Knowledge Networks

Literature & personal standpoint

(Clark, 1999) Cited (Clark, 1998) regarding the characteristics of a formal knowledge network:

(1) The network exists for the purpose of creating and disseminating new knowledge – it does not exist just to provide access to existing knowledge, nor is it new knowledge retained just for the sole use of the network but is made publicly available as soon as possible;

(2) The network is structured and operates so as to maximize the rate at which new knowledge is discovered;

(3) The network provides clear, recognizable, and direct benefits to all participants in the network;

(4) The network is formally organised, and has a well-defined constitution and management structure;

(5) Participation in the network is by invitation based criteria of merit, or by peer review of proposed projects;

(6) The network has a well-developed communications strategy; and

(7) The network transcends boundaries beyond sectors (e.g. university researchers, industry, financial, government) to contribute to sustainable development.

These characteristics were defined in order to further discuss successful Canadian knowledge networks. Canadian Institute for Advance Research (CIAR) was formed to “mobilize the resources of a vast and thinly populated country into international networks of talented individuals” (Clark, 1999). Memberships of these networks were by invitation only and were externally reviewed to ensure they were achieving criteria, proving to be very formal. The main aim of creating new knowledge was subsequently achieved and “Canada has achieved a high international reputation in these fields as which, in the absence of a network, would not have resulted” (Clark, 1999).

This provides a useful breakdown of a formal knowledge network, but do these strict characteristics apply to both the concepts of Social Networks and Communities of Practices?

Social Networks and Tools

Often Social Networks and the tools that support them are muddled together and thought to be the same thing. However they are not. The definition of social networks does not involve the tools that support them; they are quite simply the networks alone.

“ Social networks are made up of people where you can clearly determine how they know each other, either through direct or indirect social relationships. These networks are generally self organised and structured around “people, information and communities” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007)

"A social networking site connects people based on data about them, stored in user profiles" There are various types of social networks namely personal and professional (Neumann, O'Murchu, Breslin, Decker, Hogan, & MacDonaill, 2005) Classic examples of social networks include Facebook and Myspace. These support personal social networks. Ecademy and Return on Relationships are examples of tools that support professional social networks. These examples reflect the social networking tools that support the social networks themselves.
Social networks are important to organisations because of the “growing importance of the value of knowledge work” (Marouf, 2007) cited Hansen, 2002; Reagans and McEvily, 2003 and particularly more organisations are recognising that there are different types of knowledge. Organisations are particularly embracing the fact that tacit “noncodified” knowledge is of more importance than explicit “codified” knowledge with regard to innovation (Marouf, 2007) cites Leonard and Sensiper, 1998. They therefore realise the importance of social networks with regard to knowledge sharing.

Within an organisation there are often directorates or divisions and within this teams or departments. Cross division or cross department networks need to be established, “knowledge sharing among units provide opportunities for mutual learning and inter-unit cooperation, which in turn stimulates the creation of new knowledge” (Marouf, 2007) cited Tsai and Ghosal, 1998. Conversely, the boundaries to this knowledge sharing within networks are not limited to individual organisations. Social networks can span organisation boundaries. For example an organisation that deals with complaints may wish to network with other complaints organisations obtaining ‘lessons learned’ from each other and increasing the level of ‘best practice’.

This cross organisational sharing is referred to as “Horizontal sharing of knowledge” (Marouf, 2007). However this can be inhibited by what is referred to as “Codification” and “Private Knowledge” (Marouf, 2007).

Codification describes the way in which organisations document their knowledge. That is how they store knowledge about policies, procedures and processes. So an organisation will have a mixture of Non- codified and codified knowledge. They will also have Private knowledge, this describes soft information that is known by an employee and enhances his knowledge but is not documented by an organisation because it is not needed to describe the final piece of knowledge as it may have only been needed to know how to get there. Non codified and private knowledge is obviously going to be the most difficult to share and is thought by many to only be possible through face to face interactions. Again Social networks are able to aid the transfer of this kind of knowledge. If organisations are to gain competitive advantage or even survive they need to acknowledge the impact of effective knowledge sharing through social networks within organisations.

(Marouf, 2007) identifies that there are different types of ties within a Social Network. Some of which identified include friendship, work and advice. Marouf also explains that these types of ties can differ depending on what flows through them (Marouf, 2007). There do not seem to be a set type of ties for every organisation. These would have to be analysed and identified for the specific organisation at hand. Although generally speaking we can identify that there are two types of ties in the workplace; business and social. Both of these ties can exist together or one or the other. (Marouf, 2007) also identifies and goes into more detail about the importance and the strength of social a tie.

Some Social Networks emerge entirely by themselves i.e. not facilitated in anyway. These are often based upon self interest (Marouf, 2007) and I believe are probably the most innovative, as individuals are often more passionate than in for example a facilitated setting that has been made compulsory. These “Emergent Networks” (Marouf, 2007) are just one way of them forming within an organisation and businesses should not discourage their growth as “Businesses rely on patterns of social interaction to sustain them over time. These patterns are built on shared interests, mutual obligations and accomplishment and thrive on corporation and friendly interpersonal relations” (Marouf, 2007).

Ultimately (Marouf, 2007) believes that Social Networks are not networks in existence by themselves. In an organisation setting they are often linked in the same way as the hierarchy and architecture appear linked. However, naturally occurring social networks are more sporadic than this but form as a result of these settings. Both the naturally occurring and the facilitated networks are equally valuable and organisations should not disregard or discourage them because they are perceived to non-work related.

I went on to look at a paper by (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007). Their paper focused on examining social networks for the purpose of developing web 2.0 services to identify Communities of Practice. At a glance social network analysis appears to be very complex. This is the practice which investigates the vast array of the types of ties within a social network. One would assume that this would especially need to be carried out for the purpose of a complimentary social networking system. Yang et al go on to identify some of the key ties in the networks that would be formed for their experiment.

As per Marouf, Yang et al identified social interaction ties “the structural links created through the social interactions between individuals in a network” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007) These are believed to be important for knowledge exchange. The more social interaction ties you have the more central you are to the network and the more central you are to the network the more you will be impacting upon the “helpfulness and volume of knowledge contribution” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007). Yang et al identified the following types of ties:

Knowledge relationship ties are the consideration of “a peer’s knowledge domain, proficiency, and reputation of contribution as key indicators determining its capability to participate in collaborations” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007).

Social relationship ties relate to how familiar people within a network are with each other. It is believed that the more familiar people are the better reputation they have and therefore more likely they are to trust and collaborate with them (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007)

Yang et al’s work concluded that web 2.0 tools could in fact be used to help identify “knowledgeable and socially related participants” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007) using calculations established about knowledge and social relationship ties during network analysis which in turn could help identify Communities of Practice. Yang et al only worked with two types of social ties, but as established from the previous paper different types of social ties may exist within different organisations. Therefore any analysis needs to be specific to the organisation or that of a similar one.

To provide an example of how a social networking site such as this would work; there are specialist groups / Communities of Practice listed in a common place where you can search and request to join them. Once you are a member you receive regular updates and are able to contribute if focusing on an area of your interest. This could be done in addition to a regular face to face meetings and in the work place if facilitation was required particular groups could be made automatic depending on your profile role. You daily mini feed or specially targeted questions could then trigger your participation reducing the need for excessive time wasting meetings as this actually forms a documented ongoing meeting which can still actually physically convene when required.

Much of these facilities are already in place in most organisations but social networking seems to be more effective because it networks not only people but also other examples of knowledge management e.g. events, focus groups. This technology brings to us a very rich melting pot of knowledge ready to be manipulated at our fingertips.

Communities of Practice

The concept of a Community of practice (CoP) was first introduced by Lave and Wenger (1991). They believe that a CoP is "...a set of relations among persons, activity and world, over time and in relation with other tangenital and overlapping CoPs". They also believe that learning that takes place in a CoP is "learning as legitimate peripheral participation". (LPP) relating belonging and identity in the community to the position an individual has in the world (Hildreth, Kimble, & Wright, 2000).

It is not surprising then that organisations may want to jump on the band wagon and introduce the practice of CoP in the organisation. The main communication channel in a CoP is face to face, spontaneous and informal. CoPs allow sharing and transferring of valuable tacit knowledge which are processed by individuals and groups (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Kogut and Zander, 1992. There is continuous learning and creation of the practice within these communities. As with Social Networks they (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) talk about the value of tacit or implicit knowledge. “It is argued that the most effective means to transfer valuable tacit knowledge is actually not to codify it, but rather to transfer it through an implicit mode” CoPs form the platform to do just this.

When solving a problem in a community of practice, members contribute by drawing upon their experience and previous meetings “facilitating the effective creation and transfer of valuable tacit and implicit knowledge within the community” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Lave and Wenger, 1991). There are however limitations to CoPs “Communities of Practice can evolve into core rigidities and competency traps – inappropriate knowledge sets that preserve the status quo and limit new insights, resulting in gaps between the knowledge of the firm and changing market conditions” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Levitt and March, 1988; Leonard-Barton, 1992). Therefore possibly where this is occurring the dynamics of the social network involved in the CoP may need to be changed, maybe allowing those that do not practice the area but take a keen interest to bring fresh insight and an alternative approach. However if this were to happen it would no longer ba a CoP but a Social Network focused on that area.

Mutual engagement and collaboration among individuals on everyday work tasks is how a community of practice starts. Problems relating to the community are posed and then they try to solve the problem through collaboration. Research into exact effects of CoPs on organisation performance is limited because of “the nature of communities of practice – emergent, fluid and informal” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008). However a relationship between learning curves and CoPs have been established in that if the CoP is working the learning curve should decrease, if a CoP is not working well i.e. the cumulative memory of the group is not working there will be a reoccurrence of the same problem thus the learning curve will stay the same instead of decrease. This was noticed in research when a CoP became physically dispersed, the learning curve did not decrease, it stayed the same. Therefore communication channel changes affected the performance of the CoP.

The structural characteristics of a Community of practice is analysed using the process of Social Network Analysis. Therefore it seems to me that social networks exist with or without a CoP? They may simply take a different form if a CoP is in place or social networks could be encouraged to take on a similar form to those seen in a CoP. CoP also only consist of individuals within the same practice whereas a Social Network can simply exist from it not being your specialism but just having an interest in the area. CoPs therefore are in essence a Social network with distinctive links which form the specialism of the practice.


Theory in Action

Social networks are particularly useful in my job. I have the unique role of HR Systems and Information Officer within a HR team. There are no other members within my team who have the same specialism. Therefore internal networks I have formed include those with technical support, IT and Project Management specialists within Strategic Support and other project managers and communications staff for collaboration about communication methods. External networks include a HR software provider customer groups where we all learn from each other’s failings or best practices, academic networks, where other students and lecturers experiences are shared, and societal networks such as British Computer Society also have information systems focus groups where you can network with likeminded individuals. However the benefits of these networks are not recognised in every part of my organisation, there is a lack of this between teams within divisions which often causes a duplication of effort and a non-streamlined business effect.

For example our Communications team recently launched a project board for the purpose of the re-engineering of the staff intranet due to it getting bad reviews during the last staff survey. The chair invited from HR; myself, HR Systems and Information Officer and the Head of HR, from IT the Head of IT, Information Manager and Records Officer, from Operations, a Senior Investigator and from Communications, the Publications Editor, Web Officer, and two other members of communications. The chair of the meeting had already drafted a project mandate and a very large document with the scope of the project which roughly included items such as the cleansing of existing information on the intranet by deletion of the old and inaccurate and the indexation and reclassification of what is left. The reorganisation of the existing architecture was also within the scope.

10 minutes into the meeting I could clearly see where social networks lacked. IT had been planning to implement an intranet based social networking tool called SharePoint which the rest of the board had no knowledge of. I had an intranet based self service system on the verge of launch that month which they all know about but did not know the full extent of the functionality and our document management system had just been upgraded that weekend which everyone knew about but did not know the full extent of the functionality. We then had a situation of all of these overlapping technologies with vast functionality all affecting each other’s work. None of us know enough detail about the other work causing concern about the possibility of functionality overlap and compatibility issues. The Operations representative then made an important input. He was confused. He was concerned about where he would find what if all of these new technologies were implemented.

This project board is due to reconvene in the near future, however I can see an ongoing need for this type of network where the organisations technologies are constantly discussed. This may heavily overlap into a network for the organisations information management and knowledge management. Either way a passion for talking about these areas need to be developed if silos such as these are to be eradicated sooner rather than later.

Also with regard to Communities in Practice and the project to re-invent the staff intranet could have serious implications on Communities of Practice that may exist but in the wider organisation are unknown about. Careful investigation will need to be carried out to be sure not to disturb them or provide alternative methods of communication will. For example managers established a Community of Practice for best people management practices. Their main method of communication was on the intranet forum because they are geographically dispersed. The archived posts formed part of their community memory but to the project board the archive of old posts are old inaccurate and useless so they decide to scrap it. This would cause discontent, a drop in morale and probably a drop in performance as they are having to build their knowledge base up again, and that is even if they decide to continue it after what may be seen as an inconsiderate act of sabotage.

With a head office in the London and four other regional offices based in Wales, North East, North West and Central UK being so dispersed there is the challenge of regions and teams creating silos causing inconsistency, duplication of efforts and varied levels of service. Security is very high and therefore organisation material is classified. There are restricted methods of communication depending on the classification of material. Internet access is limited with social networking and email sites blocked to employees due to both security and productivity issues.
Although all of the above restrict the flow of knowledge they are part what overcome by email, Video link and teleconference equipment, intranet, Monthly, Weekly and Bulletin news, forums, numerous specialist focus groups and HR Self Service. The only aspect of social networking missing from this is user profiles in a visual network of people. However is it as simple as incorporating a profiling and networking system?

I am not so sure. Based upon my experience with Facebook the useful aspect of it seems to be that everything is in one place and in addition to that links in together. So if I choose to attend an event it will display on my mini feed which friends in my network can see and also display on my profile page. I also have the facility to invite guests if permitted. If this were an event on Microsoft Outlook I would accept the invitation it would go in my diary and unless you have access to my diary you would be none the wiser about my attendance. Nor would you be able to pursue your interest and simply click on the event to find out more about who is coming. We do however have similar functionality on our HR Self Service system where we are able to browse training courses, dates and descriptions and who is already attending. It does not however have the mini feed function which I find especially useful in a daily update.

There are also other perspectives to the way in which we could encourage social networks. For example our structure... Does the centralisation of our services within the organisation inhibit social networks? Can decentralisation help social networks thrive? Can our learning and Development Strategy help how we network. The roll out of Internal consultancy within the organisation will no doubt increase social networks as the internal consultants are gaining control over what they know what they learn and who they learn it from and for their consulting skills to improve they must draw knowledge from the most reliable sources. Would an approach like this not work across the whole organisation? Where everyone has some knowledge to give and everyone has some knowledge to learn? I think so and I believe this is described as a “Learning organisation” (Marouf, 2007).

Reflection & Evidence of Collective Learning

My initial posts about Knowledge Networks was specifically about Social Networks, it was very brief and barely descriptive and had planned to continue the post at a later date however following a post from (KM Strategies, 2008) “These are valuable ideas but how can it be activated in your own organization? Does your organization allow staff to use social networks during work time? Or is it considered a waste of 'work time'? What do you think?” I decided to do a subsequent post addressing these issues.

A follow up post from (Prof. Mark, 2008) helped me reflect even further “There is a confusion here between social networks (and networking) and the (so-called) Web 2.0 tools and sites that support social networks. You need to give a clear separation between the idea and the tools that might allow those ideas to help with KM. In other words I'd like to see you bring out how social networks can help with KM and then look at the tools to see how good they are in that regard. The list from Kimball & Rheingold is a useful one, but it lacks explanation and examples to make it really meaningful. Can you add that explanation and examples?” I immediately realised that I had fallen into the trap of misinterpreting the similarly sounding concepts of ‘Social Networks’ and Social Networking Tools’.

Others joined in on my confusion and identified how social networking tools are useful, however thought they could discourage members of staff from the fact at hand. That they are there to work! “ To be honest I think its an interesting idea about having a forum or some form of social networking system in built into the organisation. I think there are alot of advantages which i can think of and the ones you have given me. However I think the forum can still be abused and not only used for work purposes but may also divert to other means of non working activities and may possibly lead to other forms of interacting” But is this not a good thing? It has been researched that even informal forms of socialising are productive.

An anonymous reader loved the notion of social networking within an organisation. “I think the idea of a social networking sight is a brilliant idea. The reason being it will enable all employees to see what meetings are happening, their purpose, and who is attending. This in my opinion would empower the employee and make them feel more important and give them a greater understanding about what the business does on a day to day basis. I think a lot of problems occur within organisation due to lack of communication; as such the idea of a social networking sight will at least in part be able to communicate some information to the employees so they are less in the dark about what everyone is doing.” This, again emphasising the fact that communication is key to Knowledge networking. The Web 2.0 technology of Social Networking is giving people the power to communicate with whomever they need to communicate with whenever they need to. It is opening so many doors; empowering employees.

Contrary to the previous comment another anonymous comment was made “But isn't any type of social network open to mis-use by employees? Businesses lose hundreds of millions each year (most likely billions if accurate data was recorded) already through mainstream social networks such as Facebook, Myspace etc. Add social emails at work to this time wastage and you begin to see how detrimental to the overall productivity of a business social networks really are. Internal social networks that engender employee interaction, as opposed to simple information sharing through internal intranets, in my opinion, are counter-productive to the overall business - regardless of industry.” I disagree with this and believe that social networking tools can be used to an organisations advantage. Perhaps the reader has misinterpreted the use of the concept. It did however make me think about ways Knowledge Networks might be counter-productive. This has already been identified in Communities of Practice so could well occur in a badly networked tool or if certain restrictions were not applied.

“As per my comment on your last post, I think you are confusing social networks with the tools that support them. For me the big difference between a social network (and tools) approach to KM and a traditional repository/intranet approach is the lack of control with social networks and how knowledge might emerge from conversations. Although you can plan what a conversation is about you cannot force stuff to emerge from it. Something immediately useful might emerge, or it might take months for a context to appear that made the knowledge in the conversation apparent and useful. By contrast, intranets and the like are people (e.g. management) guessing what might be useful in the future. Whether you agree with my position or not, I think more exploration of what is different about social networks (and maybe within them CoPs) would help in understanding the roles their technologies might have in KM.” (Prof. Mark 2008)
“Conceptualizing organizations as social communities in which knowledge is structured, coordinated, and shared is central to understanding knowledge sharing in organizations” (Marouf, 2007) cites Kogut and Zander 1992. Marouf. Now this quote was taken from a paper relating to Social Networks so it initially confused my interpretation of Knowledge Networks somewhat. Is this implying that a Social Network and a Community of Practice are in essence the same thing? As an organisation viewed as a community is always going to be one that is in practice. Are social networks only formed within communities of practice or can Communities of Practice also exist within Communities of Practice?

Both of these last two quotes made me reflect and confirmed my realisation of Social Networks and Communities in Practice more or less both being one of the same things. These are social networks of people. The only difference is the way in which the social network within the Community of Practice link together. This also gave me insight to go away and do more research on the concepts of Knowledge Networks altogether.