**6. Conclusions**

348 New Research on Knowledge Management Models and Methods

rectify the dysfunctions noticed.

the reports from the revision process. Criticism and reflection on the process and

Including KCM into the organisational

Creating dynamics that encourage the adoption of new KCM networks.

Improvements above and beyond the people

Drawing up strategies to disseminate the

Motivating the participants to share the

The end of cycles must signal EVALUATION processes. Drawing up evaluation reports from the vantage point of each of the stakeholders involved should allow the planning (objectives, tasks proposed, timing, etc.), construction and selection of instruments and technological resources, information outlining and gathering and the agility and

Likewise, it is important to evaluate to what extent the benefits of online KCM may last over time and become a valuable asset, that is, to assess the impact of the network on the

Finally, the experience must be INSTITUTIONALISED. Communication of the experience online can give rise to organisational knowledge which must be internally disseminated in order to promote institutional improvement and lead, if possible, to generating interorganisational knowledge. The external DISSEMINATION is extremely important for organising the knowledge generated and exploiting it in a way that enables the participating

Establishing support mechanisms.

The interaction or inter-dependence of the factors that trigger the dysfunctions noticed.

Searching for solutions to the problems that

Introducing modifications to the initial plan to

Drawing up an overall evaluative report based on the observation and monitoring plan and on All the stakeholders

All the stakeholders

Network Director, ICT Facilitator and Moderator

Institutional Manager

Participants

EVALUATION OVERALL REVISION "Verifying"

INSTITUTIO

NALISATION

DISSEMINATION

institution.

"Sharing"

"Incorporating"

DETECTION OF DYSFUNCTIONS

SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES

OVERALL ASSESSMENT REPORT

MAKING THE MECHANISMS ESTABLISHED ROUTINE

ADDRESSING NEW ISSUES

TIME

ON

SURVIVAL OVER

EXTERNALISATI

arise.

practice.

structure.

who launched it.

experience.

experience.

effectiveness of the knowledge generated to be assessed.

organisations to keep and/or generate a competitive advantage.

Table 4. Phases and actions in the ACCELERA network (based on Gairín, 2002)

The concern with innovation and improvement in educational centres has always been present in the individuals involved in their management and operation, although the focal points have changed according to the successes achieved and expected. The initial importance of extraordinary teaching staff is no longer as important compared as have the necessary collective, coordinated efforts when the period of schooling is on the rise. Here we are discussing schools as spaces of innovation, and the stress is on collaborative work.

Making the concern with endowing educational institutions with a shared, common culture promotes consensus and the clarification of objectives (reformulating the educational project, the curricular project, the normative regulations, etc.) and the transformation of structures (spaces and times for meetings, development of catalysts, etc.); that is, the goal is to reinforce the organisation as a global reality by developing a support structure and collaborative work.

This structural concern has not been sufficient to achieve the effects sought, and thus in recent years the importance of people and organisational processes has been reconsidered. First, the personal characteristics and contextual conditions related to professional collaboration have been analysed, while secondly there has been an attempt to identify effective processes associated with professional and organisational development.

The concepts of learning community and community of practice developed in this vein include the feeling of belonging, as well as a clearly determined orientation: the interaction among the members of the community should enable each and every member to progress while also strengthening a shared culture and the possibility that learning and organisational improvement can come to fruition. This is the individual and collective learning that justifies calling these communities formative, even if they adopt different guises, such as professional communities of practice.

Professional communities of practice (CoPs) can be set up and developed either in person or through the web. Virtual communities of practice offer several advantages over the more traditional method of working teams: (a) they make it possible to forge asynchronic relationships that facilitate collaborative activities without threatening individual autonomy, thus leading to the acquisition of knowledge constructively and with high social interaction; (b) they facilitate processes of collaboration in which the participants produce knowledge actively by formulating ideas in writing which are shared and constructed based on others' reactions and responses; (c) in the opinion of Silva (2004), they allow more time to consider opinions after reflection and to discuss complex ideas; (d) our knowledge can be extended because of the diversity of the other participants; and (e) they take advantage of the emancipating capacity of certain uses of technology, its capacity to impact users and their environment, improvements in coordinating actions and a reduction in costs (Smith & Kollock, 2003).

However, we should bear in mind several limitations: (a) a restriction due to the written language, which is linked to finding the right tone, the fluidity of the conversation and the loss of richness from gestural language, especially for those with lower writing skills; (b) excess information: over-saturation of information, high time demands and complications in managing all this information; (c) the lack of training in the use of the platform by both the moderators and the other participants is yet another stumbling block that must be overcome for the online training actions to be effective; and (d) the most appropriate materials and/or knowledge are not always available, leading to technical problem related to the set-up of the system and the access to and use of the network.

Agents and Processes in Knowledge Creation

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However, the working models used and the tools that accompany them are as important as the people. Their facilitating or limiting role is closely tied to the choices made and implemented. Given the novelty of this field of education, the effective creation and management of the collective knowledge generated by professionals requires specific models, strategies and instruments.

The ACCELERA model, which is specific to KCM in the field of education, has enabled us to analyse, experiment with and validate the working processes among education professionals based on a collective reflection grounded on questions. Likewise, it has also helped to clarify the roles and functions of the stakeholders involved in KCM.

Even though KCM should involve all the members of the organisation, the team in charge of it should plan the process to be used by aligning its objectives with the organisational strategy by defining the resources needed, designing KCM-specific strategies and dynamics, giving instructions for individual and/or group tasks, either guided or independent, choosing models of good practices, proposing case studies and readings, assessing and choosing the technologies needed (groupware, e-learning platforms, databases, blogs, wikis, repositories, messengers, social bookmarkers, etc.) and determining the evaluation system in an integrated, continuous fashion throughout the entire process.

However, improving the efforts of the KCM agents requires them to keep further pursuing several directions. Our studies have experimented with KCM models by delimiting the role of the managers and moderators, using varied motivation and participation strategies and further examining the usefulness of synchronous or asynchronous tools, while always using voluntary professional groups on an occasional basis. The crux of the matter is that if we want to promote significant developments, we have to consider the involvement of the entire organisation or most of it in KCM processes and thus overcome the dilemma of volunteers "versus" everyone in the organisation.

Likewise, despite the considerable surge in studies on KCM, it is worth continuing to work based on specific approaches in and from the field of education which enable us to evaluate, propose and validate procedures to create and manage knowledge in both in-person and online communities of practice according to the stage of education and the target groups. The goal is to analyse the personal, organisational and social effects entailed by the intensive use of CoPs by an organisation, while also providing instruments for self-evaluation to improve their functioning and tools to identify and validate the informal learning they generate.

However, the effective, widespread development of KCM approaches would not be possible without the implementation and development of strategies to support them. In this respect, headway is needed in identifying strategies for personal knowledge linked to the resistances to collective work and the development of the individuals in the organisation, such as peer guidance, mentoring or coaching.

Therefore, the problem is not so much one of conception as primarily one of development. The goal is to more deeply define the models and strategies that enable professionals to work together collaboratively, and then for their collaboration to generate positive results and effects for both individuals and the organisation.

#### **7. Acknowledgment**

Contributions from the study "Agentes y procesos en la gestión del conocimiento en red"(Agents and process in networked knowledge management). Ministry of Education and Culture, National R&D Plan (ref. SEJ2007-67093/EDUC), supervised by Joaquín Gairín.

#### **8. References**

350 New Research on Knowledge Management Models and Methods

However, the working models used and the tools that accompany them are as important as the people. Their facilitating or limiting role is closely tied to the choices made and implemented. Given the novelty of this field of education, the effective creation and management of the collective knowledge generated by professionals requires specific

The ACCELERA model, which is specific to KCM in the field of education, has enabled us to analyse, experiment with and validate the working processes among education professionals based on a collective reflection grounded on questions. Likewise, it has also

Even though KCM should involve all the members of the organisation, the team in charge of it should plan the process to be used by aligning its objectives with the organisational strategy by defining the resources needed, designing KCM-specific strategies and dynamics, giving instructions for individual and/or group tasks, either guided or independent, choosing models of good practices, proposing case studies and readings, assessing and choosing the technologies needed (groupware, e-learning platforms, databases, blogs, wikis, repositories, messengers, social bookmarkers, etc.) and determining the evaluation system in

However, improving the efforts of the KCM agents requires them to keep further pursuing several directions. Our studies have experimented with KCM models by delimiting the role of the managers and moderators, using varied motivation and participation strategies and further examining the usefulness of synchronous or asynchronous tools, while always using voluntary professional groups on an occasional basis. The crux of the matter is that if we want to promote significant developments, we have to consider the involvement of the entire organisation or most of it in KCM processes and thus overcome the dilemma of

Likewise, despite the considerable surge in studies on KCM, it is worth continuing to work based on specific approaches in and from the field of education which enable us to evaluate, propose and validate procedures to create and manage knowledge in both in-person and online communities of practice according to the stage of education and the target groups. The goal is to analyse the personal, organisational and social effects entailed by the intensive use of CoPs by an organisation, while also providing instruments for self-evaluation to improve their

However, the effective, widespread development of KCM approaches would not be possible without the implementation and development of strategies to support them. In this respect, headway is needed in identifying strategies for personal knowledge linked to the resistances to collective work and the development of the individuals in the organisation, such as peer

Therefore, the problem is not so much one of conception as primarily one of development. The goal is to more deeply define the models and strategies that enable professionals to work together collaboratively, and then for their collaboration to generate positive results

Contributions from the study "Agentes y procesos en la gestión del conocimiento en red"(Agents and process in networked knowledge management). Ministry of Education and Culture, National R&D Plan (ref. SEJ2007-67093/EDUC), supervised by Joaquín Gairín.

functioning and tools to identify and validate the informal learning they generate.

helped to clarify the roles and functions of the stakeholders involved in KCM.

an integrated, continuous fashion throughout the entire process.

volunteers "versus" everyone in the organisation.

and effects for both individuals and the organisation.

guidance, mentoring or coaching.

**7. Acknowledgment** 

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**16** 

*The Netherlands* 

**Talent Management in** 

Melissa Schroevers and Paul Hendriks

**Knowledge-Intensive Organizations** 

*Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen School of Management* 

In many organizations knowledge becomes increasingly important for sustaining competitive advantage. Knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs; Alvesson, 2004) gain competitive advantage by continuous adaptation to their environment. This constant adaptation to the competitive environment is realized by the unremitting generation and use of new knowledge (Harrison & Kessels, 2004, p. 3). Thus, for KIFs the strategic capacity to compete flows from knowledge; this knowledge is mainly derived from people (Kessels, 2004). Therefore it is assumed that managing their workforce's knowledge has become ever more critical to organizations. The relevance of HRM to knowledge management debates has long been noticed (e.g. Haesli & Boxall, 2005; Scarbrough, 2003; Storey & Quintas, 2002). Knowledge presumes knowing subjects, and therefore management focusing on knowledge and learning needs to pay attention to these subjects. Because of the emphasis on the knowledge people in knowledge-intensive firms possess and may create, organizations constantly need to find ways to make better use of this knowledge. Here, improved knowledge usage does not just concern better exploitation of existing knowledge sources but also leveraging the knowledge creation capability hidden in available knowledge. Even the most intelligent knowledge-based systems remain void of knowledge without intelligent users of these systems. As Kaulingfreks (2002) argues, knowledge management in an ICToriented approach easily runs the risk of producing erudite folly because of its preoccupation with information. What gets lost in even the most user-friendly and fully updated storage of best practices, Kaulingfreks argues, is the contextual, individual, nontransferrable, purposeless activity that knowledge is. Introductions into KM nowadays are considered incomplete if they do not pay sufficient attention to HRM and HRM handbooks typically include a chapter or section on knowledge and learning (e.g. Harrison & Kessels,

A possibly interesting yet mostly unexplored domain of managing knowledge via HRM is by means of talent management. Since the late 1990s the interest in the topic of talent management has grown considerably. In 1997 a group of McKinsey consultants formulated the importance of talent for the performance of organizations by coining the 'War for Talent'. Since then the topic of talent management has received a remarkable degree of practitioner and academic interest (Gollings & Mellahi, 2009, p. 2). Changes in the environments of organizations such as globalization, growing operational complexity, an aging workforce, scarcity of talent, and greater international workforce mobility made the

**1. Introduction** 

2004; Redman & Wilkinson, 2006; Adams, 2006).

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