Business Case Studies, Executive Interviews, Anil K Gupta on Knowledge Management

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Executive Interviews: Interview with Anil K Gupta on Knowledge Management
June 2008 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary


Anil K Gupta
Anil K Gupta is the Ralph J Tyser Professor of Strategy
Organization at the Smith School of Business,
The University of Maryland at College Park.


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  • What do you think are the CSFs for any KMinitiative? Do they change across the industries and regions?
    This issue is discussed in detail in the Chapter 6 ("Building A Global Knowledge Machine") in my book The Quest for Global Dominance (Jossey-Bass, 2008). Fundamentally, I do not believe that the CSFs for KM vary either across industries or across regions. Take a company such as GE. Its former CEO JackWelch trulymade GE phenomenal at creating innovation, at sourcing innovation from the outside, and at sharing innovative ideas across the whole enterprise. GE is a highly diversified and highly global company. Yet, it had a uniform social ecology and a common IT infrastructure across the entire company.

  • Just the way companies have their Corporate Strategy, Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Growth Strategy, etc., should they also have a KM Strategy? If yes, what should be the components of a KM Strategy? If not, why not?
    I don't think that it's particularly critical whether one calls KM a "strategy" or something else. The fact is that every organization is always busy creating and utilizing knowledge. The real question pertains to how smart vs. dumb a company is at KM and whether it is a leader or a laggard at KM vis-à-vis its competitors. The components of KM refer to all of the systems and processes that drive knowledge creation/acquisition and knowledge sharing/mobilization. For details, I'd refer you to my SMR article as also the above-referred chapter from my book.

  • What's the role of technology in making KM strategy successful?
    Technology enables large numbers of people who are separated from each other by various types of distances (physical, time, language, culture, etc.) to communicate and collaborate with each other. Technology also enables people to store what they know and it enables the same people as well as others to access it at a later date. Given the ubiquity and geographic dispersion of large organizations, technology is an imperative for KM. However, as noted earlier, it is one of the two critical foundations for effective KM. The other is social ecology.

  • Some companies have Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) and few KM experts advocate that companies would be better served by CKOs. In your opinion, what is the desirability of having CKOs on the board and what purpose do you envisage they would serve?
    I am neutral about the value of CKOs. It depends ultimately on the person and how effective he/she is. By himself/ herself, the CKO can do nothing because KM depends ultimately on the behavior of everybody in the company. The CKO owns neither the technology piece nor the social ecology piece. Thus, the effectiveness of the CKOlies in being able to influence others, starting with the CEO and the rest of the senior leadership team.

  • What kind of organizational structure and organizational culture do you propose for fostering knowledge collaboration and benefitting from it?
    This is too complex a subject to be covered in a short answer. In fact, the entire SMR article was devoted to this question. However, I can make some key points here. One, knowledge collaboration requires paying attention to the "motivational context" i.e., whether or not those who possess valuable knowledge are motivated to share what they know, and whether or not those who could benefit from such knowledge are motivated to learn from others. Two, knowledge collaboration also requires paying attention to the "search and transfer mechanisms." Even if people are motivated, knowledge sharing may suffer if people have difficulty in finding out who knows what and in sharing what they know with each other.

  • Is it correct to assume that KMpractices are to be encouraged only/more in knowledge-driven industries such as IT consulting, Telecom, etc.? Or should KM's reach be extended to other industries, as well? What have been your observations on this over the years?
    No, I disagree completely. Please see my answer to Q5 above. As I have noted in the SMR article, the importance of KM has nothing to do with the growth rate or technological intensity of the industry. This is precisely why I chose to focus on Nucor in the article.Nucor's competitive advantage as a steel manufacturer derived entirely from the fact that it was phenomenal at KM.

  • What are the challenges in implementing an effective KM program? Where should companies look for KM practices within their industry or outside their industry?
    Since the importance of KMis universal, companies should look for best practices wherever they may reside without any regard to the industry of the company they are looking at.

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