Chat with us, powered by LiveChat You are the business owner of a local small engine repair shop, and you have been thinking about implementing a knowledge management system for your customer service technicians. You are thi - EssayAbode

You are the business owner of a local small engine repair shop, and you have been thinking about implementing a knowledge management system for your customer service technicians. You are thi

 

Hello everyone, I have an Assignment for you today. This assignment must be DONE by Wednesday, February 19, 2020,no later than 10 pm. By the way, I need this assignment to be PLAGIARISM FREE & a Spell Check when completed. Make sure you READ the instructions CAREFULLY. Now without further ado, the instructions to the assignments are below:

Instructions

Choose one of the scenarios below (A or B) to complete the assignment.

Scenario A

You are the business owner of a local small engine repair shop, and you have been thinking about implementing a knowledge management system for your customer service technicians. You are thinking about this because there are times when some of your technicians know how to fix certain engine problems and others do not. Providing a central knowledge repository could help share troubleshooting and repair knowledge among your technicians.

Scenario B

You are the business owner of a local cleaning service, and you have been thinking about implementing a knowledge management system for your cleaning technicians, especially for those who troubleshoot and solve cleaning problems, such as removing certain carpet and water stains, addressing mold, and selecting the proper tools and products to use for other types of cleaning issues. You are thinking about this because there are times when some of your cleaning technicians know how to properly clean carpets and others do not. Providing a central knowledge repository could help share cleaning knowledge among your cleaning technicians.

After you chose your scenario (A or B), compose a paper that addresses the elements listed below.

  • Explain the role of knowledge management systems.
  • Explain what is meant by expert systems.
  • Explain what is meant by content management systems.
  • Discuss how the business in the selected scenario could benefit from an expert system and a content management system, and provide two examples for each type of system.
  • Discuss how the business in the selected scenario could benefit from business intelligence, and provide two examples of these benefits.
  • Discuss how the business in the selected scenario can use social media to not only obtain information and knowledge but to share it as well, and provide two examples of how the business might use social media information systems.

Your paper must be at least two pages in length (not counting the title and reference pages), and you must also use at least two scholarly sources, one of which must come from the CSU Online Library. Any information from a source must be cited and referenced in APA format, and your paper must be formatted in accordance to APA guidelines.

By the way, I've attached a Study Guide & several articles (for you to pick from) from the CSU Library to help you with this assignment! You can choose one or more articles from below or take one article below and pick another article from a different source.

Available online at

http://www.anpad.org.br/bar

BAR, Curitiba, v. 6, n. 3, art. 5, p. 247-262, July/Sept. 2009

A Proposed Architecture for Implementing a Knowledge Management System in the Brazilian National Cancer Institute José Geraldo Pereira Barbosa * E-mail address: [email protected] Mestrado em Administração e Desenvolvimento Empresarial/Universidade Estácio de Sá Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Antônio Augusto Gonçalves E-mail address: [email protected] Instituto Nacional do Câncer – INCA Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Vera Simonetti E-mail address: [email protected] Mestrado em Administração e Desenvolvimento Empresarial/Universidade Estácio de Sá Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Altino Ribeiro Leitão E-mail address: [email protected] Instituto Nacional do Câncer – INCA Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

ABSTRACT Because their services are based decisively on the collection, analysis and exchange of clinical information or knowledge, within and across organizational boundaries, knowledge management has exceptional application and importance to health care organizations. This article proposes a conceptual framework for a knowledge management system, which is expected to support both hospitals and the oncology network in Brazil. Under this holistic single-case study, triangulation of multiple sources of data collection was used by means of archival records, documents and participant observation, as two of the authors were serving as INCA staff members, thus gaining access to the event and its documentation and being able to perceive reality from an insider point of view. The benefits derived from the present status of the ongoing implementation, so far, are: (i) speediness of cancer diagnosis and enhanced quality of both diagnosis and data used in epidemiological studies; (ii) reduction in treatment costs; (iii) relief of INCA’S labor shortage; (iii) improved management performance; (iv) better use of installed capacity; (v) easiness of massive (explicit) knowledge transference among the members of the network; and (vi) increase in organizational capacity of knowledge retention (institutionalization of procedures). Key words: knowledge management; information system; health care; hospital management.

Received 26 October 2007; received in revised form 27 February 2009.

Copyright © 2009 Brazilian Administration Review. All rights reserved, including rights for translation. Parts of this work may be quoted without prior knowledge on the condition that the source is identified. * Corresponding author: José Geraldo Pereira Barbosa Av. Presidente Vargas 642, 22O andar, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 20071-001, Brazil.

José Geraldo Pereira Barbosa, Antônio Augusto Gonçalves, Vera Simonetti, Altino Ribeiro Leitão

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INTRODUCTION

Brazil currently has a complex cancer scenario. General incidence and mortality rates are elevated, with the particularly high incidence of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. Theses cases have been responsible for over one hundred thousand deaths per year. There are approximately 480,000 new diagnoses of cancer each year in Brazil, and the vast majority of these patients have had some contact with hospital services. However, research also shows that in several regions of the country long waiting lists for diagnostics and treatments have become commonplace, which leads to a situation of people being diagnosed with cancer at a very advanced stage (National Cancer Institute [INCA], 2008). These sad findings have moved the national health care ministry in recent years to initiate a series of challenging reforms in order to implement early diagnosing clinical procedures. The management of cancer treatment is a long and complex process and the reduction of the patient’s waiting time to start cancer treatment plays an increasingly important role. Therefore, any environment focusing on the accessibility to the treatment of a chronic illness like cancer should make every effort to avoid medical errors and fragmentation of care delivery.

The huge number of cancer cases in Brazil means that information is highly sought after by patients and the clinicians involved in their care and those responsible for cancer services, which opens an opportunity window for implementing hospital information systems [HIS]. Hoping to bring together people involved in care planning and delivering – clinicians, managers and patient representatives, the Instituto Nacional de Cancer (National Cancer Institute [INCA]) has been implementing an oncology care network. The network, as conceived by the INCA, is a partnership of both private and public cancer care delivery organizations, whose success will depend heavily on the collection, analysis and exchange of clinical and managerial information or knowledge within and across the partners’ organizational boundaries. Its intention is to generate valuable information by answering the requests from patients, government and regulatory bodies with regard to clinical and medical services. Moreover, the integration of key data would help the evaluation of medical procedures and protocols, streamlining the organizational processes and bringing improvements to cancer treatment. Specifically, the network’s objectives are as follows: (i) to improve access to information and knowledge at all levels (physicians, hospital administrators, patients); (ii) to create a community of cancer practice knowledge; (iii) to develop an environment of easy and friendly access to relevant information; and (iv) to collaborate with the decision-making process related to cancer care delivery.

In fact, the oncology care network is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based community of health services and patients themselves that share their knowledge, helping reduce administrative bottlenecks and improve the quality of care. As a result, an environment that helps translate information into knowledge is under construction and constitutes, in itself, a driver for quality improvements.

All the above comments bring to mind the need for a knowledge management system that will identify, capture, structure, share and apply an individual’s or organization’s knowledge, which will result in a competitive advantage and create sources of sustainable development, according to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual framework for a knowledge management system in the Brazilian National Cancer Institute. To accomplish this, knowledge management [KM] enabled health care system is envisioned that will integrate clinical, administrative and financial processes in health care through a common technical architecture, as well as provide a decision support infrastructure for general decision-making.

A Proposed Architecture for Implementing a Knowledge Management System in the Brazilian National Cancer Institute

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management is associated with intellectual capital and the process of creation and diffusion of knowledge embedded in business processes (Wigg, 1993), and constitutes a critical success factor in the current challenging and innovative business scenario. The main premise of knowledge management is the recognition of knowledge as the central point of organizational performance (Drucker, 1993).

In order to enhance organizational performance and create value, knowledge management includes all the processes that deal with the creation, structuring, dissemination and application of knowledge. In the words of Hedlund (1994), these processes can be analyzed at various levels: the individual, group or organization. For Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), knowledge management is predicated on shared learning, collaboration and the sharing of knowledge at the strategic organizational level. According to Davenport and Prusak (1998), knowledge management not only involves the production of information but also the capture, transmission and analysis of data, as well as the communication of information based on or derived from the data to those who can work on it. The Nature of Knowledge

Concerning knowledge itself, there are two main kinds: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is the personal, unarticulated, unexpressed knowledge possessed by an individual. It is the knowledge and expertise that a person has gained over the years through experience, by interacting with others, and through a process of trial and error. This knowledge lies in the individual’s brain or in his personal notes, computer files or desk drawers. It has never been completely articulated, recorded, documented or written down in a comprehensive format. Generally found in non-structured form, such as an individual’s ideas, insights, values, experiences and judgments, it is more difficult to identify and to manage. Thus, it needs to be structured before it may be stored and processed. On the other hand, knowledge, sometimes, may be explicated, codified and set down in manuals, written procedures, records, notes, graphic representations, audio and visual materials. Stored in databases, explicit knowledge is suitable for access and processing (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

Reber, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1992 as cited in Spender, 1996) picture explicit knowledge as the small tip of a huge iceberg of pre-conscious collective knowledge. The major part of it would be formed by tacit knowledge, invisible and completely incorporated into social identity and practice. An individual will understand a message completely only if he understands the body of his organization collective tacit knowledge. In other words, the physical reality is socially built. By similar reasoning, Spender (1996) concludes that interpretation (knowledge) of experience comes from the interaction among the variables that surround the environment and the individual’s perception enhanced by experience.

According to Tsoukas (1996), people are co-producers of their own reality, and this will help them to form their attitudes and behaviours. Attitudes are norms and values that the individual perceives as favourable or not, and the behaviours are the expression of these attitudes which can be shown as coherent or incoherent towards its related attitude. Tacit knowledge is one of the main foundations of the individual’s attitudes. Therefore, detecting tacit knowledge is complicated by the fact that the individual has the autonomy to decide what and how much should be transmitted to others.

Almost all activities require some combination of explicit and tacit knowledge, and effective knowledge management is the one that captures both of them. In fact, the real challenges to knowledge management lie in being able to identify and capture tacit knowledge so that it can be retrieved when needed. While explicit knowledge is easy to record and transfer, tacit knowledge is difficult to identify, capture, and transmit. Although converting tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge is difficult, it is not impossible. The employee’s tacit knowledge is generally transmitted under the form of

José Geraldo Pereira Barbosa, Antônio Augusto Gonçalves, Vera Simonetti, Altino Ribeiro Leitão

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organizational best practices, which are often documented and put into a network, which is subsequently accessed and used by other employees.

For Spender (1996), the big challenge of management is to distinguish the systemic activities that really increase the collective tacit knowledge from those that only generate local and limited knowledge. In the opinion of Hayek (1992 as cited in Spender, 1996), good managers know how to use organizational knowledge efficiently, the kind of knowledge that, although incorporated into people and processes, does not belong totally to any collaborator. So managers must build an organizational space that facilitates the selection of and interaction among different tacit and explicit knowledge available to the organization, both within its internal and external environment. The Strategic Value of Knowledge

The health care industry itself is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based community that is connected to hospitals, clinics and patients for sharing knowledge, reducing administrative costs and improving the quality of care. Thus, the success of health care depends critically on the collection, analysis and exchange of clinical information or knowledge within and across organizational boundaries. It is recognized that the spread of new practices is shaped by multiple influences. In this process, physicians play an important role. They can be thought of in terms of very sophisticated knowledge workers (Wickramasinghe, 2000). Like others, (i) physicians “make sense” of this wealth of knowledge (Borghoff & Pareschi, 1998); (ii) they own the means of production, e. g., their specialized knowledge; (iii) they possess specialized skills and training, which they have acquired by investing significant resources towards their education; and (iv) they make decisions that have far- reaching consequences both for their organizations and their patients (Wickramasinghe, 2000).

Thus, it is the interchange of knowledge that represents the significant change in the present way of managing knowledge in comparison to the early days of managing knowledge. It means that an organization’s body of knowledge is considered an asset (intellectual capital) only when shared by its employees. Ultimately, this implies seeing the organization as a distributed knowledge system, where managers have to deal with the central question of how to stimulate experts and workers to share their knowledge without facing resistance and insecurity. The main point is how to create knowledge and exchange it among partners. The traditional dichotomy of acquiring information either in reactive mode, to support a specific decision, or in proactive mode, to scan and monitor the environment to detect problems, is not preemptive.

For Grant (1996), the following conditions, when present in the organization, would be primary for transforming knowledge into value: the first is the organizational capacity of disseminating explicit knowledge and of auditing the application of tacit knowledge. The second condition is the capacity of the workforce to fully understand the received knowledge, what is facilitated by a common organizational language. The third factor stems from the organization being able to recognize the collaborator who is responsible for the knowledge creation and to compensate his effort adequately. This is not an easy task because, although incorporated into the workforce, most of the knowledge is generated within the boundaries of the workplace and refer to it specifically. The fourth condition derives from the limited human capacity to acquire, store and process knowledge, the focus of the rationality thesis proposed by Simon, Egidi and Marris (1992). That would require the division of knowledge among specialized organizational areas. And finally, the last condition presumes that knowledge is the critical input of a production system and the one which generates value into products.

Sveiby (2001) conceives the body of intangible assets of an organization as formed by the competence of the professional staff and the internal and external organizational structure. In this author’s words, the internal structure is the one filled with management staff and information systems, basically, and its main function is to support the professional staff when delivering services. Secondly, the internal structure, viewed as the conduction wire connecting the organizational body of knowledge, would be used to facilitate the transfer of tacit knowledge among the professional staff. One of the

A Proposed Architecture for Implementing a Knowledge Management System in the Brazilian National Cancer Institute

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most important facets of this process is to provide professionals with the elements for an efficient conversion of knowledge. By conversion of knowledge, Sveiby (1997) understands those activities of (i) gathering information (explicit knowledge) about a potential problem, (ii) applying and transforming it into tacit knowledge, through practice, and finally presenting the problem’s solution in an explicit form. It must be kept in mind that this explicit knowledge will be impregnated, in the subtlest ways, by the individuals’ attitudes. INFORMATION SYSTEMS [IS]

According to Moraes, Silva and Cunha (2004), organizations should make efforts to implement friendly manageable learning environments and to promote learning by doing because these initiatives improve performance without increasing education and training costs. There is a rising recognition that more extensive use of information technologies could do more to improve the performance of health care systems, within the bounds of appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality of private health information. Indeed, the remarkable restructuring of cancer care institutions, from independent local units into regional and national integrated health care delivery organizations, has required a change in the role performed by information systems. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that, like other complex applications, the design of an IS-based oncology network represents a challenge to health care managers and public authorities. The Benefits and Limitations

Fleury and Fleury (2006) argue that knowledge is managed by means of organizational learning processes which can be seen in three dimensions: acquisition and development of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge and organizational memory building. An important point, raised by Fleury and Fleury (2001), is the issue of knowledge transfer from individuals to teams, and from these to the entire organization. According to the authors, while the individual learning process requires from management the comprehension of positive and negative feelings of employees, the team learning process requires the mixing, interpretation and integration of individual knowledge and beliefs into shared collective systems. Regarding the organizational level, individual and team knowledge may be institutionalized in several ways: structure, procedures, rules and symbolic elements. Organizational memory is developed to store and retrieve information, e. g., data related to past experiences, both successful and non-successful, will be easily available to employees. It is not difficult to perceive that both knowledge dissemination and memory building are substantially enhanced by information systems. The centralized databases where knowledge is codified and stored and made available to employees are very effective, especially in the case of explicit knowledge.

The question of information distribution is not a trivial one. Although information technology [IT] tools, such as databases, intranet and e-mail are helpful, Davenport, Harris and Kohli (2001, p. 71) warn that:

…distribution involves more than just how to send knowledge. There is also the question of what kind and how much to send. Several firms try to limit the information and knowledge to those who interact with clients. One firm uses software technologies that filter the knowledge according to a user’s predefined categories of importance. The filters select relevant content and distribute the appropriate parts to the appropriate people. Another firm defines what types of information and queries are appropriate for a particular communication method (e-mail, voice-mail). Once it establishes a norm for each communication type, it holds formal training sessions to educate employees on communication protocols and norms.

Terra (2004) shows that advancements in communication technologies and information systems are affecting in a significant way the processes of generation, diffusion and storing of organizational

José Geraldo Pereira Barbosa, Antônio Augusto Gonçalves, Vera Simonetti, Altino Ribeiro Leitão

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knowledge. Based on the results of his research with 428 Brazilian companies, the author argues that in the 166 companies named by him as ‘learning companies’, one can find (i) information systems that allow efficient communication throughout the whole organization, (ii) employees with wide access to database and organizational knowledge and (iii) incentives for a systematic documentation of organizational knowledge. According to Terra (2004), investments in the infrastructure technology help knowledge management in three aspects:

. Storing of reference materials: codified management can be easily accessed, avoiding efforts duplication;

. Elaboration of expertise maps: database containing descriptions of individual competences inside and outside the organizational space, making the sharing of tacit knowledge easier;

. Just in time knowledge: tools that reduce time and space barriers to knowledge access (videoconference, distance learning etc).

In terms of massive routine and explicit knowledge transfer, Anand, Glick and Manz (2002) point out that IT based systems are the best way of dealing with it. This kind of data transfer is usually necessary to support relatively structured decisions where cause and effect relations are well known. Using the same line of reasoning, Gupta and Govinjaradan (2000, p. 72) affirm “IT is the only viable mechanism to connect efficiently large numbers of geographically dispersed people”. According to these authors, intellectual capital is the individual and organizational knowledge stock multiplied by the speed at which it is circulated inside the organization (or network), which highlights the role of IT systems as the speed accelerator.

According to Sveiby (2001), the implementation of Intranet, management information systems and data bases are important initiatives to transfer individual knowledge to the internal structure. On the other hand, specialist systems, such as the cancer diagnosis system of the INCA, improved man- machine interface, simulation environment and interactive learning via Internet help translate organizational learning to the employees.

The process of knowledge conversion, the so called spiral of knowledge in the words of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), is comprised of four steps: socialization, externalization, combination and internalization. The combination step is the one dealing with the creation of systemic knowledge by means of new combinations of accumulated knowledge. According these authors, databases and Internet not only help to systematize concepts but also make the flow of new ideas easy.

On the other hand, knowledge management is not merely a question of sophistication of IT infrastructure. Concerning the obstacles to the transfer of best practices (tacit knowledge) among organization co-workers, Szulanski (1996) enumerates the main ones: (i) an inadequate absorption capacity by the knowledge receiver, (ii) lack of knowledge about the production factors involved in the practices, as well as the interaction process among these factors, and (iii) the lack of comprehension, by the receiver, of the organizational context where the practice will be applied, and finally (iv) the lack of empathy between the provider and receiver of knowledge. Indeed, Szulanski (1996) lists several reasons that may make people reluctant to accept a system that encourages knowledge transfer: loss of the power warranted by individual property of specialized knowledge; not being awarded by the transference of knowledge; spending time and energy in transference and the ‘non-invented here’ (NIH) syndrome that makes people impermeable to knowledge coming from outside their organization. Compounding these problems there is the fact that people will have to acquire new competences to move around the paraphernalia of new IT-based procedures and tools. It is easy to see that those obstacles are beyond IT capability.

Recent research conducted by Meister (2003 as cited in Bertucci, 2005) in 8 private hospitals located in Belo Horizonte, a Brazilian city, shows a low level of research and development [R&D] activities, intellectual production and training and development [T&D] activities in the majority of private hospitals. Again, the implementation of IT-based knowledge system may help alleviate some of those problems but will not be a substitute for persistent low funding of research and training.

A Proposed Architecture for Implementing a Knowledge Management System in the Brazilian National Cancer Institute

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It is also important that the manager focuses his attention on knowledge management processes and structures that directly support the strategic initiatives of organizations, such as cancer research, as in the case of the INCA. As Zack (2003, p. 70) argues:

Knowledge management has gotten a bad rap lately, but much of it can be attributed to the fact that most KM initiatives are not focused on strategic knowledge. An organization that defines its strategy in terms of knowledge and identifies the strategic knowledge leverage points will know where to focus its KM efforts, will get a long-term return on its investment, and will best the KM efforts of competitors.

Similarly, Hammer, Leonard and Davenport (2004, p. 17) mention that “technology has immensely improved access to, and transmission of, information, but it cannot create shortcuts to the most valuable kinds of knowledge. That dilemma explains much about why organizations still have trouble managing knowledge”. The authors are clearly speaking of individual and collective tacit knowledge.

A final point to be mentioned concerns the obstacles imposed by organizational culture to strategic changes such as the implementation of IT-based knowledge management in the INCA. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2005) define organizational culture as the body of shared beliefs which are reflected in traditions, habits, stories, symbols, products etc. Acting as a perceptive filter or lens, culture interferes with thinking styles (decision making, analysis procedures etc) of the acculturated people. According to Mintzberg et al. (2005, p. 268), “culture and especially ideology do not encourage strategic change so much as the perpetuation of existing strategy; at best, they tend to promote shifts in position within the organization’s overall strategic perspective”. Lorsch (1986) argues that introducing and nurturing the values of innovation and flexibility in the organization is an effective way of promoting acceptance of changes. He also mentions that managers should be submitted to a cultural auditing in order to identify their shared beliefs. The author suggests that these shared beliefs must be made visible around the organization as a way to make people aware of their possible prejudices. Naturally, special attention should be paid to the prejudices against IT knowledge management. However, Hernandez and Caldas (2001) warn that some managers sometimes use culture resistance as an excuse for problems arising from ill designed change processes. Contrary to the classical prejudice that human beings are naturally resistant to changes, these authors argue that human beings resist loss but desire change. For the authors, it is important to treat resistance to changes from both collective and individual perspectives. Resistance, depending on several situational and perceptual factors, varies from person to person. The Foundations of the Proposed Knowledge Management System

Healthcare organizations generate a massive amount of data, such as electronic medical records, clinical trial data, hospital records and administrative reports, gathered from internal and external sources, such as clinical practices, hospital information systems, and cancer registries. Usually, this huge collection effort is incomplete because data are rarely transformed into a strategic decision- support resource. For this purpose, the emergence of knowledge management tools, such as Data Mining [DM], represents an opportunity to convert raw data into knowledge (Cheah & Abidi, 1999). Knowledge management in healthcare can be regarded as the confluence of concepts and techniques to facilitate the creation, identification, acquisition, development, dissemination and utilization of a healthcare enterprise’s knowledge assets (O’Leary, 1998).

The proposed knowledge management system incorporates four steps: creating, structuring , sharing and applying. Figure 1 presents a short list of procedures and tools included in each step. This knowledge process is based on Bose (2003), who describes knowledge as a process that extracts, transforms and disseminates information to be shared and reused by the entire organization. Additionally, the process includes the contribution of

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