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Executive Interviews: Interview with Anil K Gupta on Knowledge Management
June 2008
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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.
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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-Ã -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.
1.
Knowledge Management Case Studies
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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