1. Core issues, themes and role of IT on Learning organization

2. Contents Introduction
Core issues and themes in building a learning enterprise
Vision and Strategy
Nature of the Organization Structure
Infrastructure for Knowledge Management
Role of Information technology in knowledge management.

3. Introduction The concept of an learning organization in which:
Continuous learning and Creation of knowledge
Are the core sources of innovation, excellence and competitiveness
Represent a new approach and philosophy of management.
It has received a great deal of attention and thought from some of the best business minds in the world.

4. Core issues and themes in building a learning enterprises.
There is no universal theory or a set of established guidelines towards designing and building learning organization.
Core issues and themes involved in building learning organization may be identified logically from a systematic set of related questions framed as follows:
Why a particular enterprise needs or wants to become a learning organization
How many enterprises sustain itself as a learning organization

5. Cont…
What goals and tasks or foci it needs to envisaged for continuous learning
What kind of internal structure would it require for this purpose
What type of support system would it require for managing its knowledge resource
How would it induce its employees to embrace the change
What phases of change the organization may need
How may the organization foster the crucial linkage between learning and creativity towards innovation.

6. The Agenda of Core Issues and themes involved in building learning organization
Vision and Strategy of the organization
Creation of knowledge culture
Defining the FOCI of organizational learning
Nature of the Organization Structure
An infrastructure for knowledge management
Managing and Sustaining Change
The role of managerial leadership
Transition phases
Alignment of learning and creativity

7. Vision and Strategy What is the core purpose of the organization?
For whose benefits are all these efforts?
What is its guiding ideal self-image?
What unique value do they bring to their customers?
These questions define mission and vision.
The basic approach or operational logic employed by the enterprise towards realizing its mission and vision defines its strategy.

8. Cont…
The learning organization approach in this context defines that to survive and thrive, companies must continuously learn, evolve and innovate new knowledge and alternatives.
Creating and exploiting new knowledge about new products, markets and technologies make it necessary for the firm to:
Make corresponding internal changes
Device their control and co-ordinating mechanisms.
Way their members relate and interact with each other.
The quite essence of learning organization lies in converting information into shared knowledge and capabilities.

9. Knowledge Culture A knowledge culture characterized by
An organizational ethos of sustained questioning and inquiry,
Improvement and development in every sphere of the organizational working
Learning and working continuously to improve current performance.
Learning how to learn and foster the generation of new ideas and insights.
Receptiveness to change
Mechanisms' that synergize individual learning collectively and channel it for the benefit of people and teams.

10. Cont…
Knowledge culture pays formal attention to what is termed as the “knowledge grid”.
What the enterprise knows that it does not knows
What the enterprise knows that it knows
What the enterprise does not know that it does not knows
What the enterprise does not know that it knows.

11. Foci of Organizational Learning
Organization Learning is not random process
It is a purposive endeavor guided by business strategy on one hand and generic improvement strategies on the other hand.
Business Strategy is governed by the perceived needs of market and involves identification of critical success factors.
Generic improvement Strategies are primarily classifiable as rectifiable or repair refinement and innovation.

12. Nature of Organization Structure
High Performance firms in complex and dynamic industries adopt an ‘Organic Form’.
An organic structure by nature is:
Non-Static
Highly Flexible
Capable of evolving in many ways.
There is no fixed job description
Communication intensity is high and content structured.

13. An infrastructure for knowledge management
KM infrastructure is deemed to have the following objectives:
The organization understands what knowledge it has, it needs and should seek.
The available internal repository is easily available to those in work.
New knowledge is rapidly made assessable
Knowledge needed can be generated as and when needed.
Organizational knowledge is tested, validated and updated regularly.

14. Managing and sustaining change
Building a learning organization involves a major process of change and transforming in both the mindset and working of the organization.
This in turn means the members of an organization must understand the need for such change and feel motivated towards implementing it.

15. The Role of Information Technology in Knowledge management
In the transition of mass based production era to knowledge economy, intellectual capital comes before money and equipment.
In the new economy the flow of information is more critical than the flow of material.
ROI would increasingly be determined not based financial asset but on return on enterprise.
Which is knowledge based capabilities of an organization’s members.

16. Information technology and knowledge transactions
Knowledge and skills , innovation and invention are the assets
Upon which the companies in today's knowledge economy depends upon for gaining and retaining their competitive edge.
For use of intellectual capital by a learning organization, IT can play an effective facilitating role towards to management.
In this context every organization has the responsibility of establishing a IT based infrastructure for knowledge management.

17. Kinds of transaction in learning organization
Knowledge is generated from internal operations.
Knowledge is accessed as needed from internal and/or external sources.
Knowledge is transferred and shared across individuals, teams and organization units.
Knowledge is represented, recorded and stored for access or retrieval as often as necessary.
Knowledge is incorporated in processes, systems and controls.

18. Examples of IT based Knowledge Management Systems
Bain & Company’s International sharing system called Bain Resource Access for Value Addition (BRAVA).
Mansanto’s biotech unit Ceregen uses Lotus Notes Database on which sales people share information.
Booz, Allen & Hamiliton an international consultancy firm is implemented knowledge mangement system to tap experts knowledge and ideas.

19. IT Tools for KM Lotus Notes
Notes is meant to enable “people in business to collaborate with one another and to share knowledge or expertise unbounded by factors such as distances or time zone differences”.
Notes disseminates knowledge from those who have it to those who need it most.

20. Learning Experts System
Changes in an organization environment can be initiated externally by government agencies, customers, competitors, suppliers and research centres through policy and strategy adjustments.
These changes need to be reflected in various knowledge databases and decision models of the organization’s expert system.
To accomplish this, a learning expert system linked to the external environment is used.

21. Cognitive Computing Models
These powerful tools developed by research in artificial intelligence, comprise fuzzy logic, expert system, data mining, genetic algorithm and neural network.
Fuzzy logic enable computers to utilize natural imprecise and reason about ambiguous situation.
Data mining refers to extracting previously unknown information.
Expert systems refers to a group of rules that define a reasoning process.

22. Genetic algorithm refers to type of computer programmes that uses random mutation to improve itself.