Wireless Mobility in Organizations

Utilizing Social, Individual, and Organizational Intelligence

Stephen C. Clark, Theodora Valvi

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319422480
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319422497
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Business

This book investigates the intuitive application of strategic knowledge arbitrage and serendipity (SKARSE) principles by CEOs in their use of mobile electronic devices. CEOs of small to mid-sized organizations are responsible for the income, expenses, and profitability of their respective division and rely heavily on mobile devices for learning, knowledge management, and communication. This book explores the effects of mobile devices on the individual CEO, their interpersonal relationships, and culture. It will benefit students, academics, and business professionals recognize events that can add to knowledge and enhance management skills.  

© The Author(s) 2018

Stephen C. Clark and Theodora ValviWireless Mobility in OrganizationsPalgrave Studies in Democracy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship for Growthhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42249-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. System Concepts

Stephen C. Clark¹ and Theodora Valvi²

(1)

California State University, Sacramento, San Diego, CA, USA

(2)

Independent Researcher, Athens, Greece

End Abstract

As with any other major human endeavor, business practice has been the subject of an enormous body of both academic work and research. Since the business executive, especially the chief executive officer (CEO) , has a dis proportionate effect on business practice, much of the research is directed at improving his or her efficiency and effectiveness. This focus is not socially disadvantageous, however, as a gradual improvement in some businesses’ ability to maximize profits, within limits imposed by law and ethics, may eventually result in the improvement of all.

Within the vast body of work dedicated to discovering means of improving the efficiency and productivity of both organizations and CEO s, recent research has focused on knowledge management, a concept popularized by Nonaka (1991), an d learning, especially higher, organizational, and technological learning. Knowledge management is a set of strategies and practices that an organization uses to define, create, organize, and disseminate knowledge, in the form of insights and experiences either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizations as tacit or explicit processes or practices (Khan & Halabi, 2009).

Business and society have become globally connected. This interconnectedness has placed additional emphasis on reaching and sustaining competitiveness from an individual and organizational level (Mustaffa et al., 2011). Research conducte d by Earl and Scott (1999) ha s specified that focusing on knowledge is a necessity to become a competitive force in any industry. They stated that “knowledge is displacing capital, natural resources, and labor as the basic economic resource” (p. 32). Consequently, organizations that have more extensive and thorough knowledge resources create more opportunities for learning to occur (Leiponen & Helfat, 2010). Therefore, knowledge and learning are interrelated collaborative practices that shape each other.

In order to provide a foundation for connecting the dots, we will begin our journey by providing a brief overview of knowledge management and strategic knowledge arbitrage and serendipity (SKARSE) , which is a set of skills for making use of knowledge, and mobile technologies, which are highlighted as means for the effective practice of SKARSE.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is a set of strategies and practices within an organization to ensure that knowledge is both available to and directed toward persons in the organization who would benefit from having that knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). Several topics are implied in this definition. These will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter.

• Knowledge management is not simply providing a library of facts. Knowledge is more than information; it includes intuition, experience, habit, and organizational structure.
• Knowledge management must take into account how people acquire new knowledge, that is, how people learn.
• Knowledge must come from somewhere. Sources can be as varied as ancient Greek philosophy, voting records, scientific publications, or sales figures. It can come from personal observation or the Bible, the Wall Street Journal or the Hunger Games movies, Rush Limbaugh or the Daily Show, a CEO or a homeless person. Knowledge management must find a way to combine information from these sources into a unified system.
• Knowledge can be abstract or concrete, an implicit philosophy or an email address.
• Knowledge can be of different types: religious, scientific, and so on.
• Knowledge can vary in quality, from confirmed facts, to speculation, to misinformation.
• Knowledge can be large-scale or small-scale, a directory of thousands of phone numbers or a specific one, and knowledge management must supply the information on the appropriate scale.
• Knowledge can be tacit (unverbalized) or explicit (expressed in some concrete form).
• Knowledge can be unstructured (a collection of information) or structured (well organized).
• Unlike most resources, knowledge is not diminished when passed on to others, although its value may become diluted.
• Knowledge can be acquired via a number of different routes:

  • Formally, as in a college program of study, a new employee orientation, or an organizational chart showing who reports to whom.
  • Informally, by reading or observing others.
  • Incidentally, while focusing on something unrelated.
  • Creatively, by having an original idea.
• Knowledge management must distribute knowledge selectively. Not everyone in an organization needs to know everything. Furthermore, too much knowledge pushed onto people leads to information overload and a loss of a sense of what is important; even simply making knowledge available to all can be distracting and redundant.
• On the other hand, knowledge must reach persons who need it; that is, knowledge must be proactively distributed to some persons.

Thus, the theoretical foundation of knowledge management must draw on a wide variety of theoretical underpinnings, which will be described within the proceeding chapters.

The goal of knowledge management is the deployment of meaningful information to the appropriate people at the best time with profit maximization in mind (Huseby & Chou, 2003). A knowledge management system provides information on potential or existing markets, innovation, products, suppliers, competitors, regulators, skills, collaboration, and new or existing processes that can be leveraged for strategic initiatives and decision making (Plessis, 2005). Moreover, the concept and practice of knowledge management has become a mainstream topic and initiative for many organizations. This macro level view of how the organization should and will be structured often overlooks the sub-components of the desired initiatives which are equally important, such as personal knowledge management.

Personal Knowledge Management. In the sa me way that the goal of knowledge management is to deploy meaningful information to the appropriate people at the best time, the goal of personal knowledge management is to make meaningful information available to individuals (both the person practicing personal knowledge management and others he/she communicates with) at the best time and in the best form on the personal level. In order to achieve a competitive advantage, CEO s are faced with various challenges including differentiating themselves from their peer group in a quest to become better leaders. Historically, differentiation strategies include self-enrichment, networking groups, professional development such as workshops, and seminars and direct experience. These executives and the organizations they lead continually seek innovative ways to accomplish these goals. Within this context, business literature has introduced concepts related to knowledge, learning and knowledge, and learning hubs as means to achieve competitive advantage and differentiate oneself as a business leader.

Learning occurs from the foundation and application of knowledge, which includes an individual’s openness to explore and ability to continuously change (Boutellier, Ullman, Schreiber, & Naef, 2008). For e xa mple, Clough, Jones, McAndrew, and Scanlon (2007) fo un d that learners use reflection as a means to construct knowledge from their past lived experiences. These actions result in practicing the elasticity of change, exploring the unknown, seeking new ideas, and having the foresight to consider future events (Rahmandad, 2008). The new ideas and foresight of the future are the impetus to create strategic initiatives, described b y Geng, Lin, and Whinston (2009), whi ch su rround these ideas, while collaborating with others of authority. Finally, Cole (1989) fo und that successful learning outcomes are a direct result of the effective management of learning strategies. Personal knowledge management, therefore, is the application of knowledge management principles to the individ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. System Concepts
• 2. Winning the Game
• 3. Learning How to Learn
• 4. Knowledge Management in Practice
• 5. SKARSE in Business Management
• 6. A Design Approach to Studying CEOs
• 7. Exploring the CEO
• 8. Phase 1 (Qualitative) Results
• 9. Navigating Through Our Journey
• 10. Effects on Individual CEOs
• Back Matter