**6. Theoretical and practical managerial implications of the stake holder's model**

The knowledge based processes (i.e. codification, de-codification, personification, impersonification, humanization, and de-humanization) that integrate all the differentiated forms of human knowledge, structural knowledge and relational knowledge should occur discontinuously in organizations for them to sustain long term organizational competitiveness. In other words, organizations should strive to experience concurrent cycles of these processes. However, cycles of these processes would not just happen by abracadabra. Organizations must proactively ensure that the necessary conditions required for the effective management of these processes are created in order for them to successfully and continuously experience cycles of these processes.

First of all, modern organizations must embrace a stakeholder´s perspective of conducting business. This suggests that they need to identify all their primary stakeholders and incorporate them into their business strategy. This is very imperative given the position held in this article that pinpoints the basis for the accumulation of all knowledge assets, which is, the satisficing of all stakeholders´ interests. After organizations have been able to identify all their stakeholders, it would then be necessary to differentiate their employees based on areas of specialized knowledge that they possess in relation to these stakeholders. The stakeholder model of organizational knowledge assets depicted above recognizes five areas of such specialized knowledge. These are: human knowledge about product market(HKPM); human knowledge about labour market (HKLM); human knowledge about financial market (HKFM); human knowledge about technological process (HKTP), and human knowledge about external environment (HKEE).

The stakeholder model implies that all organizational employees would be located within the five broad areas of specialized knowledge needed for meeting the needs of business stakeholders. However, the main challenge lies in utilizing the tacit (*human*) knowledge that is domiciled within them in the five broad areas of specialized knowledge for the production of both structural and relational knowledge needed for the improvement of stakeholders´ welfare. Recall that apart from the processes of de-humanization and impersonification, the other four processes (i.e. codification, de-codification, personification and humanization) cannot take place without the input of the human mind; and these four processes are needed for the formation of structural and relational knowledge. Human knowledge is precisely the conduit through which these four processes can be experienced in organizations. Consequently, there is need for us to place a lot of emphasis on managing this facet of organizational knowledge assets.

In his article on the Knowledge based theory of the firm, Grant (1996), dealt with two organizational variables that can influence the full expression of human knowledge. These are: the role of hierarchy and the distribution of decision making authority in organizations. According to Grant, the recent emphases for team based structures where team membership is fluid, depending upon the knowledge requirements of the task at hand, is one response to the deficiencies of hierarchy. The importance of a team based organization is the recognition that coordination is best achieved through the direct involvement of individual knowledge

structural knowledge and relational knowledge) that are geared towards meeting the diverse interests of stakeholders have both theoretical and practical implications for

The knowledge based processes (i.e. codification, de-codification, personification, impersonification, humanization, and de-humanization) that integrate all the differentiated forms of human knowledge, structural knowledge and relational knowledge should occur discontinuously in organizations for them to sustain long term organizational competitiveness. In other words, organizations should strive to experience concurrent cycles of these processes. However, cycles of these processes would not just happen by abracadabra. Organizations must proactively ensure that the necessary conditions required for the effective management of these processes are created in order for them to successfully

First of all, modern organizations must embrace a stakeholder´s perspective of conducting business. This suggests that they need to identify all their primary stakeholders and incorporate them into their business strategy. This is very imperative given the position held in this article that pinpoints the basis for the accumulation of all knowledge assets, which is, the satisficing of all stakeholders´ interests. After organizations have been able to identify all their stakeholders, it would then be necessary to differentiate their employees based on areas of specialized knowledge that they possess in relation to these stakeholders. The stakeholder model of organizational knowledge assets depicted above recognizes five areas of such specialized knowledge. These are: human knowledge about product market(HKPM); human knowledge about labour market (HKLM); human knowledge about financial market (HKFM); human knowledge about technological process (HKTP), and

The stakeholder model implies that all organizational employees would be located within the five broad areas of specialized knowledge needed for meeting the needs of business stakeholders. However, the main challenge lies in utilizing the tacit (*human*) knowledge that is domiciled within them in the five broad areas of specialized knowledge for the production of both structural and relational knowledge needed for the improvement of stakeholders´ welfare. Recall that apart from the processes of de-humanization and impersonification, the other four processes (i.e. codification, de-codification, personification and humanization) cannot take place without the input of the human mind; and these four processes are needed for the formation of structural and relational knowledge. Human knowledge is precisely the conduit through which these four processes can be experienced in organizations. Consequently, there is need for us to place a lot of emphasis on managing

In his article on the Knowledge based theory of the firm, Grant (1996), dealt with two organizational variables that can influence the full expression of human knowledge. These are: the role of hierarchy and the distribution of decision making authority in organizations. According to Grant, the recent emphases for team based structures where team membership is fluid, depending upon the knowledge requirements of the task at hand, is one response to the deficiencies of hierarchy. The importance of a team based organization is the recognition that coordination is best achieved through the direct involvement of individual knowledge

managing organizations. This is treated in the next section of the article.

and continuously experience cycles of these processes.

human knowledge about external environment (HKEE).

this facet of organizational knowledge assets.

**holder's model** 

**6. Theoretical and practical managerial implications of the stake** 

specialists, and that knowledge managers cannot effectively coordinate knowledge assets if they cannot harness the requisite specialist knowledge (Grant, 1996).

The spread of the team based approach to conducting business is occasioned by the notion that the critical knowhow is located among knowledge specialists. Hence the displacement of scientific management by various forms of participative, employee-empowering management approaches partly reflects the motivational benefits of these systems, but is also the result of the greater efficiency of these systems in harnessing and integrating the relevant human knowledge (Grant, 1996).

Also, in order to effectively harness human knowledge, the locus of decision making in organizations must be considered (Grant, 1996). According to Grant, the quality of organizational decisions depends on their being based upon the relevant human knowledge. If the human knowledge relevant to a particular decision can be concentrated at a single point in the organization, then centralized decision making is feasible. However, must of the time the human knowledge required to make decisions may be widely dispersed in organizations, and so it would be needful to deploy decentralized decision making to fully access and harness such knowledge(Grant, 1996).

The arguments brought forward by Grant lead to the submission that team based organizations that decentralize decision making to those who have relevant human knowledge would be favourably disposed to catalyzing the processes of codification, decodification, personification, and humanization required for the formation of structural and relational knowledge that could improve stakeholders´ welfare.

However, while variables that pertain to organizational structure and decision making as delineated above by Grant(1996), may be very important for the harnessing and accessing of human knowledge; contemporary research in knowledge management has ignored the import of personal factors in the expression of human knowledge. Organizations can design their structures in ways that facilitate the production of structural and relational knowledge from human knowledge; however, if individuals lack motivation, job satisfaction and commitment towards their organizations, they may resist the utilization of their tacit human knowledge. This challenge leads the discussion to the concept of knowledge markets.

Grover and Davenport (2001), aver that organizations should be seen as knowledge markets in which knowledge is exchanged for other things of value- money, respect, promotions, or other knowledge. The concept recognizes the interest that individuals have in holding onto the knowledge they possess (Grover and Davenport, 2001). Yet there is paucity of research on the behavior of various knowledge markets. For instance, the capacity of organizations to unleash tacit human knowledge about product market, labour market, financial market, technological process and external environment, may vary depending on the behavior of specialists in the five different knowledge markets.

Therefore for organizations to constantly experience the dynamics of the knowledge based processes (i.e. codification, de-codification, personification, and humanization) that must depend on the functioning of the human mind, both organizational and personal variables that could influence the production of structural and relational knowledge from human knowledge must be given considerable attention by knowledge assets´ managers. But in addition to these, the four key indicators (i.e. organizational tenure of employees, number of employees focusing on all differentiated areas of human knowledge, number of trainings employees have undergone per time, number of employees in all differentiated areas of human knowledge that have been rewarded for generating a novel idea within a specific period of time), required for tracking down the performance of all brands of human

A Stakeholder Model for Managing Knowledge Assets in Organizations 95

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knowledge must be regularly monitored to ensure the flourishing of these four processes in organizations.

The other two processes (i.e. de-humanization and impersonification) which enable the addition of stocks of explicit knowledge to differentiated forms of relational knowledge and structural knowledge without the rigorous functioning of the human mind can be kept alive in organizations by exploring and exploiting various impersonal sources of information that expose organizational members to the interests of their stakeholders.

Finally, the discontinuous functioning of all the six knowledge based processes also depends on the nexus between structural knowledge that has been shared amongst all organizational employees and the sustenance of the network of relationship that the organization has with its stakeholders. As already stated in an earlier section of this article, organizational structural knowledge would always influence business strategy and this should not adversely affect the network of relationship between organizations and their stakeholders. Consequently, structural knowledge and relational knowledge must mutually reinforce each other in order for these integrative processes to concurrently and discontinuously produce the different forms of knowledge assets needed for long term organizational competitiveness.
