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Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know
 
 

Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know (Hardcover)

by Nancy M Dixon (Author) "IN THE LAST CHAPTER, I USED THE FLUTE-MAKING INDUSTRY AS an example of the competitive advantage that can come from an organization's common knowledge ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know + Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation + Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 188 pages
  • Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (1 Mar 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0875849040
  • ISBN-13: 978-0875849041
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.2 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 73,025 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #5 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Knowledge Management
    #46 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Strategy
    #46 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Information Management
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

Product Description

Breakthrough Research on Knowledge Transfer Reveals Five Proven
Methods for Making Knowledge Sharing a Reality--Which are Right for Your Company?

While external knowledge--about customers, about competitors--is critical, it rarely provides a competitive edge for companies because such information is equally available to everyone. But internal "know-how" that is unique to a specific company--how to introduce a new drug into the diabetes market, how to decrease assembly time in an automobile plant--is the stuff of which sustained competitive advantage is made. Nancy Dixon, an expert in the field of organizational learning, calls this knowledge borne of experience "common knowledge," and argues that in order to get beyond talking about knowledge management to actually doing it, companies must first recognize that all knowledge is not created--and therefore can't be shared--equally.

Creating successful knowledge transfer systems, Dixon argues, requires matching the type of knowledge to be shared to the method best suited for transferring it effectively. Based on an in-depth study of several organizations--including Ernst & Young, Bechtel, Ford, Chevron, British Petroleum, Texas Instruments, and the U.S. Army--that are leading the field in successful knowledge transfer, Common Knowledge reveals groundbreaking insights into how organizational knowledge is created, how it can be effectively shared--and why transfer systems work when they do.

Until now, most organizations have had to rely on costly "trial and error" to find a knowledge transfer system that works for them. Dixon helps managers take the guesswork out of this process by outlining three criteria that must be considered in order to determine how a transfer method will work in a specific situation: the type of knowledge to be transferred, the nature of the task, and who the receiver of that knowledge will be. Drawing from the successful--but very different--practices of the companies in her study and providing compelling illustrative stories based on the experiences of real managers, Dixon distills five distinct categories of knowledge transfer, explains the principles that make each of them work, and helps managers determine which of these systems would be most effective in their own organizations.

Common Knowledge gets to the heart of one of the most difficult questions in knowledge transfer today: What makes a system work effectively in one organization but fail miserably in another? Going beyond "one-size-fits-all" approaches and simple generalities like upper management involvement and cultural issues, this important book will help organizations of every kind construct knowledge transfer systems tailored to their unique forms of "common knowledge"--and in the process create the best kind of competitive advantage there is: the kind that can't be copied.



About the Author

Nancy M. Dixon is an Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences at The George Washington University. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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IN THE LAST CHAPTER, I USED THE FLUTE-MAKING INDUSTRY AS an example of the competitive advantage that can come from an organization's common knowledge. Read the first page
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A systematic and practical overview of KM, 30 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Companies have for many years widely espoused - if not always sincerely felt -"our people are our most important asset". Today with the creeping business dependence on "knowledge workers" a new industry has grown to help businesses manage their employee's knowledge. While much commercial concern is genuine to date there has been a very "one size fits all" approach from the myriad of solution suppliers. How do you choose between them?

Nancy Dixon's book comes to the rescue of anyone faced with dilemma of needing to do something and not knowing what. It raises above all the hype and panic to give clear, practical advice. Professor Dixon defines five distinct types of knowledge and illustrates them with real life examples. She goes on to show that these types of knowledge need different methods of propagation. In other words the medium and the message must work together to deliver the goods. Some types of knowledge are indeed amenable to a database approach. But surprise, surprise - some are not. It all depends on why you want to transfer the knowledge and what kind of knowledge it is.

This book can help you work out what you need to achieve your objective in knowledge management. Whether you're charged with facilitating expertise passing to your bright young things; are determined not to reinvent the wheel or ensuring costly mistakes do not get repeated across the organisation - this is the book for you.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great, 5 Jun 2004
By A Customer
This book gives some good ideas for persuading the 'C' club to invest in development and for that reason alone it is to be commended

However, it is "lite" on some of the trickier parts of the field (eg the slippery nature of tacit knowledge) and makes no connection with some fundamental concepts and types espoused by senior writers and commentators on knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuichi, Blackler, etc). Perhaps a subsequent edition will give some validation to the 5 "knowledge types" postulated by the author.

I would recommend this as a good entry level book to be read after "The Idiots guide to Knowledge Management" (which is a great starter) but before Wengers "Communities of Practice"

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