**1. Introduction**

128 New Research on Knowledge Management Models and Methods

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In the current economic environment characterized by increasing competition and the pursuit of excellence, companies need to increase the efficiency of their production processes and management. In this sense, the policy of continuous improvement in organizations must be based on knowledge acquisition according to the experience of the company in the development of their activities and learning through the analysis of the operational experience. In recent literature several authors have found evidence of how the communications about observations, experiences and incidents are an important requisite for learning (Edmondson 1996; Van Dyck et al., 2005; Solana and Pérez, 2011). Even incidents without severe consequences also have considerable learning potential (Homsma et al., 2009).

Researchers have recognized the significance of organizational learning and its related concepts like the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding (Fiol and Lyles, 1985); the collective ability of a group to continuously expand its capacity to create the future in terms of personal mastery, shared vision, systems thinking, and team learning (Senge, 1990), identifying four necessary components: knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation and organizational memory (Huber, 1991); a structured and systematic method applied by an organization to motivate employees to learn (Dodgson, 1993). A gradual learning process by which staff learns through experiences and cooperate with other colleagues (Marchand et al., 2000).

The analysis of operating experience in organizations, whether it is a requirement that comes from external bodies, as if it is a policy promoted internally to the organization, is a relevant strategy of acquiring knowledge and learning for companies (Pérez and Solana, 2011). This strategy has proven effective in industries such as nuclear, to maintain a high level of efficiency and contribute to the improvement of processes and activities in such organizations, being able to apply this methodology in other companies and activity sectors. The implementation of organizational learning programs requires that the managerial attention should create opportunities for the work staff to engage in communication about incidents in order to allow for the development of shared knowledge about error incidents. Opportunities for employees to interact and discuss incidents openly may promote organizational learning (Homsma et al., 2009).

Assessment of Operational Experience as Strategy

performance of organizations.

organizations (Teece, 1998).

**2.2 Organizational learning** 

for Knowledge Acquisition and Learning in Organizations 131

practice of creating, acquiring, sharing and use of knowledge to improve learning and

Some authors relate the knowledge management with learning in organizations (Nonaka and Johansson, 1985; Huber, 1991; Quinn, 1992), in this sense Dodgson, (1993) links the Organizational Learning (OL) with the ways in which companies build, increase and organize the knowledge and, Sánchez and Heene, (1997) associate it with the processes of creating new knowledge in the bosom of individuals and groups within a company, and processes to effectively enhance the knowledge within the organization. Organizational learning is linked to the processes through which the organization creates knowledge or expands the knowledge base that has, line in which are also located the contributions of Nonaka, who considers knowledge creation as the central core of organizational learning

Other authors that relate KM in the organization with the concept of organizational learning make it from different points of view: Amponsem (1991) associates organizational learning to the process through which individual knowledge becomes in knowledge of the entire organization; Marengo (1991) considers organizational learning as the process of generating new organizational competencies that involve knowledge creation in turn; Andreu and Ciborra (1994), Revilla (1995) and Andreu and Sieber (1998) associate organizational learning with the process of problem solving that enables to expand the knowledge base of

From the management point of view, the inclusion of the organizations into the knowledge economy requires the reorganization that allows them to integrate the knowledge in their conventional operation in order to convert it in a true strategic active (González et al., 2009). The recent literature shows the explanatory power of knowledge management on the organizational performance (Pedraja et al., 2009) what makes knowledge management a fundamental discipline for business competitiveness. Organizational effectiveness requires achieve an effective integration of specialized knowledge (Grant, 1996) that together with the management of intangible assets are key factors for obtaining competitive advantages by

Finally, within the literature review, a series of recent works of special interest are included

The concept of OL is taking a significant rise in both the academic and business context, by contributing to the improvement of the understanding of organizations and their activities. However, organizational learning is faced with a relative lack of empirical works, and in

The organizational learning literature has taken mainly two perspectives (Durand et al. 1996; Von Krogh, 1998; Easterby-Smith et al. 1998; Gherardi, 1999): the cognitive (or perceptual) and the social (or constructive). Spender (1996 a), Backler (1995), Cook and Brown (1999) also identify two approaches about the nature of knowledge; which emphasized that the knowledge is or has and the one who believes that knowledge is created, i.e. it is a process. These perspectives and approaches are related, so two fundamental approaches can be considered: the cognitive-possession and the social process. The cognitive perspective takes two orientations (Cook and Yanow, 1996); the first that focuses the learning of the organizations in the processes of learning of individuals and assumes that organizations can learn as they have the same or similar skills that the

(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka and Ichijo, 1997; Nonaka, et al., 1998).

the organization through the incorporation of the generated knowledge.

below, analysing various issues relating to knowledge management.

particular of case studies, to try to induce theory from practice.

In this chapter we will explain how companies can develop organizational learning programs based on an adequate strategy of acquiring knowledge through the analysis of the experiences of its activity, a strategy which at the same time is based on the communication processes, sharing of knowledge, workflow management and collaboration. This work presents a model of knowledge acquisition and organizational learning that can serve as reference and be applied in different companies to improve their operational and management processes. The model is based on processes developed by the nuclear industry and is the result of the strict regulation and controls of its activity.

Following the chapter deepens first on the acquisition of knowledge in organizations and their relationship to organizational learning, for which a review of literature on the subject is realized by taking as a focus the experience based learning. Secondly, it discusses the need to establish formal procedures in organizations of knowledge acquisition in order to develop organizational learning, procedures that can be implemented with the help of techniques to design and specify complex workflow based on collaboration and sharing of knowledge. In this regard, it is presented workflow and Petri nets as a suitable technique for the specification of workflow processes with these characteristics. Then it is developed a methodology that enables organizations to implement a program of acquiring knowledge based on the phases of communication of experiences, event analysis, evaluation and implementation of improvement actions. This methodology of work it is formally specified as a learning model based on operating experience of the organization, a model that has been successfully implemented in the nuclear industry and can be applied to other companies. Finally, we present the conclusions and future lines of work.
