5.3 A NSWERING RESEARCH QUESTION : DEFINITION OF INTERNAL SUB PROCESSES
5.3.4 Realizing the usefulness of a transferable knowledge the potential reuser is aware of toward a
The importance granted to a related need is not the only element that makes a potential reuser be inclined or not to transfer some knowledge. It is also necessary for him to realize how that
Thus, the ‘usefulness of a transferrable knowledge toward a need for a potential reuser’
dimension measures how a potential reuser understands the ability of a given knowledge to satisfy a given need. It is close to the concept of knowledge relevance developed by Majchrzak et al (2004) or to the concept of recognition presented by Markus (2001).
As Mr. Jourdin explained us, organizations care about efficiency and profitability. So a solution will be interesting if it answers a need or provides an optimisation, a gain of productivity. Therefore, its employees do not make choices for pleasure or based on their instinct. They are always referring to a need, even if it is a rather insignificant one.
For instance, in Critical Incident 11, Mr. Jourdin collected the solutions proposed by the furnishers and studied them. At that time, he engaged an iterative work with the suppliers to accurately evaluate their proposals. He finally designed a decision matrix based on technical and financial needs and chose the best solution according to that matrix.
Of course, the evaluation of this usefulness can be far from the reality. Indeed, anyone can do appreciation mistakes, especially when some essential information is lacking. In Critical Incident 6, Mr. Leduc was attracted by a project that would allow him to outsource the company’s obituary activities. At first, he thought he could transfer the related knowledge since this idea and the associated tools proved to be good. However, he preferred to gather more information about that project just in case. It eventually appeared that the project implementation in burial societies had been a failure. As a consequence, he abandoned the idea to apply this project in LA VOIX DU NORD. Hence, errors of appreciation can be made.
However, we saw that individual experience could reduce this uncertainty.
One may wonder how this dimension is developed: at first, when the potential reuser discovers the existence of some transferable knowledge, he does not know its usefulness.
However, after some time, he can make comparisons between what he has learnt of that
transferable knowledge and what he knows of his needs. Then, if some irremediable dissimilarities appear or if a transferable knowledge presents unacceptable flaws, the potential reuser will discard that transferable knowledge from his mind. For instance, in Critical Incident 13, Mr. Robicquet had a large choice of devices to set up the double exposure of the colours. Yet, it was useless to acquire a system that would diminish the spoil up to 1000 newspapers at each start up of the rotary presses if it took 25 years to break-even it.
But if there is at least a slight match between the potential reuser’s needs and the transferable knowledge, the perceived usefulness he has of that knowledge is likely to increase. Moreover, as the time goes on, he will improve his understanding of his needs and of the transferable knowledge surrounding him. This will provide him the capability to re-examine the knowledge’s usefulness with new basis of comparison. After a while, the perceived usefulness of a given transferable knowledge may reach a good value. Then, it will be considered by the potential reuser as eligible to answer a given need. Hence, he will seriously think of transferring it. For instance, Mr. Robicquet explains that the ratio between the necessary investment to acquire some transferable knowledge and the saving it could bring to LA VOIX DU NORD was constantly evolving through the time, due to improvements of the related system. The usefulness of this knowledge depended on that ratio. Actually, there is a swing point where the potential reuser tells himself the transferable knowledge is worth its price and may therefore be useful to the company.
So, a high level of usefulness is a consequence of multiple comparisons made by the potential reuser between what he knows of the transferable knowledge and what he knows of his needs.
Therefore, we could conclude that realizing that a transferable knowledge is eligible to answer a given need is possible only after building a rich awareness of the need and transferable
also influence the perceived usefulness of the transferable knowledge. They can increase it. In Critical Incident 7, Mr. Jourdin had no choice but to select a precise tool to manage the advertisement activities of LA VOIX DU NORD. It was chosen by ROSSEL GROUP for synergy reasons. So Mr. Jourdin had to follow this decision, whatever his opinion about the usefulness of this tool was. External factors can also decrease the perceived usefulness. For example, Mr. Bogneux explained us that French law forbade the application of the theories about the convergence of journalistic contents on different supports. Therefore, it was not possible to apply an all else useful method at LA VOIX DU NORD because of the French law. To the contrary, this method would have been totally useful if the company had been based in the USA.
Comparisons between what is known of the transferable knowledge and what is known of the needs
The transferrable knowledge is eligibleto answer a given need The transferrable knowledge
has no use
Figure 5.4 : Usefulness of a transferrable knowledge toward a need
To conclude, realizing the usefulness of a transferable knowledge toward a need is crucial for the awareness process to progress. It means the potential reuser understands that a transferable knowledge is able to answer one of his needs. Thus, to avoid a waste of resources, he will not be likely to transfer some knowledge if he does not think it is useful for him. From a data perspective, we noted that 25% of the collected events belonged to that category. We can infer that this category participates actively to the whole awareness process and cannot be neglected, even if it couldn’t be statistically proven due to insufficient data.
Proposition 1: the individual awareness process, referred to in literature as the stage preceding knowledge transfer, is actually constituted of four elements, developed by the potential knowledge reuser: the awareness of a transferable knowledge, the awareness of
a need, understanding the importance of that need and eventually understanding the usefulness of this transferable knowledge toward that need.
Awareness process
Awareness of a transferable knowledge
Awareness of a need
Understanding the Importance of the need
Understanding the
Usefulness of the transferable knowledge
Figure 5.5 : Elements constituting the awareness process
In other words, it was found that the knowledge transfer stage could not actually start before the potential reuser had developed an awareness of why a transfer was important to execute, what he needed to transfer, what he could transfer and why what he decided to transfer was the most suitable choice in that case.