Comprehensive Report on Knowledge Management at ASDA

This report delves into the intricacies of knowledge management, focusing on its application within the context of ASDA, a British retailer. The report explores four distinct knowledge creation processes and their corresponding knowledge conversion types, providing a detailed examination of the SECI model. It also examines the four organizational culture types introduced by Cameron and Quinn (2006), specifically analyzing how these cultures manifest within ASDA. Furthermore, the report highlights the benefits that communities of practice can offer both to individual employees and to teams within the organization. The report discusses explicit and tacit knowledge, the importance of knowledge management systems, and how ASDA's organizational structure influences communication and knowledge sharing. The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of how knowledge management strategies can improve organizational performance and foster a culture of knowledge sharing and innovation.

Managing Knowledge

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
Question 1: Four different knowledge creation processes and the knowledge conversion types
.....................................................................................................................................................1
Question 2: 4 types of cultures introduced by Cameron and Quinn (2006)................................4
Question 3: Benefits that a community of practice can have to individuals and teams..............6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Knowledge management is related to developing, sharing and managing knowledge and
information of company. It is related to attain the objectives of company through making better
knowledge use. The knowledge management is conscious process of explaining, structuring and
sustaining knowledge as well as experience of staff members within an organisation. Its main
objective is to improving efficiency of company and also save the knowledge within organisation
(Abdalla, Suresh and Renukappa, 2020). Managing the information of company resources to
improve organisation performance. It is a system that inculcates capturing and storing knowledge
with putting value on the intellectual property. ASAD is the British retailer in West Yorkshine.
This firm was started in year 1949 when Asquith family unify retail business with the Associated
Dairies firm of Yorkshire. In United Kingdom, ASDA comes on second and this was the biggest
suboedinate of WalMart family. In this report, going to discuss about the knowledge, tactic and
the explicit knowledge. There will be discuss about the communities of practice which can give
profit to companies.
TASK
Question 1: Four different knowledge creation processes and the knowledge conversion types
ASDA is British supermarket in Leeds, West Yorkshine. It was founded in 1949 and
enlarged till South of England during 1970s and 1980s. It provides the different number of the
financial services and provide mobile phone that are using existing EE network.
The knowledge is one of competitive resources and related with cultivation of the
systems that enable an organisation to be improve, distribute and also detect knowledge assets.
This can be viewed as process of output and input where knowledge of an individual is to be
represented as input that generated. It is awareness and understanding of something for an
instance skills, objects and facts (Alosaimi, Renukappa and Suresh, 2018).
Explicit knowledge is the type of knowledge that arranged and formalized. It is basic
form of the knowledge and easier to pass due to accessibility. This knowledge is mainly handled
through KMS in an easy manner because it is effective in facilitating storage, modification of
texts and retrieval. In this, when data is organised, processes, interpreted and structured then it
result is explicit knowledge. For managerial perspective, more challenge is same to the
information. This generally consists assuring that people have the access about requirement,

stored important knowledge. The explicit knowledge is not more important as it is easy in the
nature and the experience based that helps in generating competitive benefit. For an example,
better skills and also practices of employees in ASDA are transferable from job to the job.
Tactic knowledge was explained through Polanyi in year 1996. It is related to know that
how and refer to the initiative, complex to explain knowledge which on experience based. This is
complex to be interact and also rooted deeply in commitment, involvement and action. In regards
to this, tactic knowledge is mainly considered as valuable knowledge sources and lead to the
breakthroughs in company (Bican, Guderian and Ringbeck, 2017). On the tactic knowledge, lack
of focus directly minimized capability for the innovation as well as sustained competitiveness.
This knowledge is fact that often spreads through company without documented. On the other
hand, tactic understanding is application of the implicit knowledge which is particular to ASDA
organisation. As the staff members started transferring from the different job, request of implicit
knowledge will be changed on the basis about uniqueness of business.
SECI Model
It is conceptual model that was proposed through Nonaka (1991). This mainly explained
how the tacit and explicit knowledge is generated, transferred and also recreated in company.
This model is mainly used in the knowledge management. Nonaka sees the ongoing knowledge
creation as continuous innovation sources of the sustained competitive benefit. Knowledge is
mainly developed among the individuals and environment. As users practise, collaborate,
connect and learn, information is constantly translated and developed. Rather than static model,
the mechanism should be seen as continuous, complex, swirl of information. SECI model comes
out of the investigation in the knowledge management that concerned to the business
administration, organisation learning and also information systems (Choo, Ling and Fernando,
2018). It is essentially visual representation that takes place in an organisation of conflicting,
continuous processes. When the company makes innovation then they do not make the
innovation process simpler. For resolving the existing issues and adopt the changing
environment. They mainly develop the new information and knowledge, from inside out to
redefine both problems and solutions to re- develop environment. Nonaka consider knowledge as
changing human process about justifying the personal belief towards truth. This mainly
emphasizes that the knowledge is necessary concerned to human action. As fundamental basis
for knowledge creation theory, the main focus of ASDA company is attention on active,

knowledge nature represented through terms as the belief and commitment which are rooted
deeply in value system of people (Cohendet, Parmentier and Simon, 2017). There are four
different kinds of knowledge creating process mention below:
Socialization- This dimension describes social contact as an implicit transfer of the tacit
information, exchanging the direct interactions of implicit knowledge. Meetings and insight, for
case, will help the fundamental interaction. Because implicit knowledge is complex to
understand and frequently uses the space and time specifically , it has mutual understanding that
implicit knowledge can gained, like working together or surviving in same environment.
Socialization usually takes place in conventional position, where recruits learns via hands-on
learning, instead of from written documents and textbooks, the implicit skills required in their
job. On the other hand, information is transmitted by practise, instruction, and observation, but
through conversation, knowledge is also gained. The method starts with someone who has no
unique understanding but has learned the from person who has the enough knowledge.
Essentially, the transformation shows us that technological abilities can be socialised. This
means that through contact, observation, and practising, people will exchange information
(Daghfous, Belkhodja and Ahmad, 2018).
Externalization- It creates factors among explicit knowledge that integrate combined
implicit knowledge which makes contact. This type of interaction can be facilitated, for
occurrence, of ideas, and written presentation. Information is crystallised when implicit
information is made clear, thereby help in to be communicated with others, then this get the
source of the new knowledge. Illustration of this integration is the emergence of principles in
new product growth. When the implicit knowledge is explicit, the information is crystallised
which becomes new knowledge basis. In regards to this, formation of the new product
development is better illustration of the conversion process.
Combination- managing, knowledge, mixing different types of the explicit knowledge.
For an example- building image. The widely use of processed networking and has ample scale
database can help this mode of information conversion. Basically this knowledge is gathered
from both inside and outside of the organisation and are combined, processed, altered to form a
knowledge. Then this new knowledge is circulate among the social unit of the organisation
(Daland, 2016). It helps in grouping, subordinate and categorize data, help in increasing trust
rules and enhancing clarity and spacing.

Internalization- It is basically a practice process related to the constant person and the
capacity to make the sense among ideas, concepts and fields. Explicit to tactic is basically the
knowledge is received and request by a person enclosed them by learning or on the other hand
outside knowledge becomes the part of single information and will be done by an organization.
Internalisation is also the procedure of constant individual and joint reflection and their ability
to see relation and recognized form and their capacity to make awareness between ideas and
concepts. It helps in getting different methods of documentation and manuals procedures. It
assists in execution of operational activity and learning different area of expertness.
Question 2: 4 different types of cultures are introduced by Cameron and Quinn (2006)
Culture is umbrella term that mainly encompasses social norms and behaviours which
found in the human societies as knowledge. It is related to the art and some other manifestations
of the intellectual achievement related to collectively. This can be seen as development of the
group determine fostered through the unique social patterns to group. The Organisational culture
is the aggregation of expectations, activity and belief that mainly guide as well as communicate
actions of all the team up members. It is set of the shared assumptions which guide what happens
in company through explaining effective behaviour for different situations (Di Iorio and Rossi,
2018). Organisational culture helps in comprehend the action and values that mainly contribute
to mental and unique social geographical area of business. Business with organisational culture
tends to be successful than the less structured firm because they have the system to promote
performance of staff members, engagement as well as productivity. In regards to this, business
leaders are necessary to creation as well as communication of workplace culture. Powerful
institution society will help in draw right person for job and also engaged as the staff members.
Relationship among the culture and leadership is not to be one sided. Leaders are principal
culture architects, culture influences about the successful of leader. It is necessary for a leader to
appreciate role in order to maintaining the organisational culture (Verma and Bansal, 2019).
ASDA follows the functional and hierarchical type of the communal and structure
culture. Organisational structure that mainly followed in ASDA company result in lack of the
communication among various group and there is each group work on separate basis. Success of
ASDA company is its organisational culture that built over a period of time. This ranges from
how the employees treat the customers and some of the external stakeholders treat each other.
Culture of ASDA organisation of the trust pervades that the happens within all the ASDA

operations components. ASDA encompasses the communications and campaigns programmes to
aids the position distributor as person in the responsible business concern, resources at heart of
ownership and brand which combines sustainability as well as affordability. Beliefs of ASDA
behind each decision is that every colleagues in company makes as well as influence the culture
of company (Gustafsson, 2017).
Each company is differ and have special culture to the organise group of the people.
ASDA company combines mix of the four various kinds of the organisational culture under
single leading cultural style. Four different factor of this theory consists internal factors and the
external factors. The various types of culture present through Cameron and Quinn (2006)
mention below:
The Clan Culture- This type of the culture is mainly rooted in the collaboration. In
ASDA company, members share the commodities and feel that they are the big part of company.
In this, leadership mainly takes mentorship form, company is bound through traditions and
commitments. Main values are to be rooted in communication, consensus and teamwork. The
success is explained within framework to address requirements of clients and also caring for
people. Company mainly promoted participation, consensus and teamwork. This culture is
collaborative and least competitive as comparison to the other culture models. It is mainly
considered the strong bond of the tradition, loyalty and the generally form. In context to this,
clan culture is mainly matched with the flat structure that assists to reduce barriers among staff
members and C-suite. The main benefit of adopting this culture is that it is helpful in enhance the
high employee engagement rate and happy staff members. Due to high adaptable environment,
there is better possibility for the market development within clan culture (Hansen, Mork and
Welo, 2018).
The Adhocracy Culture- It is innovative as well as dynamic environment where staff
members are happy to take the chance and also body are seen as inspirational originator. They
are willing to demand the assumptions and also take the risk also. In this, company is mainly
held through experimentation with emphasis on the freedom and ingenuity of an individual. Core
values are mainly based on the agility and change. The adhocracy culture value in sense that staff
members are to be pleased about creatively think and also bring new ideas. Due to this kind of
the organisational culture falls in outside focus, is on new thought require to be tied to the market
growth and also success of company. The main benefit company get from adopting this culture is

that it contributes to the high profit margin. Staff members stay driven with motive of breaking .
With focusing on the new ideas and creativity, opportunities related to professional development
can justify easily (Heller, 2017).
The Market Culture- Under this, the culture is developed on different dynamics of the
competition and attaining concrete outcomes. Its focus on the goal oriented with the leaders
which are demanding and tough. Company is united through common objective to get the
success by competing with all the rivals. The value drivers of The Market Culture are market
share as well as profitability (Tilchin and Kittany, 2016). Everything is examined with
bottommost line in the mind and place has the objective that mainly align with goals of an
organisation. There are many degree of the separation among the leadership roles and staff
members. In regards to this, there are the result oriented company that mainly focus on the
external success as comparison to internal satisfaction. Market culture stresses significance of
group meeting the quotas, and reaching out the targets and helps in getting positive outcomes.
The Hierarchy Culture- Firm with the hierarchy culture is mainly adhere to tradition
culture of a organisation. These are mainly focused only on the inner institution through mode
of clear command chain and many management tie-up that perseverate the leadership as well as
staff members. In context to rigid structure, there is dress code for staff members to be follow.
This kind of culture have set way for doing the things that make them to be stable as well as risk-
averse. With the internal organisation as priority, the Hierarchy Culture have right direction.
There is well explained processes which provide to primary objectives of an organisation
(Igielski, 2017).
These all are the most effective organisational culture which introduced through Cameron
and Quinn (2006). Among all these culture, ASDA company needs to adopt The Adhocracy
Culture. This culture is effective because it is based on ability to adapt the changing conditions
quickly. The adhocracies are mainly characterized through flexibility, emphasises on the
individual initiate and employee empowerment. In this culture, staff members and leaders of
ASDA company examine the working situations, products and enhancement (Tell and et. al.,
2017).
Question 3: Benefits of the community of practice can have to individuals and teams
Community

The word 'community' is used for the collection of people who do related kind of work is
known as community such as doctors community, marketing community and so on. Or we say
the community denotes to the collection of people also who are sharing something common . We
can call that a community in which people share not only the particular interest but the basics
conditions of life. It also describes the quality of relationship which produces the strong sense of
shared identity. Community of the business includes store, work, pubs and the call centres. All
the things that are in common is accountable to the community and their profits are generate to
present positive and the local impact such as encouragement of the local system (Laudon and
Laudon, 2018). The profit from a gathering enterprise is invested with in the localized areas.
They are mostly focused on benefiting a specific geographical area. Relationship that the
business evolve with stake holders in its external surroundings.
Community practice:
Community practice is a very important role in a business and helping companies to
achieve the goals. It provides framework to grow knowledge. It helps in fulfilling group and
individual goal. These are the group of the people who share a common concern or a feeling of
something they do and helps to learn how to do it better as they act on a regular basis. Domain in
this, the company shared their common interest which is completely differ from other.
Community members pursue their interest through joint activities, discussion, problem solving
activities. Practice In which they can share resources and ideas that they take back to their
practice. It helps in identifying common solutions and come up with the ideas and share good
practices. This assist in sharing the mutual benefits among employees and reuse the ideas and
asking them questions. It helps in development of the peer knowledge of the individuals (Law
and Chan, 2017).
Advantages of community practices
Knowledge: It helps in encouraging and sharing of knowledge in the business. It gives a
member a networking platform to share their views and ideas.
Value through saving time: It helps in getting the responses quickly which is very
beneficial for the organisation and it helps to save the time.
Innovations: Many of the online group that are set on the sites either reflected new
project or were new group working on a new priority.

Avoiding duplication of work: It does not provide the repeated services in the
organisations and helps in avoiding the duplication of work (Loebbecke, van Fenema and
Powell, 2016).
Disadvantages of community practices
Time constraints- The communities of practice confront is the constraints and time
demand. Due to fast paced nature of company, they are always in the time crunch. Including
spontaneous, informal communities practice nature, time availability for them to be engage in the
activities and also develop proper interaction is required for them to be more effective (Sibbald,
Wathen and Kothari, 2017).
Organisational hierarchy- The communities of practice have potential if they are
materialise in less structures. It will be beneficial when the organisational structure us connected
horizontal but traditional company are vertically aligned.
Community practice in the context of Individual:
Members of community practice are more economic and effectual channel of the
information and the experiences. They give training handbook to their employees so that they
can increase their efficiency and knowledge. Community practice aid them to modify their skills
on the job. Workers can spend most of their time period in looking for the collection and are
likely to turn in the co-worker instead than a explicit source of information. Community practice
of an individual report increased the communication with people and are less depend on
geographic proximity and helps in generation of new knowledge (Mohammed, Hafeez-Baig and
Gururajan, 2018).
Community practice in context of teams:
Teams are formed to complete the task and when the team task is over the team
disappeared they learn something in the performance of their task. By performing the task they
remain in touch with each other and helps to build the cohesion and trust among themselves.
They help in solving the complex problem and build the commitment and trust among
themselves. It this the employee learns and sustain their mutual commitment towards the
organisation and the team. By working in team every individual can express their ideas which
increase the efficiency of the individual (Serrat, 2017).
Critical analysis:

The community practice is a social work surrounded by the community organizing and
the community administration and in building the community, social planning, improvement of
community ,analysing the policies and the advocacy of the community. Members of the
community have to participate daily but it is not necessary they work together on a daily basis. It
is a common group of people who share a interest or a feeling for something they do and help
them to learn how to interact on daily basis. This term is very broad and help to learn which
increase their efficiency of doing well in the organisation. It assist the person to increase the
efficiency and builds the confidence so that they can create networks and give good ideas so that
the organisation will be benefited (Schmitt, 2019). It helps to educate by collecting the
information related to the issues of the organisations and helps to support the organisation by
interacting with them and do the work in team and to sustain the learning of the organisation and
helps to encourage the members by sharing or discussing their problems and the issues and
encourage them to to use their new knowledge for the real change in the work which helps the
organisation indirectly and will give benefit in the future. When learning becomes the important
aspects of the community they start sharing their problems of leadership and the management
and helps them to find out the solution of their issues in a team which helps in increasing their
trust and boost up their confidence level.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from above mention information that knowledge management
consists the search feature so that the people can get the answers to particular solutions and the
product specific navigation. In the present investigation, there has been discussed about
knowledge management in detailed manner. The different types of the knowledge management
process developed through Nonaka for an instance Socialization, Externalization, Combination
and Internalization discussed in detailed manner. Organisational culture tend to be successful as
comparison to the less structured business as they have the effective system to promote
performance level of staff members and development. There has been discussed about the four
different types of the cultures are introduced by Cameron and Quinn (2006) such as The Clan
Culture, The Adhocracy Culture, The Market Culture and The Hierarchy Culture. From the
above discussion, it has been examined that The Clan Culture is mainly adopted through ASDA
organisation because in this company provide the positive working environment. The advantages
and disadvantages of community of practice has been discussed in detailed manner.

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