IAKM ECKM Doctoral Workshop 2016
This year our Association was asked to collaborate on the organization of a Doctoral Workshop to be held at Ulster University on 31st August, the day before the 17th European Conference on Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management is not, certainly, a mature field, and there are more open questions than definitive answers: this is clearly a challenge for research and practice, but this is also the reason for its appeal among senior and young researchers. The workshop title “So what is Next on the KM Horizon?” sounded quite evocative, and surely appropriate for encouraging a lively debate involving the participants – about 30 people including PhD students, senior researchers, and IAKM members. Indeed, to promote the active involvement was exactly the purpose of the organizers - Sandra Moffett (Ulster University, UK), Alexeis Garcia-Perez (Coventry University, UK) and Ettore Bolisani (University of Padova, Italy), all members of the IAKM Board.
In the first part of the Workshop, a summary of both new and recurring issues in KM were presented by Ettore Bolisani (see the slides), who drew inspiration from authoritative citations of famous KM studies and scholars. Later, participants were invited to engage in an open discussion, to provide not only their comments on the points raised in the presentation, but also their “preferred keywords” for a future KM agenda. The suggested list (see below) is quite interesting, and succinctly represents the various viewpoints.
The workshop continued with Alexeis Garcia’s presentation (see the slides), which focused on the “practical side of KM”: examples of problems implying or requiring KM projects were illustrated, and the proposed solutions were discussed. Again, discussion that followed captured the variety of opinions and feelings of the audience.
In the final session, the issue of KM education was raised. The participants were divided into four workgroups, each of which was invited to “design a KM course” targeted to a specific category. The results of workgroups, presented by their “spokepersons”, are summarized below. Particularly, it emerged that teaching and learning KM should probably be radically different – in terms of expected background, topics, or methods. The first group considered undergraduate or postgraduate students, andthe main suggested topic was “KM solutions in practice and theory”. The idea of participants was that such a KM course should be targeted mainly to students with non-managerial background and, most important, people having no knowledge of KM. The course should provide information about KM models, tools, methods and applications, with a preference for a case-study methodology to stimulate the debate on KM practice and solutions. Knowledge cafes and presentations by students were also among the suggested methods of teaching/learning.
A radically different situation is that of PhD students. The second workgroup expects that participants in a KM course at doctoral levels have a suitable academic background, although some experience as practitioners can be useful. Brilliant students are expected, but especially, they should be curious and passionate about the problems of managing knowledge. In addition, it was suggested that students should be “courageous”, considering the challenges that KM research and practice still pose even for a person’s career! Here, suggested topics are at the same much more detailed but also broader in scope, and include: foundations of KM at the different levels of analysis (micro, meso, macro), the business value of KM (intellectual capital for value creation, KM and innovation, etc.), and advanced technological approaches (including big data analytics). As teaching/learning methods, beyond the classic approaches, interactive discussions and the capability to comment on readings were proposed.
The third workgroup was invited to focus on professionals not specializing in KM, in other words mainly users of KM methods rather than designers or managers of KM programs. It was underlined how the target should be people working not only in private but also public organizations, that are an increasingly important field for KM. Generally speaking, they include “knowledge workers”, but especially those that have some managerial role. The purpose of such a course should be to show the “value of implementing KM” in an organization. Proposed topics include “what, why and how” in KM implementation, with example of “how to face specific KM problems” and of available tools (especially including the recent technologies that have a “social orientation”). Suggested learning/teaching methods include those that enable a capability to contextualize problems and solutions “in the practice”, with space for practical demonstrations, hands on experimentation, and provision of practical guidelines.
Finally, the fourth workgroup considered professionals specializing in KM. Especially targeted to middle managers in business (even with different professional experience – HR, IT, or information management), such a KM course should lead to effective KM consultants that can help companies in their KM implementations. The suggested topics include KM models, frameworks and applications in different industries and scenarios, but also metrics to evaluate outcomes of KM programs, and the connection between KM and business strategies; a consideration of enabling factors (and obstacles) of KM implementation was also seen important. Remarkably, the workgroup underlined the importance of learning/teaching methods that focus on the applicative/practical issues – with a preference for active learning method such as case-study discussions, project examination, and hands on experimentation.
In short, the debate was stimulating for all participants, and provided food for thought not only to PhD students but also to the senior researchers. Considering that KM is a young field where there is still a lot to discover, the hope is that, in the future, we will be able to have similar opportunities of fruitful interaction between the different people involved in KM research or practice. Stay tuned for the next initiative!
Photo gallery from the IAKM Doctoral Workshop
In the first part of the Workshop, a summary of both new and recurring issues in KM were presented by Ettore Bolisani (see the slides), who drew inspiration from authoritative citations of famous KM studies and scholars. Later, participants were invited to engage in an open discussion, to provide not only their comments on the points raised in the presentation, but also their “preferred keywords” for a future KM agenda. The suggested list (see below) is quite interesting, and succinctly represents the various viewpoints.
- INTANGIBLES
- KM PROCESSES
- KM LEVELS: PERSONAL, ORGANIZATIONAL, REGIONAL, GLOBAL
- KM JOURNALS; KM CONCEPTS
- KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
- GOVERNMENT SERVICES
- KM FAILURE AND KM EXPECTATIONS
- NON-LINEAR THINKING
- RATIONAL-EMOTIONAL-SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE
- RELATIONAL ECONOMY, SOCIAL NETWORKS, DYNAMIC NETWORK ANALYSIS
- MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES IN KM
- KM AS SCHOOL SUBJECT
- EFFECTIVENESS (OF KNOWLEDGE WORKERS, OF KNOWLEDGE WORK)
- “PERSONAL” HUMAN CAPITAL
- VALUE CREATION, INTANGIBLE LIABILITIES
- BUSINESS LANGUAGE
- MOTIVATION
The workshop continued with Alexeis Garcia’s presentation (see the slides), which focused on the “practical side of KM”: examples of problems implying or requiring KM projects were illustrated, and the proposed solutions were discussed. Again, discussion that followed captured the variety of opinions and feelings of the audience.
In the final session, the issue of KM education was raised. The participants were divided into four workgroups, each of which was invited to “design a KM course” targeted to a specific category. The results of workgroups, presented by their “spokepersons”, are summarized below. Particularly, it emerged that teaching and learning KM should probably be radically different – in terms of expected background, topics, or methods. The first group considered undergraduate or postgraduate students, andthe main suggested topic was “KM solutions in practice and theory”. The idea of participants was that such a KM course should be targeted mainly to students with non-managerial background and, most important, people having no knowledge of KM. The course should provide information about KM models, tools, methods and applications, with a preference for a case-study methodology to stimulate the debate on KM practice and solutions. Knowledge cafes and presentations by students were also among the suggested methods of teaching/learning.
A radically different situation is that of PhD students. The second workgroup expects that participants in a KM course at doctoral levels have a suitable academic background, although some experience as practitioners can be useful. Brilliant students are expected, but especially, they should be curious and passionate about the problems of managing knowledge. In addition, it was suggested that students should be “courageous”, considering the challenges that KM research and practice still pose even for a person’s career! Here, suggested topics are at the same much more detailed but also broader in scope, and include: foundations of KM at the different levels of analysis (micro, meso, macro), the business value of KM (intellectual capital for value creation, KM and innovation, etc.), and advanced technological approaches (including big data analytics). As teaching/learning methods, beyond the classic approaches, interactive discussions and the capability to comment on readings were proposed.
The third workgroup was invited to focus on professionals not specializing in KM, in other words mainly users of KM methods rather than designers or managers of KM programs. It was underlined how the target should be people working not only in private but also public organizations, that are an increasingly important field for KM. Generally speaking, they include “knowledge workers”, but especially those that have some managerial role. The purpose of such a course should be to show the “value of implementing KM” in an organization. Proposed topics include “what, why and how” in KM implementation, with example of “how to face specific KM problems” and of available tools (especially including the recent technologies that have a “social orientation”). Suggested learning/teaching methods include those that enable a capability to contextualize problems and solutions “in the practice”, with space for practical demonstrations, hands on experimentation, and provision of practical guidelines.
Finally, the fourth workgroup considered professionals specializing in KM. Especially targeted to middle managers in business (even with different professional experience – HR, IT, or information management), such a KM course should lead to effective KM consultants that can help companies in their KM implementations. The suggested topics include KM models, frameworks and applications in different industries and scenarios, but also metrics to evaluate outcomes of KM programs, and the connection between KM and business strategies; a consideration of enabling factors (and obstacles) of KM implementation was also seen important. Remarkably, the workgroup underlined the importance of learning/teaching methods that focus on the applicative/practical issues – with a preference for active learning method such as case-study discussions, project examination, and hands on experimentation.
In short, the debate was stimulating for all participants, and provided food for thought not only to PhD students but also to the senior researchers. Considering that KM is a young field where there is still a lot to discover, the hope is that, in the future, we will be able to have similar opportunities of fruitful interaction between the different people involved in KM research or practice. Stay tuned for the next initiative!
Photo gallery from the IAKM Doctoral Workshop
