Would you like to know who knows? Connecting employees based on process-oriented knowledge mapping
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Employee knowledge is essential to the prosperity of an organisation [71]. However, time-consuming searches by employees for missing information, or the redundant development of already existing knowledge, are a common problem [1]. Non-existent documents, missing contact persons or incomplete information are some examples. To execute daily work correctly, the required knowledge documentation is often inefficient [2]. Thus, tacit knowledge built on individual experience and intuition is not considered properly, and consequently this knowledge is often not available to other employees [3]. Thus, an organisation's efficiency suffers due to a non-optimal usage of resources [4].
To provide employees with such knowledge, business process related knowledge plays a major role. Business processes are crucial to an organisation's success [5] and can be considered as the DNA of an organisation. This genetic information describes how employees, machines and information systems are interconnected to produce services and goods [6]. Therefore, business processes are the core of an organisation's value chain, and empower employees to execute the business model. Thus, questions arising in daily work situations are mainly referring to knowledge being used in executing processes.
Knowledge can generally be separated into explicit and implicit knowledge [7]. In contrast to explicit knowledge, which can be documented in numerous forms, e.g. as databases and process models [8], tacit knowledge is not documented and needs to be developed or accomplished by employees [9]. While some approaches try to support employees with process (un)related explicit knowledge [e.g. [10], [11]], the majority of knowledge still remains implicit and is difficult to maintain and distribute in an explicit form [12]. Tacit knowledge is individual-specific behaviour and practical know-how [3]. This kind of knowledge often guides the daily work of employees without being consciously perceived [3]. In comparison to explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is difficult to transfer from one employee to another due to personal characteristics and context sensitivity [13], [14]. Additionally, especially the aspect of ensuring an effective knowledge transfer in a given social setting of a company requires intensified research efforts to understand and support these mechanisms better [15]. A preferable method to present knowledge to employees is the concept of knowledge maps [16] visualising knowledge connections [17]. Consequently, the following research question arises: How can employees be provided with adequate knowledge maps in the execution of their business processes?
By analysing prior research we identify requirements regarding such a knowledge map and develop a process-oriented social knowledge system. The system enables employees to connect with each other with regard to business-relevant knowledge. In particular, the exchange of tacit knowledge is encouraged and stimulated, accompanied by facilitated management of the knowledge by the organisation. The novel aspect of the system is the connecting element of explicit and tacit knowledge related to business processes and the systematic social knowledge network within an organisation.
In the next section, the research methodology used in the paper is described. This is followed by the theoretical foundation. On the basis of existing approaches from the literature, the research gap is identified in the section on related work. Afterwards the description of the system and its elements is presented. The following section gives insights into the evaluation procedure and questionnaire design. Evaluation results are presented, and the article closes with a discussion and an outline of future work.
Section snippets
Research methodology
The research methodology applied follows a design science approach, based on Venable [18] and Hevner et al. [19]. Design science provides a procedure for creating new approaches (also called artefacts), such as frameworks and methods. It is also used in the domain of developing knowledge mapping solutions [e.g. 20]. The development of the approach presented follows the framework of Venable [18]. In line with Venable, we follow the design science research cycle and conduct theory building, and
Knowledge in business processes
Within a business process, an input is transformed into an output (process result) in various sub-processes by the necessary resources, for instance employees, machines and information systems [22]. The transformation is performed on process instances, e.g. a car, an insurance claim or a house-building permission [23]. The resources of a process are connected by the possible links between the sub-processes involved. Every process instance passes the net of sub-processes on an individual path,
Related work
Our search for related literature on approaches to provide knowledge for employees revealed 182 articles in the chosen databases. The list of articles was scanned according to title and abstract, resulting in 14 articles. Other hits related mainly either to cognitive knowledge maps of individuals, to context-specific knowledge maps of a non-organisational domain or to analysing the learning process of specific topics using knowledge maps. The remaining 14 articles focus on providing a knowledge
Process-based social knowledge system
The tacit knowledge of an organisation should not be transferred from the minds of its employees into a knowledge map. The purpose is, rather, to indicate which employee is the knowledge owner for certain processes. Thus, we adopt Davenport's general understanding with regard to gathering tacit knowledge [53,p. 72]: “A knowledge map – whether it is an actual map, a knowledge ‘Yellow Pages,’ or a cleverly constructed database – points to knowledge but doesn't contain it. It is a guide, not a
Categories for evaluating the usage of the knowledge system
The dominant model to measure information systems (IS) success is from Delone and McLean [62], [63]. First proposed in 1992, it was updated in 2003 to integrate empirical evidence and suggestions from other authors and to adapt to the internet age. Success of an IS is structured in three pillars, of which pillar one influences pillar two and pillar two influences pillar three. The two constructs in pillar one are system and information quality. Pillar two consists of use and user satisfaction,
Descriptives
Both banks can be best characterised as Kantian systems following the types of organisations described in Section 3. Financial service companies in Germany are characterised by similar types of organisations mainly focused on analytical and functional designs to the nature of financial markets and products [69]. Decision-making is open but incorporates formal hierarchical procedures and organisational units focus on their functional aspects. Knowledge is created by financial models on data from
Discussion
Retrieving information about required knowledge in process execution is not necessary every day. Employees are normally quite familiar with the necessary knowledge to perform their daily tasks. Additional knowledge is typically required when working in a new process, when executing a non-day-to-day process (e.g. once a year), in the case of an exception, and where there is a change in external process information. Thus, employees should not use a knowledge-management system every day. This
Conclusion
Using the conceptualisation presented, a sustainable implementation of a process-oriented social knowledge system could be set up within the two chosen organisations. Here, the system provides an overview of sources of explicit and tacit knowledge for process execution. It allows social connections between employees with regard to the knowledge needed in their daily work routine.
Practical implications are that knowledge exchange in companies should be process oriented and a system such as the
Michael Leyer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Rostock. His research interests are on business process management in services incorporating process-oriented knowledge management, learning process-oriented thinking, organisational design with regard to processes and employee behaviour and processes.
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Cited by (0)
Michael Leyer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Rostock. His research interests are on business process management in services incorporating process-oriented knowledge management, learning process-oriented thinking, organisational design with regard to processes and employee behaviour and processes.
Christian Schneider works in the financial service industry and was a student in the Master of Finance at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.
Nina Claus works for an SME in the retail industry after having worked as a research assistant.