Master of Knowledge Management with Multimedia

Monday 7 March 2016

Journal Review; what i learn?

Title : Failing To Learn? The Effects of Failure and Success on Organizational Learning in the Global Orbital Launch Vehicle Industry. (2010)

Author : Peter M.Madsen

Hypothesis :

Hypothesis 1. Prior organizational failure experience reduces the likelihood of future organizational

failure more than does prior organizational success experience.

Hypothesis 2. Observation of others’ prior organizational failure experience reduces the likelihood of future organizational failure more than does observation of others’ prior organizational success experience.

Hypothesis 3. Knowledge gained through prior direct organizational success experience depreciates

more rapidly than does that gained through prior direct organizational failure experience.

Hypothesis 4. Knowledge gained through observation of others’ successes depreciates more rapidly than does that gained through observation of others’ failures.

Hypothesis 5. Prior organizational experience with major failure reduces the likelihood of future organizational failure more than does prior organizational experience with minor failure.

Hypothesis 6. Prior success experience increases the likelihood of future organizational failure for organizations with relatively little direct failure experience.

Hypothesis 7. Observation of others’ prior success experience increases the likelihood of future organizational failure for organizations with relatively little direct failure experience.

Hypothesis 8. Observation of others’ prior failure experience increases the likelihood of future

organizational failure for organizations with relatively little direct failure experience, but it reduces the likelihood of future organizational failure for organizations with significant direct failure experience.

Method :

a) The sample consists of all orbital launch attempts carried out by any organization worldwide

in the period beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, through March 2004

b) Several databases was compared to ensure completeness and accuracy, but the principal data was taken from National Space Science Data Centre

c) Analysis carried out by using logistic regression and depreciation parameter

Conclusion :

a) Learning from large failure drives organizational improvement in the orbital launch vehicle industry

b) Knowledge gleaned from failure persists longer than that knowledge develop through successes

c) Different form of experience drives organizational learning interactively

Opinion :

Members of public organization have huge stigma over failure, especially in the corporate level. Because, members refuse to acknowledge failure, and refrain to communicate about it.The culture of embracing failure should be cultivated at the corporate level. Methods such as lesson learn, postmortem after each programs/projects should be compulsory in each level. This to ensure, members learn failure from others and perhaps avoiding it again.

Link to the Journal :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2pYGHCs8CCTWTFBdlBVZ29lSjg/view?usp=sharing

Sunday 6 March 2016

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

The core of Learning Organization work is based upon five "learning disciplines" - lifelong programs of study and practice:

a) Personal Mastery - learning to expand our personal capacity to create the result we most desire, and creating an organizational environment which encourages all its members to develop themselves towards the goals and purposes they choose.

b) Mental Models - reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving our internal pictures of the world, and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions.

c) Shared Vision - building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there.

d) Team Learning - transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members' talent

e) Systems Thinking - a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us see how to change system more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world.

Thursday 25 February 2016

Mini Assignment Organization Learning

We are given mini assignment for the Organization Learning course. The are two task, one to find definition and another to briefly explain theory of 'Diffusion of Innovation'. The definition of term given as following;

Organization Learning- Organization-wide continuous process that enhances its collective ability to accept, make sense of, and respond to internal and external change. Organizational learning and is more than the sum of the information held by employees. It requires systematic integration and collective interpretation of new knowledge that leads to collective action and involves risk taking as experimentation.
Learning Organization-Organization that acquires knowledge and innovates fast enough to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. Learning Organizations;(a) create a culture that encourages and supports continuous employee learning, critical thinking, and risk taking with new ideas, (b) allow mistakes, and value employee contributions, (c) learn from experience and experiment, and (d) disseminate the new knowledge throughout the organization for incorporation into day-to-day activities.
Learning - Measurable and relatively permanent change in behavior through experience, instruction, or study. Whereas individual learning is selective, group learning is essentially political its outcomes depend largely on power playing in the group. Learning itself cannot be measured, but its results can be. In the words of Harvard Business School psychologist Chris Argyris, learning is "detection and correction of error" where an error means "any mismatch between our intentions and what actually happens.
Experience - Familiarity with a skill or field of knowledge acquired over months or years of actual practice and which, presumably, has resulted in superior understanding or mastery.
Knowledge - In an organizational context, knowledge is the sum of what is known and resides in the intelligence and the competence of people.

The next question what is Diffusion of Innovation? Before i explain details of the theory let dive into the cartoon diagram showed below, i believe the diagram will ease us.

Believe or not, the theory is develop way back in 60s by E.M Rogers in 1962. It originally originated from communication to explain how an product, technology, idea diffuse into the community. The diffusion may take period of time. The end result of this diffusion the community adopt or take up the product, technology or idea. The success of adopt the community must accept the product, technology or idea.

As shown in the diagram, there are five category of community and each of them have different characteristic. So, if your are policy maker and wants the policy to be adopted, it is important to understand the characteristic of the target population/community. When promoting or selling the ideas, there are different tactics used to appeal to the different adopter categories.

Innovators - These are people who want to be the first to try the innovation. They are venturesome and interested in new ideas. These people are very willing to take risks, and are often the first to develop new ideas. Very little, if anything, needs to be done to appeal to this population.

Early Adopters - These are people who represent opinion leaders. They enjoy leadership roles, and embrace change opportunities. They are already aware of the need to change and so are very comfortable adopting new ideas. Strategies to appeal to this population include howto manuals and information sheets on implementation. They do not need information to convince them to change.

Early Majority - These people are rarely leaders, but they do adopt new ideas before the average person. That said, they typically need to see evidence that the innovation works before they are willing to adopt it. Strategies to appeal to this population include success stories and evidence of the innovation's effectiveness.

Late Majority - These people are skeptical of change, and will only adopt an innovation after it has been tried by the majority. Strategies to appeal to this population include information on how many other people have tried the innovation and have adopted it successfully.

Laggards - These people are bound by tradition and very conservative. They are very skeptical of change and are the hardest group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to this population include statistics, fear appeals, and pressure from people in the other adopter groups

This is the few links, explain the application of the theory in other fields such as medical, marketing and social media. Hope you enjoy reading it.