Description
Human resource management (HRM, or simply HR) is the management of an organization's workforce, or human resources. It is responsible for the attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees, while also overseeing organizational leadership and culture, and ensuring compliance with employment and labor laws.
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
Knowledge Management for Expansion of Human Resource Management Systems
Aroop Mukherjee R. Ganesan Syed Muhammad Hasan Hashmi [email protected], [email protected] [email protected], [email protected] [email protected] King Saud University, Riyadh
The importance of knowledge as decisive business resource in recent years has compelled the management sector to examine knowledge underlying their businesses. This further paved the way to the rise to knowledge management (KM) initiatives. Only few studies have concentrated between KM and Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) performance. Moreover, they are into ascertaining knowledge and task evaluation using KM applications. The present study is an attempt to understand appropriate characteristics of KM, which enhance the performance of HRMS. Key words: Knowledge Management, Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS), Performance
1. Introduction
Knowledge Management (KM) is the method of discovery, creation, propagation, and utilization of knowledge. Successful execution of KM program requires the administrator and executive to identify with the various managerial aspects including organizational structure, culture, human resource, and technology. Since, various organizational studies have suggested that KM is useful for the development of Human Resource Management System (HRMS), which has been a key to success for HR program. Knowledge management is a set of efficient and well-organized actions that an organization can take to attain the maximum value from the knowledge available to it. Effective knowledge management normally requires a proper combination of organizational, social, and managerial initiatives along with exploitation of appropriate technology. The idea of Knowledge Management is to congregate, classify, store, and spread all knowledge that is required to make the organization both grow and flourish. The focus of Knowledge Management is to influence and retrieve knowledge assets that previously manage to survive in the organization, so that people will seek out for best practices. We are at variance that knowledge management and HRMS can be characterized by having an external or internal orientation. The components of HRMS can described as internal or external factors according to their orientation to firm-based rules or external markets, respectively, in determining how work is organized, skills are learned, and how pay and promotions are determined. The knowledge systems also can also described as the part of internal or external orientation. The internally orientation of knowledge management is the primarily source for HR information within the organization. It uses knowledge expert directories, video-conferencing tools along with knowledge Management techniques for HRM (Aroop and Ganesan, 2010). The viable background of twenty-first century features challenges organization to continually change and adapt to numerous external form, including globalization, new technologies, and unpredictable and everchanging political conditions. To successfully implement these strategies, organization must build strategic capabilities, which organization uses to transform its resources and create a value. Knowledge Management has to accommodate to the vital issues of organizational approval, survival, and capability in face of increasingly irregular environmental change. It embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the original and innovative capacity of human beings (Malhotra, 1997). Knowledge Management is the only source of a sustainable competitive benefit. The importance of intangible assets has increased rapidly in knowledge society. In order to survive, companies, and other organizations too, are in need of the competitive advantage of more efficient exploitation of human resources and intellectual capital. Intellectual capital management is one of rising functions in Finnish companies and an important part of knowledge management. Furthermore, there has been no exploration as to how organizations have not been engaged in KM identify success factors for the implementation of HRMS. Thus, the objective of this study is to develop the model of knowledge management attributes for successful implementation of HRMS. 649
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
The present research paper comprises of Section 1, which presents the introduction, in Section, 2 indicates the functionality of KM with HRM. In Section 3 model of Human Resource Management System (HRMS) practice with the help of knowledge management that will use as powerful techniques for improving the effectiveness of organizations and Lastly, Section 4 and 5 provides benefits and conclusion.
2. The Functionality of Knowledge Management with HRM
Knowledge management helps in integrating different approach towards identifying, capturing, retrieving, sharing, and evaluating an enterprise’s information assets. These information assets include databases, documents, policies, and procedures as well as tacit expertise and experience resident in individual workers. The resource based inspection of the firm suggests that organizations will need to be able combine characteristic, sustainable and superior assets, including sources of knowledge and information, with complementary competencies in leadership and human resource management and developed to fully appreciate the value of their knowledge. Issues for HRM include how organizations should structure to promote knowledge creation & mobilization, and to develop the culture and set of HRM policies and practices that harness knowledge and leverage to meet its strategic objectives. Several roles can play by KM for the development of HRMS. HRMS is characterized by a new set of roles that can assist in generating and sustaining organizational capabilities. These new HRM roles are those devised for human capital, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid deployment professional. KM, thus has the capacity to significantly, expand the role of the HRM professional. Successfully framing the knowledge management issue, before deciding on a course of action, is a crucial prerequisite for success. Knowledge Management as Facilitator for HRMS HRMS must ensure the alignment among an organization's mission, statement of ethics, and policies. Hence, KM should be able to aim towards creating an environment of sharing and using knowledge with full understanding of competitive consequences. Furthermore, HRM must encourage the culture that embraces getting right information to right people at right time. HRM should create the “imperative worker knowledge” that can use by transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge through education; organizations must build employee skills, competencies, and careers, creating "worktable potency." The common model was to accumulate knowledge because it made the person more important and complex to restore. Efficient knowledge management requires the trend to be overturned, requires those with information to become teachers, and mentors who ensure others in the firm to possess know-how of , what they know. It clearly implies, the intellectual shift to take place, HRM must revamp the selection, assessment, and reward practices. HRM have the abilities for creating, measuring, and reinforcing a knowledge-sharing belief. Knowledge Management has the expertise to develop the required HRMS strategies. The knowledge management facilitator’s position cannot be easily slotted into traditional HRM functions, such as training and development or compensation. The knowledge management, facilitator role is much broader and requires original integration across traditional HR and HRMS activities. It involves both rethinking old ways of managing the workplace as well as using innovative approaches outside the box of traditional HRM. Most important, by becoming an effective knowledge facilitator requires conceptualizing HRM and its system as a vehicle for creating capabilities and capitalizing on the human factor to create a community of knowledge personnel. In general, KM involves recognizing, documenting, and distributing knowledge to improve organizational performance, it is of particular significance to HRMS in training needs analysis and the planning of training to improve performance and deliver strategic results. KM challenges HR over intellectual property, professional identity and unit boundaries; KM perspectives move HRMS goal away from developing individual capacity to creating, nurturing and renewing organizational resources and interactions. Besides, devising training courses, HRMS practitioners, have to address and identify organized elements that learners can reference as and when needed, depending on their specific requirements and challenges. Implication of KM for HRMS Knowledge- based theory underpins much of the strategic thinking within organizations. In the knowledgebased view, organizational knowledge are acknowledged as the most valuable organizational asset and the ability to manage knowledge strategically as the most significant source of competitive advantage (Barnes, 2002). Knowledge is both the key resource and a basis for sustainability, but knowledge and associated knowledge management practices must also be sustainable. In the wider search for sustainability, issues of context, of culture and appropriateness are of paramount importance. In the realm of context, the focus should be on community as well as on processes. In this way, knowledge management can enhance the potential for 650
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
knowledgeable practices that are “envisioned, pursued and disseminated, with other actors encountering these new practices and learning from them to develop their own local knowledge” (Cushman et. al, 2002). Knowledge itself is not of any value to an organization unless; these contextual aspects are clearly understood. Much of the knowledge, both tacit and explicit remains largely untapped in most organizations; without a thorough understanding of context, it will not be possible for HRMS to support the development of management and leadership capabilities to support innovation and creativity without knowledge management. Earlier researches in HRM has focused on identifying facilitators and inhibitors of innovation, such as effective leadership behaviors and associated with particular innovation phases, the impact of centralization, formalization, complexity, stratification, lateral communications, matrix structures, requisite variety, and double-loop learning with the organizational size or resource availability. Moreover, the other approaches have found that strategic type, organizational climate and culture, and organizational environment are also important facilitators or inhibitors of innovation. Organizations also seem to adopt different strategies towards staff, which directly involved in innovation as compared with staff in general, with less use of flexible employment policies for this group. The other alternative is to see innovation as more dynamic and fluid, allowing for groups, individuals, and collaborative partners to differ in their perceptions and interpretations of events.
3. Knowledge Management Model for Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS)
HRMS allow enterprises to automate many aspects of human resource management, with the dual benefits of reducing the workload of HR department as well as increasing the efficiency of department by standardizing HR processes. The field of human resources is one that is often overlooked in enterprise management. These situations are aided by the fact that an efficient Human Resources department should function without ostensible elaboration. In doing so, HR department manages the administration of the enterprise, successfully it can go virtually unnoticed – after all, the Human Resources department is simply expected to work to provide knowledge to organizational personnel. The HR department plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth running of an enterprise – most importantly by tracking and analyzing the promptness and work patterns of the workforce which help the knowledge workers to perform and also to acquire knowledge. The importance of human resources has gone unnoticed by the industry. There is now wide range of applications available to aid the HR department in their tasks, making possibility of integration of certain tasks. However, the proper utilizing of knowledge management techniques has not been implemented in the organization. The opportunities to add more services are endless and continue to improve. The strategic value aspect of the HRMS investment focuses on managing human capital by supporting functions such as recruitment, performance or competency management, employee development, and employee customer service. The adequate execution of these areas companies may reduce employee turnover, reduce hiring costs, and improve individual performance.
Figure 1 Knowledge Management Model with HRMS
651
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
4. Benefits of HRMS using Knowledge Management
The HRM systems convert human resources information into a digital format, allowing that information to be added to the knowledge management systems of the enterprise. The result of this is that HR data can be integrated into the larger Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems of the enterprise. In analyzing enterprise wide resource usage, this data could to be useful. The data related to the time by usage of the workforce can enhance decision-making abilities of management, allowing the HRM to form an integral aspect of strategy formation for the enterprise as a whole.
5. Conclusions
The increasing importance of knowledge, and knowledge management (KM), is to associate challenges, nature, role, and boundaries of HRM in significant ways, not always yet recognized by HRM theorists, researchers, and practitioners. To discuss the challenges posed to HRM in general; this paper has discussed ways in which specific functional areas of HRM can respond to these challenges, as well as discussing the implications of KM for HRM and role of HRM in facilitating innovation and creativity. In terms of knowledge transfer, HRM play a major enabling role in helping identify the potential of knowledge management through assessment and selection, by assisting and facilitate knowledge management through appropriate communication and reward, and also enhancing knowledge transfer for timely information as well as developing organizational processes that facilitate knowledge transfer, knowledge appreciation, and knowledgeable action.
6. References
1. Aroop, M., & Ganesan, R. (2010). “Data Mining and Knowledge Management for Personnel Decision Making”, International Conference on Sustainable Strategies On Technology and Management for Developing Countries, Organized by Asian Council for Science and Management at Tyndale College, Singapore, 15-16th May (In Proceedings). Barnes, D. (2002). ‘The Manufacturing Strategy Formation Process in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 9(2): pp 130-149. Cushman, S, A, and McGarigal K. (2002). Hierarchical, multi-scale decomposition of species– environment relationships. Landscape Ecol 17: pp 637–646. Malhotra, Y. (1997), "Knowledge management in inquiring organizations", Proceedings of 3rd Americas Conference on Information Systems (Philosophy of Information Systems Mini-track), Indianapolis, IN, August 15-17, pp. 293-295.
2. 3. 4.
652
doc_680465973.pdf
Human resource management (HRM, or simply HR) is the management of an organization's workforce, or human resources. It is responsible for the attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees, while also overseeing organizational leadership and culture, and ensuring compliance with employment and labor laws.
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
Knowledge Management for Expansion of Human Resource Management Systems
Aroop Mukherjee R. Ganesan Syed Muhammad Hasan Hashmi [email protected], [email protected] [email protected], [email protected] [email protected] King Saud University, Riyadh
The importance of knowledge as decisive business resource in recent years has compelled the management sector to examine knowledge underlying their businesses. This further paved the way to the rise to knowledge management (KM) initiatives. Only few studies have concentrated between KM and Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) performance. Moreover, they are into ascertaining knowledge and task evaluation using KM applications. The present study is an attempt to understand appropriate characteristics of KM, which enhance the performance of HRMS. Key words: Knowledge Management, Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS), Performance
1. Introduction
Knowledge Management (KM) is the method of discovery, creation, propagation, and utilization of knowledge. Successful execution of KM program requires the administrator and executive to identify with the various managerial aspects including organizational structure, culture, human resource, and technology. Since, various organizational studies have suggested that KM is useful for the development of Human Resource Management System (HRMS), which has been a key to success for HR program. Knowledge management is a set of efficient and well-organized actions that an organization can take to attain the maximum value from the knowledge available to it. Effective knowledge management normally requires a proper combination of organizational, social, and managerial initiatives along with exploitation of appropriate technology. The idea of Knowledge Management is to congregate, classify, store, and spread all knowledge that is required to make the organization both grow and flourish. The focus of Knowledge Management is to influence and retrieve knowledge assets that previously manage to survive in the organization, so that people will seek out for best practices. We are at variance that knowledge management and HRMS can be characterized by having an external or internal orientation. The components of HRMS can described as internal or external factors according to their orientation to firm-based rules or external markets, respectively, in determining how work is organized, skills are learned, and how pay and promotions are determined. The knowledge systems also can also described as the part of internal or external orientation. The internally orientation of knowledge management is the primarily source for HR information within the organization. It uses knowledge expert directories, video-conferencing tools along with knowledge Management techniques for HRM (Aroop and Ganesan, 2010). The viable background of twenty-first century features challenges organization to continually change and adapt to numerous external form, including globalization, new technologies, and unpredictable and everchanging political conditions. To successfully implement these strategies, organization must build strategic capabilities, which organization uses to transform its resources and create a value. Knowledge Management has to accommodate to the vital issues of organizational approval, survival, and capability in face of increasingly irregular environmental change. It embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the original and innovative capacity of human beings (Malhotra, 1997). Knowledge Management is the only source of a sustainable competitive benefit. The importance of intangible assets has increased rapidly in knowledge society. In order to survive, companies, and other organizations too, are in need of the competitive advantage of more efficient exploitation of human resources and intellectual capital. Intellectual capital management is one of rising functions in Finnish companies and an important part of knowledge management. Furthermore, there has been no exploration as to how organizations have not been engaged in KM identify success factors for the implementation of HRMS. Thus, the objective of this study is to develop the model of knowledge management attributes for successful implementation of HRMS. 649
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
The present research paper comprises of Section 1, which presents the introduction, in Section, 2 indicates the functionality of KM with HRM. In Section 3 model of Human Resource Management System (HRMS) practice with the help of knowledge management that will use as powerful techniques for improving the effectiveness of organizations and Lastly, Section 4 and 5 provides benefits and conclusion.
2. The Functionality of Knowledge Management with HRM
Knowledge management helps in integrating different approach towards identifying, capturing, retrieving, sharing, and evaluating an enterprise’s information assets. These information assets include databases, documents, policies, and procedures as well as tacit expertise and experience resident in individual workers. The resource based inspection of the firm suggests that organizations will need to be able combine characteristic, sustainable and superior assets, including sources of knowledge and information, with complementary competencies in leadership and human resource management and developed to fully appreciate the value of their knowledge. Issues for HRM include how organizations should structure to promote knowledge creation & mobilization, and to develop the culture and set of HRM policies and practices that harness knowledge and leverage to meet its strategic objectives. Several roles can play by KM for the development of HRMS. HRMS is characterized by a new set of roles that can assist in generating and sustaining organizational capabilities. These new HRM roles are those devised for human capital, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid deployment professional. KM, thus has the capacity to significantly, expand the role of the HRM professional. Successfully framing the knowledge management issue, before deciding on a course of action, is a crucial prerequisite for success. Knowledge Management as Facilitator for HRMS HRMS must ensure the alignment among an organization's mission, statement of ethics, and policies. Hence, KM should be able to aim towards creating an environment of sharing and using knowledge with full understanding of competitive consequences. Furthermore, HRM must encourage the culture that embraces getting right information to right people at right time. HRM should create the “imperative worker knowledge” that can use by transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge through education; organizations must build employee skills, competencies, and careers, creating "worktable potency." The common model was to accumulate knowledge because it made the person more important and complex to restore. Efficient knowledge management requires the trend to be overturned, requires those with information to become teachers, and mentors who ensure others in the firm to possess know-how of , what they know. It clearly implies, the intellectual shift to take place, HRM must revamp the selection, assessment, and reward practices. HRM have the abilities for creating, measuring, and reinforcing a knowledge-sharing belief. Knowledge Management has the expertise to develop the required HRMS strategies. The knowledge management facilitator’s position cannot be easily slotted into traditional HRM functions, such as training and development or compensation. The knowledge management, facilitator role is much broader and requires original integration across traditional HR and HRMS activities. It involves both rethinking old ways of managing the workplace as well as using innovative approaches outside the box of traditional HRM. Most important, by becoming an effective knowledge facilitator requires conceptualizing HRM and its system as a vehicle for creating capabilities and capitalizing on the human factor to create a community of knowledge personnel. In general, KM involves recognizing, documenting, and distributing knowledge to improve organizational performance, it is of particular significance to HRMS in training needs analysis and the planning of training to improve performance and deliver strategic results. KM challenges HR over intellectual property, professional identity and unit boundaries; KM perspectives move HRMS goal away from developing individual capacity to creating, nurturing and renewing organizational resources and interactions. Besides, devising training courses, HRMS practitioners, have to address and identify organized elements that learners can reference as and when needed, depending on their specific requirements and challenges. Implication of KM for HRMS Knowledge- based theory underpins much of the strategic thinking within organizations. In the knowledgebased view, organizational knowledge are acknowledged as the most valuable organizational asset and the ability to manage knowledge strategically as the most significant source of competitive advantage (Barnes, 2002). Knowledge is both the key resource and a basis for sustainability, but knowledge and associated knowledge management practices must also be sustainable. In the wider search for sustainability, issues of context, of culture and appropriateness are of paramount importance. In the realm of context, the focus should be on community as well as on processes. In this way, knowledge management can enhance the potential for 650
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
knowledgeable practices that are “envisioned, pursued and disseminated, with other actors encountering these new practices and learning from them to develop their own local knowledge” (Cushman et. al, 2002). Knowledge itself is not of any value to an organization unless; these contextual aspects are clearly understood. Much of the knowledge, both tacit and explicit remains largely untapped in most organizations; without a thorough understanding of context, it will not be possible for HRMS to support the development of management and leadership capabilities to support innovation and creativity without knowledge management. Earlier researches in HRM has focused on identifying facilitators and inhibitors of innovation, such as effective leadership behaviors and associated with particular innovation phases, the impact of centralization, formalization, complexity, stratification, lateral communications, matrix structures, requisite variety, and double-loop learning with the organizational size or resource availability. Moreover, the other approaches have found that strategic type, organizational climate and culture, and organizational environment are also important facilitators or inhibitors of innovation. Organizations also seem to adopt different strategies towards staff, which directly involved in innovation as compared with staff in general, with less use of flexible employment policies for this group. The other alternative is to see innovation as more dynamic and fluid, allowing for groups, individuals, and collaborative partners to differ in their perceptions and interpretations of events.
3. Knowledge Management Model for Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS)
HRMS allow enterprises to automate many aspects of human resource management, with the dual benefits of reducing the workload of HR department as well as increasing the efficiency of department by standardizing HR processes. The field of human resources is one that is often overlooked in enterprise management. These situations are aided by the fact that an efficient Human Resources department should function without ostensible elaboration. In doing so, HR department manages the administration of the enterprise, successfully it can go virtually unnoticed – after all, the Human Resources department is simply expected to work to provide knowledge to organizational personnel. The HR department plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth running of an enterprise – most importantly by tracking and analyzing the promptness and work patterns of the workforce which help the knowledge workers to perform and also to acquire knowledge. The importance of human resources has gone unnoticed by the industry. There is now wide range of applications available to aid the HR department in their tasks, making possibility of integration of certain tasks. However, the proper utilizing of knowledge management techniques has not been implemented in the organization. The opportunities to add more services are endless and continue to improve. The strategic value aspect of the HRMS investment focuses on managing human capital by supporting functions such as recruitment, performance or competency management, employee development, and employee customer service. The adequate execution of these areas companies may reduce employee turnover, reduce hiring costs, and improve individual performance.
Figure 1 Knowledge Management Model with HRMS
651
International Conference on Technology and Business Management
March 28-30, 2011
4. Benefits of HRMS using Knowledge Management
The HRM systems convert human resources information into a digital format, allowing that information to be added to the knowledge management systems of the enterprise. The result of this is that HR data can be integrated into the larger Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems of the enterprise. In analyzing enterprise wide resource usage, this data could to be useful. The data related to the time by usage of the workforce can enhance decision-making abilities of management, allowing the HRM to form an integral aspect of strategy formation for the enterprise as a whole.
5. Conclusions
The increasing importance of knowledge, and knowledge management (KM), is to associate challenges, nature, role, and boundaries of HRM in significant ways, not always yet recognized by HRM theorists, researchers, and practitioners. To discuss the challenges posed to HRM in general; this paper has discussed ways in which specific functional areas of HRM can respond to these challenges, as well as discussing the implications of KM for HRM and role of HRM in facilitating innovation and creativity. In terms of knowledge transfer, HRM play a major enabling role in helping identify the potential of knowledge management through assessment and selection, by assisting and facilitate knowledge management through appropriate communication and reward, and also enhancing knowledge transfer for timely information as well as developing organizational processes that facilitate knowledge transfer, knowledge appreciation, and knowledgeable action.
6. References
1. Aroop, M., & Ganesan, R. (2010). “Data Mining and Knowledge Management for Personnel Decision Making”, International Conference on Sustainable Strategies On Technology and Management for Developing Countries, Organized by Asian Council for Science and Management at Tyndale College, Singapore, 15-16th May (In Proceedings). Barnes, D. (2002). ‘The Manufacturing Strategy Formation Process in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 9(2): pp 130-149. Cushman, S, A, and McGarigal K. (2002). Hierarchical, multi-scale decomposition of species– environment relationships. Landscape Ecol 17: pp 637–646. Malhotra, Y. (1997), "Knowledge management in inquiring organizations", Proceedings of 3rd Americas Conference on Information Systems (Philosophy of Information Systems Mini-track), Indianapolis, IN, August 15-17, pp. 293-295.
2. 3. 4.
652
doc_680465973.pdf