Page 350 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

networks are essential for sharing actual knowledge, creation of upcoming knowledge and keeping the social and human aspects of IT under control. Through distributed collaboration and decision processes knowledge and best practices are shared, tapping into the expertise of the participants.
- The active support of top-management and their understanding of the important role that knowledge will play in the future of the organisation is critical for the acceptance among employees and essential for the success of the organisation in the longer term. The top management will require hard figures on the investment for a KM system which can easily be provided. Another supporting feature is to establish the sponsorship of the top managers by the continuous involvement during the stages of design, development and implementation of the KM system. Top managers can be convinced by clear projections and deadlines even if they are not completely solidly based.
- Knowledge sharing is in first instance a function and result of the collaboration, discussions and actions of the mind. The involvement of IT and electronic communications is not a full substitution for face-to-face engagements as shown by the research of Baek, Wojcieszak and Delli Martini (2011). However, including audio and video contributions into the KM processes and infrastructure are important. If the project becomes more and more complex, an internal group of knowledgeable experts, from various parts of the organisation, should be prepared to be able to assist co-workers with the effective implementation and re-formulation of the retrieved knowledge, to be inserted into the KM system.
- Support the sharing of narratives of encountered problems, obtained solutions, positive and negative experiences by informal gatherings and channels. Making available an option to chat will provide the content captured by employees in a database with useful information, not easily retrievable in a standardised form.
- To capitalise on an abundance of information derived from the organisation, the knowledge stored in databases and repositories should be accessible in a useful, insightful and relevant mode. Knowledge is generally shared with groups of employees, from departments and/or project teams, all with different backgrounds, skills, responsibilities and training. Therefore, structuring the storage of knowledge will require revision and review in several sequential processes. To accomplish useful, stored content the following stages should be
included: Identification, Segmentation, Mass customisation and an Appropriate 325020