Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What they Know

Citation

Gerber, R. (2000), "Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What they Know", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 307-308. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl.2000.12.7.307.1

We know that companies are different as learning organisations. They develop their workers and management in various ways. A wide range of books have been written in the past five years on different facets of organisations, workplaces, learning and training. This particular addition to this burgeoning array focuses on how organisations transfer knowledge. The knowledge that is transferred is here referred to as Common Knowledge – the “knowledge that employees learn from doing the organisation’s tasks”.

Nancy Dixon goes to considerable lengths to synthesise the results of a comprehensive research study into the ways in which common knowledge is transferred across companies. It is a bold move on her part and results in some very useful understandings of what happens when this knowledge moves around in companies and how it does so.

In some ways this publication reminds me of a US version of the work that has emanated from European sites, especially from Scandinavia, on situated workplace learning. Common aspects appearing include: the concept of situated workplace learning; collective views on sharing knowledge; aspects of distributed learning; and a holistic approach to knowledge movement. In this way, it is rather timely as we attempt to decipher the emerging trends in workplace learning in a new millennium.

The gist of the book consists of a detailed, well illustrated account of five types of knowledge transfer that Dixon identified in her research. These are:

1. 1.

   (1) Serial transfer, i.e. the knowledge a team has gained from doing its task in one setting is transferred to the next time that team does the task in a different setting.

2. 2.

   (2) Near transfer, i.e. explicit knowledge that a team has gained from doing a frequent and repeated task is reused by other teams doing very similar work.

3. 3.

   (3) Far transfer, i.e. tacit knowledge a team has gained from a non‐routine task is made available to other teams doing similar work in another part of the organisation.

4. 4.

   (4) Strategic transfer, i.e. the collective knowledge of the organisation is needed to accomplish a strategic task that occurs infrequently but is critical to the whole organisation.

5. 5.

   (5) Expert transfer, i.e. a team facing a technical question beyond the scope of its own knowledge seeks the expertise of others in the organisation.

These variations emerge from work in a large number of prominent US companies and they are explained in considerable detail. In fact, the material in the book extends beyond description and illustration to advice on how to implement or design such types of knowledge transfer. The many illustrations certainly ground the results powerfully in the North American world of workplace learning. This is rather impressive.

Associated with these main findings in the book, Dixon offers two other pieces of advice. First, she addresses several “myths” regarding knowledge sharing, and secondly she constructs an integrated system for knowledge transfer for companies based on her research results.

Three myths or assumptions are presented. They are:

1. 1.

   (1) build it and they will come;

2. 2.

   (2) technology can replace face‐to‐face; and

3. 3.

   (3) first you have to create a learning culture.

Good reasons are presented as to why these myths may be criticised. These are useful, but they are incomplete because they do not place the companies’ operations within a wider socio‐economic context. There is little recognition that work is a part of wider social behaviours, and that people deal with both life long and life broad learning in their lives. I would have liked the author to extend the section on myths to one of influences on the development and sharing of knowledge in workplaces.

The main theorising that occurs in the book is found in the final chapter on building an integrated system for knowledge transfer. Here, the author states that six elements are the primary ones that need to be integrated into a knowledge transfer system. They are:

1. 1.

   (1) The relationship between the knowledge to be transferred and the larger goals of the unit or organisation.

2. 2.

   (2) The specific population that the system targets.

3. 3.

   (3) The specific benefit the target population received from participating.

4. 4.

   (4) How the system is monitored.

5. 5.

   (5) Who has task responsibilities for knowledge transfer.

6. 6.

   (6) The control of the system.

In fact, what happens here is that the author reverts back to conventional systems thinking and offers up a set of guidelines for facilitating the knowledge transfer rather than engaging in a deep explanation of the integrated nature of the system. This is a little disappointing because it lessens the impact of the research and the “knowledge advance” that should come in this final theoretical statement is missing. What we are not treated to is the detailed description, explanation and structure of the integrated knowledge transfer system.

While the book is well written, generously illustrated from a wide range of companies, and presents some interesting ways of understanding how knowledge is transferred within and across companies, it still leaves the reader wanting a fuller picture of the knowledge movements that occur within companies and organisations. For example, there is little consideration of the cultures in which these companies work and learn. The examples quoted from the research are fine up to a point. They are deficient in the sense that they do not delve into the organisational cultures in which the knowledge transfer occurs. Building on this point, it would have been useful to know how the development of shared understandings related to the transfer of knowledge in a corporate situation.

Additionally, there is little offering of psychological theory to explain how transfer of knowledge does occur amongst people. These underpinnings are important to ground the concepts that the author correctly introduces into the discussion throughout the book. In some ways, the book comes out looking a little atheoretical.

I am also intrigued by some of the supporting commentaries that are made on the dust cover of the book from experts in the field. Within them, there is a feeling that they are promoting the book as one on knowledge management. I would like to think that the strength of the book comes not from its focus on knowledge management, but rather from the psychological act of the transfer of knowledge. This is important since my research has demonstrated that workplace learning and knowledge transfer are driven from many different levels in an organisation. Sometimes it may occur through deliberate acts of management, and on other occasions it may occur through serendipetous acts from workers at all points in the corporate “food chain”. The act of knowledge transfer is much broader than one of knowledge management.

In summary, I think that this book does offer an innovative insight into the development and use of knowledge in organisations. It does offer an excellent set of examples that workplace educators can draw on and it does challenge theorists and researchers to think more laterally about workplace learning. It is a publication that thinking workplace and organisational educators need in their libraries.