Balancing business process with business practice for organizational advantage

Journal of Knowledge Management - 2005
LaurenceLock Lee1
1Principal Knowledge Management Consultant with Computer Sciences Corporation, Australia. E‐mail: [email protected]

Tóm tắt

PurposeTo provide an argument and a practical approach for achieving a balance between business process optimization and the use of human‐centred business practices.Design/methodology/approachThe concepts of business process and business practice are positioned in the academic literature with related concepts like tacit and explicit knowledge, routine work, codification and bounded rationality. Process and practice are compared and contrasted prior to the development of a model for their co‐existence and interaction.Research limitations/implicationsThis research builds on the separate research streams supporting business process management and business practice development. The argument for their co‐existence still requires further field research to support the organizational advantages claimed.Practical implicationsA framework and approach are presented which can be applied directly as part of new field research or practical application.Originality/valueThis paper makes two original contributions. First, it anchors the modern concepts of business process and business practice to foundation concepts from the academic literature. Second, it provides a practical framework and approach for balancing business process and business practice, that can be practically applied by the reader.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Allee, V. (1997), The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence, Butterworth‐Heinemann, Oxford.

Al‐Mashari, M., Irani, Z. and Zairi, M. (2001), “Business process reengineering: a survey of international experience”, Business Process Management, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 437‐55.

Augier, M. and Vendelo, M.T. (1999), “Networks, cognition and management of tacit knowledge”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 252‐61.

Cao, G., Clarke, S. and Lehaney, B. (2001), “A critique of BPR from a holistic perspective”, Business Process Management, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 332‐9.

Cowan, R., David, P. and Foray, D. (2000), “The explicit economics of knowledge codification and tacitness”, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 211‐53.

Diaper, D. (1989), “Task analysis for knowledge descriptions (TAKD): the method and an example”, Task Analysis for Human‐Computer Interaction, Ellis Horwood, New York, NY, pp. 108‐59.

Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (1993), Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperCollins, New York, NY.

Hansen, M.T. (1999), “The search‐transfer problem: the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organizational subunits”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 82‐111.

Hickman, F., Killin, J., Land, L., Mulhall, T., Porter, D. and Taylor, R. (1989), Analysis for Knowledge‐Based Systems: A Practical Introduction to the KADS Methodology, Ellis Horwood, Chichester.

Johnson, B., Lorenz, E. and Lundvall, B‐Å (2002), “Why all the fuss about codified and tacit knowledge?”, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 245‐62.

Johnson, W. (2002), “Leveraging intellectual capital through product and process management of human captial”, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 415‐29.

Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (1982), Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Keen, P. (1997), The Process Edge: Creating Value Where it Counts, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Lenat, D. (1995), “CYC: a large‐scale investment in knowledge infrastructure”, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 38 No. 11, pp. 33‐8.

Lesser, E. and Prusak, L. (1999), Communities of Practice, Social Capital and Organisational Knowledge, IBM Institute of Knowledge Management, Boston, MA.

Nelson, R. and Winter, S. (1982), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Harvard University Press, Boston, MA.

Papavassiliou, G. and Mentzas, G. (2003), “Knowledge modeling in weakly‐structured business processes”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 18‐33.

Polanyi, M. (1967), The Tacit Dimension, Doubleday, New York, NY.

Powell, W.W. (1998), “Learning from collaboration: knowledge and networks in biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries”, California Management Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 228‐40.

Schroeder, R. and Benbasat, I. (1975), “An experimental evaluation of the relationship of uncertainty in the environment to information used by decision makers”, Decision Sciences, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 556‐67.

Seely Brown, J. (2001), “Sharing knowledge across the organisation: knowledge dynamics and emerging corporate landscape for the age”, CSC CIO Forum, August.

Seely Brown, J. and Duguid, P. (2000), “Balancing act: how to capture knowledge without killing it”, Harvard Business Review, May‐June, pp. 3‐7.

Simon, H.A. (1979), “Rational decision making in business organizations”, The American Economic Review, Vol. 69 No. 4, pp. 493‐513.

Simon, H.A. (1987), “Making management decisions: the role of intuition and emotion”, The Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 1, pp. 57‐64.

Smith, H. and Fingar, P. (2002), Business Process Management: The Third Wave, Meghan‐Kiffer Press, Tampa, FL.

Snowden, D. (2002), “Complex acts of knowing: paradox and descriptive self‐awareness”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 100‐11.

Sveiby, K. (1997), The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge‐Based Assets, Berrett‐Koehler, San Francisco, CA.

Wenger, E. (1999), Communities of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

White, J. (1996), “Re‐engineering gurus take steps to remodel their stalling vehicles”, Wall Street Journal, 26 November, p. 1.

Zairi, M. (1997), “Business process management: a boundaryless approach to modern competiitveness”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 64‐80.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Journal of Knowledge Management

Thông tin tác giả