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- Hansen, Morten
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- IC See Intellectual capital. Information
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GroupwareThe process of creating and sharing knowledge in any organization involves collaboration. People come together for complaint resolution, problem solving, brainstorming, idea generation, etc. These interactions may occur among people from different departments, spread across geographical locations. Groupware supports such collaboration. The software enables a group of users on a network to collaborate on a particular project in groups or teams. Groupware provides a virtual space, within which people can share experiences, conduct meetings, listen to presentations, hold discussions and share documents. Some applications support real time online meetings including video and text based conferencing, synchronous communication and chat. Other applications enable location of persons with common interests who are candidates to join a community. There are three key components in groupware:
To share data effectively, people should be connected to each other through a network, which must be able to handle large data transfer efficiently. E-mail and scheduling are common applications. Groupware helps to extend e-mail in various ways. For example, it helps in sorting and organizing and retrieving e-mails more effectively. Compound documents are a key focus area for groupware tools. These documents can contain text, images, graphs, sound and video clips. Each document can be revised and shared with other members of the team. Databases which form another crucial component, enable workers to share access to the same documents simultaneously. Each member of the team can work on the same document. Contributions from individuals are immediately available to the rest of the team. Comments and changes can be added at any time by team members. These changes are automatically recorded and made immediately available to other team members. There are security features to decide who can make changes and who can see documents. Groupware tools are especially useful in automating the workflow in service-based organizations. By storing observations, insights and comments by various members of the team, workers are better equipped to deal with problems in the future. Groupware minimizes the adverse impact when a knowledgeable worker leaves the organization. By standardizing on hardware, software and communication protocols, groupware tools make it possible to create ad hoc problem solving teams consisting of workers from different departments. H
A former professor of Harvard Business School, Morten T. Hansen is currently Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. Hansen has done extensive research on knowledge-based competition, corporate transformation, and building great companies. He has published articles in leading international academic journals including Harvard Business Review. His research work has been featured in the New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Financial Times, among others. His article “How to Build Collaborative Advantage” received the Sloan Management Review / Pricewaterhouse Coopers Award for the article that has contributed most significantly to the enhancement of management practice. Hansen is also the co-author of an influential article, “What is your strategy for managing knowledge?” (Harvard Business Review, April 1999). HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)HTML is the language used to format documents for viewing with a browser on the user’s machine or on a network. HTML tells browsers how to display type and images to the user and describes responses to user actions such as the activation of a link by a mouse click. HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes. There are hundreds of other tags used to format and lay out the information in a Web page. Tags are also used to specify hypertext links. These allow Web developers to direct users to other Web pages with the click of the mouse. Human CapitalKnowledge, skills and experiences possessed by individual employees. Human capital includes both explicit conceptual knowledge such as how to create a budget or how to use an e-mail system as well as more tacit knowledge like how to negotiate a sale or interpret a market trend. A company’s stock of human capital tells us about the current level of individual skills. By comparing the skill level with that of competition and what customers demand, gaps can be identified and necessary corrective steps can be taken. I
ICSee Intellectual capital. InformationInformation is processed data. Data becomes information when it is summarized, tabulated, processed and checked for errors. It is easier to make sense out of information than from unprocessed data. Thus the heights of students in a class may represent data. But if we can tabulate, summarize and categorize this data, it becomes information. For example, we can consolidate this data into a frequency table consisting of two columns. The first column can indicate the range of heights (150-160 cm., etc.) while the second may indicate the number of students falling in the range. Alternatively, a histogram can be plotted that geographically depicts the frequency distribution. Information is something the human mind finds much easier to handle, than raw data. Information is less cluttered, better arranged and easier to grasp, than data. (See also: Data) Innovative KnowledgeThe most valuable knowledge is that which other companies do not have. Or even if they have, they are not able to leverage as effectively. Innovative knowledge is needed for a firm to lead its industry and competitors and to significantly differentiate itself from its competitors. Innovative knowledge often enables a firm to change the rules of the game itself. In the automobile industry, Toyota has leapfrogged competitors with its knowledge of just-in-time and lean production. In the PC industry, Dell stands apart with its knowledge of the supply chain and in particular the order fulfillment process. (See also: Core Knowledge, Advanced Knowledge) Directory: books books -> The English Arrive in America books -> Active Vocabulary books -> Books we finished XIV books -> The theology of the balaam oracles: a pagan diviner and the word of god books -> The rhetoric of the father books -> Sra: Imagine It!, Themes, Taking a Stand, Ancient Civilizations Ecology, Great Expectations, Earth in Action, Art and Impact, Level 6 books -> You Can If You Try Unit 7 Nonfiction books -> The tregenza family books -> Unconditional hatred Download 0.91 Mb. Share with your friends:
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