Collective Knowledge Sharing in Cross Functional Teams
From MicroJustice
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[edit] Research Project Sharing Knowledge with the BoP: Share to Learn & Learn to Share
More and more organizations have understood the need to create opportunities in underdeveloped global markets. These opportunities address some of the needs of the world's poorest people and communities - those 4 billion at the bottom of the economic pyramid who earn less than $5 a day and lack access to goods and services that meet their most basic needs. Organizations that aim to serve a market that has traditionally been ignored need to significantly reframe their organization, develop cutting edge innovations, and create new business models. This requires new structures, new procedures and new organizational logics (the norms and values about how to do business) and above all, effective knowledge sharing mechanisms. The idea of developing products and services for the underprivileged majority of the world has been captivating the attention from a diversity of people. From scholars to organizational managers, from NGO workers to university students, all of them have been involved, in a way or another, on the creation of projects and theories that allow us to better understand this new unexplored and complex environment.
[edit] Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is a transaction between information that is unshared (known to a single person) and information that is shared (known to different persons), ant it is seen as a crucial way to learn. When sharing people explore complex difficult issues from many points of view, people suspend their assumptions but they talk about them freely resulting in a free exploration that brings to the surface peoples experience and thought (Senge, 2006). In order to improve any organization capabilities it is crucial that people learn as a team instead of individuals. Individuals learn all the time and yet organizations do not learn; but if a team learns they become the learning engine of the organization (Senge, 2006). Information can stay unshared or even badly shared if certain conditions are not present (Gwen et alii, 2004). Certain factors are interlocked and create, or inhibit, conditions to efficient knowledge sharing. My research will try to identify which factors are present and how are they influencing collective knowledge sharing in a BoP environment. When trying to launch a project in a BoP environment, we find that knowledge sharing between involved actors is of crucial importance due to intense flow of new information that one acquires and the need to learn all that new information.
[edit] Phases
.There are three different phases that organisations should consider when entering a BoP environment: (a) Opening Up, (b) Building the Ecosystem and (c) Enterprise Creation. Especially in the early stage of developing new BoP concepts, knowledge sharing is critical. The Opening Up phase is described as a “launch non-business specific immersion guided by two-way dialogue and humility to co-identify local needs, capabilities and business opportunities” (Simanis et al., 2005. pp.2). This means that every time that any organisation wishes to start a new project, develop a new product or enter a new region of the country/world must conduct a deep research within the local communities to understand as fully as possible the new environment they are about to enter. To do this it is pointed as crucial the creation of a Cross Functional Team (CFT) of people (R&D, Marketing, Sales etc.) that feel interested and motivated with the project. The mission of this team is to defy the thinking logic of their own organization, they must be sent to the designated area where they will try to live the “local” life as fully, as allowable and as long as possible. They must create empathy with the local community understanding what are their needs, their problems and what are they doing right. They must eat, sleep etc. as locals do. In sum, the CFT members must learn about the environment they are in. As stated above, in order to learn it is crucial to share information, the idea for my master thesis is exactly to observe what aspects are driving information sharing among team or organization members involved in the process of learning about the local communities, their needs and capabilities. The group of people involved in the Micro Justice project needs to work together in order to achieve good decision making about how to deal with the environmental contingencies when providing legal aid to the poorest of the poor. Sharing information among the different people that are involved in the projects it is probably a crucial task for the premium functioning of the office and to provide quality services to your costumers. Usually the sharing process is done implicitly and is something that is taking for granted when working with other people in a group/team. Thus, organizations tend to ignore the importance of this dynamics. With my research I would help the Micro Justice group to optimize the ability to share more efficiently the information gathered from the day to day interaction with the surrounding environment.
[edit] Objects of study
For this reason I would be interested in either: (a) analyze information sharing process by participating in a CFT created by the office of Micro Justice (MJ) Bolivia to do a market study and where people from the MJ office, NGO’s, local universities, micro credit, Tilburg university etc. would be involved or (b) analyze de information sharing trough the different actors of the Micro Justice actors, from the top management, through middle management and finishing with costumer service and costumers them selves. The MJ group is Cross functional by it self due to the fact that every one involves has different backgrounds, educations, experiences, ages etc.
[edit] Sharing knowledge with Microjusticia Bolivia
The outcomes of my research would be useful for the Micro Justice project. I will try to provide a best practice of how to organize a team or a firm in order to facilitate information sharing crucial to constant learning about the unfamiliar environment that the BoP represents. With this research I hope to help the Micro Justice organizational managers when trying to structure there organizations or teams, what variables they must take into account and what capabilities they must identify in their employees to make it work in the BoP. The Micro Justice project in Bolivia, from my understanding, is in the early steps of development. It is very important to understand what different needs people have in different regions of the country or how to structure the offices in an efficient knowledge sharing way. With this research I think that is possible to provide useful insights for such an ambitious mission.
