Access the essential membership for Modern Managers
Nancy Dixon is a popular knowledge management theorist who came to prominence with the publication of Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know. [1] The book has quickly become a worldwide best-selling KM publication. At the time of writing, Dixon is an Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences at George Washington University, Washington DC.
Like Davenport and Sveiby, Dixon is an enthusiastic proponent of case studies and practical recommendations. Her approach to developing a framework for managing knowledge is novel because she focuses on the recipient of knowledge, rather than the collection or collation of knowledge. This argument is founded on a need to address one of the most common problems in knowledge management: giving individuals access to a knowledge system is ineffective if they are not willing to use it.
Dixon also echoes Davenport and Sveiby by stating that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ knowledge management solution. Instead, organizations must develop bespoke methods that take the individual needs of each organization into account. Even impressive technological innovations cannot provide an instant solution, and must be adapted to the needs and culture of the organization before they can function fully.
Dixon focuses on a specific type of knowledge which she terms ‘common knowledge’. This is knowledge that provides organizations with competitive advantage. Dixon’s key point is that the particular type of common knowledge that provides competitive advantage is unique to every organization, and this type must be fully understood before putting a knowledge management framework into place.
Identifying Types of Knowledge
Dixon notes that the spread of common knowledge throughout organizations is not uniform, i.e. it may fail to be ‘common’ in the sense of open and available to all. Issues occur when employees are not able to access valuable knowledge, despite it being available elsewhere in the organization. Dixon argues that, to avoid such a problem, organizations must match the type of knowledge they wish to be shared to the method best suited to transferring it. A mismatch between the knowledge that an organization wishes to transfer, and the method used to do so, is one of the major causes why expensive knowledge management systems have failed to make a major impact. Dixon has outlined five methods of knowledge transfer, or ‘knowledge protocols’ that enable organizations to create a such a match. These are explored below.
Before selecting a knowledge protocol, the organization must ask itself three core questions, in order to better understand the nature of the knowledge being transferred. They are as follows:
- Is the task routine or non-routine?
- Is the knowledge to be transferred tacit or explicit?
- Are there similarities between the originator and the receiver of the knowledge?
Previously, the only process of identifying suitable transfer methods was simple trial and error, which have obvious potential costs. By outlining these criteria for aligning the knowledge type with the type of transfer, Dixon enables organizations to channel their energies and increase the likely success, and potential benefits, of their knowledge management initiatives.
Transferring Knowledge
Dixon’s five protocols for the transferral of different kinds of knowledge are as follows:
1. Serial transfer
A team completes a task, and then repeats the same task in a new context, building knowledge as it goes. The team will meet after the completion of the original task, make their knowledge explicit, and note any learning points that can be applied in the future. Serial transfer prevents the repetition of costly mistakes, and allows the team to streamline their activities, maintaining quality whilst increasing speed.
2. Near transfer
One team passes explicit knowledge to another team undertaking a similar task in a similar context, but in a different location. The task is typically routine and frequently repeated. The knowledge transferred is easily made explicit, and an intranet is an ideal transfer method.
3. Far transfer
When tacit knowledge about non-routine tasks is transferred from one team to another. The releasing of this kind of specialist knowledge tends to come when people are emerged in the situation itself. It is therefore people-based, and operates as an official peer collaboration system. Teams call in help from other teams to address a specific problem as it occurs. The tacit knowledge of all particiapnts is revealed as the situation develops. It is an official way of releasing tacit knowledge from the brains of a variety of individuals, to create valuable new temporary teams and knowledge pools.
4. Strategic transfer
When extremely complex knowledge is transferred between two teams. These teams may be geographically distant, or separated by time. An example is the transfer of collated tacit and explicit knowledge from a project team that is due to disband, but will leave a legacy of valuable knowledge for a similar team performing a similar task in the future. Strategic transfer affects large parts of the organizational system, and maintains the complexity and multiple voices of the transferring team. These multiple voices offer options, rather than dogmatic solutions, to the receiving team.
5. Expert transfer
When explicit and specialist knowledge about a task that is infrequently repeated is transferred. For example, a computer technician sends a request out to other technicians within his organization, asking for advice on correcting a monitor fault. Other specialists can send a formula or standard procedure, explicit knowledge which does not need to be interpreted, but can be followed to the letter by the original specialist.
Dixon’s work represents some of the most popular thinking on knowledge management of the 1990s, and her publications are continuing to have a major impact today. By closely analyzing knowledge-oriented organizations, she has developed a framework that enables any organization to match their knowledge sharing procedures to their knowledge types, needs and culture. Dixon views matching as one of the most crucial aspects in place in a successful knowledge management system.
ReferencesSources: Dixon, N. (2000).
Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know. Harvard Business School Press. Available
here., and Dixon, N. (2000) ‘The Insight Track’, People Management, 34–39.
[1] Dixon, N. (2000).
Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know. Harvard Business School Press.
Available here.
