aligns its business philosophy with its vision in order to facilitate employee retention and augmentation of competence and profits. Such an alignment is possible only when a sense of commitment is aroused among the employees, by way of deciding the business direction. The business direction or the mission statement of a firm dictates its scope of activities and pursuit. This approach has wider perspective and flows unidirectionally. |
