Knowledge Sharing Organizations, Essay Example

Knowledge sharing is a key aspect of an organization in terms of performance improvement and enhancing cohesiveness. Changing traditional organizational structures into new structures that support information and knowledge sharing on various aspects such decisions, ideas and other issues is the key step to improving performance. I propose that permissive organizational structure to be adopted in support for knowledge sharing and improved performance purpose (Duguid, 2001).

A permissive organizational style is democratic management style that allows for participatory decision making process and well as sharing of knowledge, information and other organizational ideas among the members. This kind of organizational style is likely to ensure sharing of knowledge and ideas that reflect the interests of the entire company. Democratic system of management will ensure involvement of all members in sharing of knowledge and ideas this uniform improvement in performance. They are also likely to have a sense of belonging to all members. Members will get motivated and the performance is likely to increase (Lapp, 2008). With implementation of a democratic organizational system, hierarchical levels based on status will be eliminated and employees will not feel isolated from the system. Democracy will enhance togetherness and employees will be encouraged to form and work as groups or teams (best suited for them). Thos form of organizational structure belongs to a category known as matrix where team building, collaboration and consultations are enhanced (Duguid, 2001).

Another aspect of the structure is that power of control is evenly distributed and not concentrated at the top like the traditional systems holds. Powers should be delegated to all levels of the organization so that all members can be able to carry out their duties autonomously. An entity should be given powers that it can comfortable manage and handle. In this aspect, the atmosphere or working environment created will be best for free interaction and sharing of knowledge, ideas and other beneficial information due to status absence (Lapp, 2008).

The proposed new organizational chart 

Justifications for the new organizational chart

Changing the type of organizational structure from the traditional hierarchical ones to a matrix type of organization will allow pooling of people with similar skills for different work assignments. For instance, in the above structure, all customer care providers will be in one customer care department under the customer care manager and at the same time engage in other projects and subsequently report to the project manager while under the customer care department (Lapp, 2008). This means that they are in the best position to share information or knowledge concerning their areas of practice while in the department. They can also work under several managers to accomplish their job through consultations thus enhancing performance outcome. This is not possible with traditional hierarchical structure where each entity is only allowed to report to an immediate entity above it and at the same time receive reports from an immediate entity below it. There is no flexibility and sharing of knowledge through interaction in hierarchical structure which can only be solved through the new matrix organizational structure (Duguid, 2001).

The structure is also likely to benefit the organizations adopting it since it allows the team members to readily share information across task boundaries. The new structure also allows for specialization and this is important as it allows for increased depth of knowledge among members and career progression as well as development. The system will also allow individuals or employees of the company to be selected based on the needs of the upcoming projects and not based on the ranks. This structure will actually be viewed as a complete new environment for the company bringing together various project teams that are dynamic and capable of viewing problems from different perspectives as specialists thus enabling appropriate, viable and reliable resolutions/ recommendations (Duguid, 2001).

Therefore, the new organizations should be structured in a way to avoid formation of hierarchies where some members of the organization appear as high ranked than others. This is because; it is this ranks that creates separation or isolation between members of an organization which finally hinders the spirit of sharing ideas information and knowledge. The new organization structure should thus be structured in a matrix way where members of the organization are deprived of status irrespective of their salaries or positions they hold in the organization.  Instead, they are encouraged to freely interact with fellow staff members without status discriminations. In this aspect, members see each other as equal and thus motivated to freely interact in teams and share ideas or knowledge (Lapp, 2008). The new role of teams is to enhance collaborative efforts and encourage members to work collaboratively. The middle managers will have a responsibility of only coordinating the teams but not imposing dictatorship measures. The number of management levels is reduced as much as possible in order to eliminate statuses in the organization. Every member, including subordinate staff members, is free to interact with another member irrespective of the position (Duguid, 2001).

References

Duguid, B, (2001). Organizational structures: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Lapp, M. (2008). Knowledge Management in organizational structures. Business and Economic  Review Journal, 44(4), 1-3