Strategic Management of Knowledge and Learning Essay

This essay delves into the strategic management of knowledge and organizational learning, focusing on the perspective that all individuals are knowledge workers. It examines the approach of Transparency International Mauritius to these concepts, analyzing its strategic frameworks and tools such as Soft System thinking, Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, Balanced Scorecard, Communities of Practice, and Knowledge Management. The paper references relevant theories and literature to evaluate the importance of knowledge in strategic development, strategic marketing, sustainability, competitive advantage, and managing strategic corporate change. It highlights the role of knowledge management in the humanitarian sector and the organization's efforts to adopt knowledge management practices and address organizational learning gaps. The essay also explores the Balanced Scorecard's application, the significance of customer satisfaction, and the principles of managing intellectual capital within the context of the chosen organization. The paper emphasizes the crucial role of knowledge in achieving organizational goals and adapting to a rapidly changing business environment.

Running head: STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT
Strategic Development
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“Knowledge Management”, “Organisational learning” and “intellectual capital” are
some of the terms that are very commonly used in the current business environment. These
terms are usually associated with some of the big budget projects that are conducted by
different companies who are convinced by the idea that the only competitive advantage that
an organisation in the future would have is its potential and ability of learning faster as
compared to its competitors. The strategic management of organisational learning and
knowledge has become one of the significant element in the fields of management and
business (Rosemann & Vom Brocke, 2015). The condition is so mainly because of the fact
that strategic management of organisational learning and knowledge is capable of delivering
the organisations all over the world, the strategic results in relation to competitiveness,
capacity enhancement and profitability. It is to mention that both organisational learning and
knowledge management play a very important part in the process of orchestration and
designing of the organisational strategy, processes and structures which influence the survival
of a company, resulting in the accomplishment of the goals, objectives and vision. However,
this paper shall elaborate on following a line of notion- “inventing new knowledge is not a
specialized activity...it is a way of behaving, indeed a way of being, in which everyone is a
knowledge worker”. It shall discuss the approach of a chosen company to strategic
management of organisational learning and knowledge management with reference to some
relevant theories and literature. With the same, it would also evaluate the use of strategic
frameworks and tools of the chosen organisation comprising of the vitality of knowledge in
the process of strategic marketing, strategic development, competitive advantage,
sustainability as well as managing the strategic corporate change. It is to mention that the
chosen company for this purpose is Transparency International Mauritius. It is a non-
governmental organisation operating in Mauritius. This paper aims to examine the strategic
framework and tools that the organisation use in the management of knowledge management

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and organisational learning. The tools and frameworks would include Soft System thinking,
Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, Balanced Scorecard Communities of Practice and
Knowledge Management.
To Transparency International Mauritius’s ability to grow and become competitive in
this contemporary rapidly growing business environment of developments and social
changes, Balanced Scorecard, Soft System thinking, Social Capital, Intellectual Capital,
Communities of Practice and Knowledge Management play the role of some important
catalysts, with knowledge being the main point of focus. According to Bryson (2018),
“organizational learning is the process of change in individual and shared thought and action,
which is affected by and embedded in the institutions of the organization”. When group and
individual learning becomes institutionalised, as systems, strategy, routines, culture and
structures. As of the fact that it is the intrinsic notion of change, the organisational learning
research deal with the questions of how the companies develop, transform and develop
further. They renew themselves so as to face the different challenges of the rapidly changing
business environment. Moreover, according to Girard and Girard (2015), knowledge
management is the “collection of systematic approaches to help information and knowledge
flow to and between the right people at the right time (in the right format at the right cost) so
they can act more efficiently and effectively to create value for the organization”. It is to note
that the knowledge management in literature is divided in many different branches. Pauleen
& Gorman (2016) in this context have stated that “Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed
experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for
evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in
the minds of knowers”. One of the most significant branch of the academic work is in
studying in the organisational knowledge because the resource of an organisation and as the
source of the competitive advantage is rooted in the research on the resource-based view of

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the company. There are many authors who claim that the knowledge based theory of an
organisation is a theory which “explains the organizational advantage of firms over markets”.
As per Ronald Young, the CEO of the Knowledge Associated International, Knowledge
management can be referred as “the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire
organizations to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better
achieve their objectives” (Young, 2016).
Transparency International Mauritius belongs from the humanitarian sector (Lakatos,
2017). It is an international civil society organisation that leads the fight against the issue of
corruption. While applying the knowledge management to the humanitarian sector, it is to
state that knowledge management in this regard can be explained as the management process,
utilisation and acquisition of the knowledge and disaster information for the support of
Humanitarian Assistance. It is also to mention that the concept of Knowledge management as
well as that of the organisational learning is a very new phenomena for Transparency
International Mauritius. This organisation is at present working towards the adoption of
Knowledge Management Manager and the Knowledge Management Coordinators whose
roles would be further discussed in this paper for addressing the organisational learning gap
present within this organisation as well as to keep abreast in this rapidly changing business
environment. It is also to state that Transparency International Mauritius is also working
towards adopting the position of learning as well. It has an Anti-corruption Solutions and
Knowledge (ASK) programme that is a strategic knowledge exchange and one of the
significant learning initiatives towards the facilitation of the adaptation, dissemination and
creation of the leading anti-corruption knowledge, expertise and experience all over the
international anti-corruption community (Hope, 2017). It is also to note that the ASK network
of experts are known to be a pool of many experts and practitioners with a recognised and
high level expertise on some key geographic and thematic areas all over the world.

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In the year 2016, the Transparency International Mauritius develops its strategy
named “Together against Corruption” as one of key frameworks for the Transparency
International’s collective actions and ambition for the years 2016-2020 (Rose-Ackerman &
Palifka, 2016). This strategy was developed and designed for implementing all over the
Transparency International movement comprising of the Transparency International’s
members, secretariat and the national chapters. However, it is to mention that over the last
one year, the Knowledge Management has become one of the hottest topics in the
contemporary business scenario. There has been a significant growth in the rate of interest
and the activities as seen in many new conferences, new publications, job advertisements and
IT products. The different professional groups, notably the Human Resource professionals,
librarians and IT products are staking their claims, seeking the Knowledge Management as
one of the greatest opportunities for moving the centre stage. The individuals often describe
the librarianship as one of the organisation of the recorded knowledge. The concept of
Knowledge Management is not new. It has grown and developed from the prevailing
practices and it is already established in most of the organisations- significantly the “Know-
how” services in the big city law firms (Paulin & Suneson, 2015). Knowledge Management
can be presented as the convergence of the ideas that are promulgated over the last few
decades, comprising of the core competencies and the resource based theories of the
company, “info mapping” and information resource management, the “balanced scorecard”,
“communities of practise” and the intellectual assets. The Balanced Scorecard of
Transparency International Mauritius is both a performance management systems as well as
the strategic approach which allows the entire organisation to translate the vision and the
strategy of the organisation into the operational and tactical management reality. The
Transparency International works from four different perspectives and they are learning and
growth, business process, customer and financial.

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There is a very high realisation of the vitality of the customer satisfaction and focus in
any business. If the customers are not happy with the products and services of the company,
they then seek out for the other suppliers in the market who would meet their demands and
needs successfully. Transparency International Mauritius manages their customers from both
the internal and external point of view. The measures are the same but they indeed have some
form of difference and variance from the other INGO organisations. It is to mention that
Transparency International Mauritius are based on the community volume consigned
including the quality. Poor performance from this point of view is therefore a lead indicator
of the possible future decline and downfall, even though the current financial measures might
look good. Furthermore, the business process refers to the work activities which comprise of
value chain of the company. As stated by Epstein (2018), the most important issues is the
correlation in between the set of mission and metrics of the company. All these metrics
should therefore be very carefully designed by the ones who know both the support processes
and the internal mission oriented processes.
According to Dumay (2016), Intellectual Capital is “the sum of everything everybody
in your organisation knows that gives you a competitive edge in the market place”. It is also
referred to as intellectual materials like information, experience, knowledge and intellectual
property that could be put to use for creating wealth. It is to note that Intellectual Capital is a
knowledge based concept. Knowledge is considered to be a subjective and personal process
that emerge from earlier experiences and from the current events. On the other hand, the
information is regarded to be an objective statement regarding the environment. Measurement
of the Intellectual Capital is still lagging in the present scenario. It is illustrated by the
discrepancy in between the market value and the book value that need the idea of intellectual
capital for making some sense. One of the best examples in this context is that of Ericsson.
Ericsson has been estimated to be or approx. 80% more than the total value of its assets. This

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means that the present day accounting comprise of near about 20% of the market value of the
Ericsson. According to Secundo et al. (2016), there are a total of ten principles of Managing
Intellectual Capacity. The first is that the organisations do not own the external and human
capital. They should identify the shared nature of all the assets which a company could
manage and then gain profit from such assets. Secondly, for creating human capital to use,
the organisation should encourage teamwork, communities of practise and all the other social
forms of developing and learning. Thirdly, the organisational wealth is formed around the
talents and skills which are scare and proprietary. For managing and developing the human
capital, companies should recognise the fact that people with skills and talents are asset for
investing in. The other people should be managed very closely with very little or no
investment. Thirdly, the structural assets are the easiest principle to manage but the ones that
the customers are not interested in care least about. The fifth principle is that of moving from
collecting the knowledge for “just in case” situations for having the information and details
which the customers need ready to hand and that they might need within a reasonable time
frame. Next come the notion that knowledge and information could and should substitute for
some expensive financial and physical assets. Knowledge works in the custom works. It is to
note that the custom works are the work where mass produced solutions would not yield
much high profits. It is also to mention that each of the organisations need to reanalyse the
value chain of the industry and it participates in for seeing the information that are most
important. The ninth principle is the notion that the company should focus on the information
flow in the business processes and not on the flow of the materials. The customer, structural
and human capital work together. It is to mention that not enough for investing in systems,
people and customer separately. They could support and detract from one another.
Moreover, the communities of practise of interest is evolved from the informal
networks. As per Langmead (2017), it is a new organisational form that is made of informal

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group that is united by the shared passion and expertise for the combined efforts. They share
the experiences and knowledge in smooth flowing and creative manner for threading the
novel approach to the issues. It is to mention that it is not simply a community because of the
fact that it possess the potential of developing the professional skills of the people as well as
open up new streams of businesses. With the same, it also helps in driving the strategy and
promoting the best practices. Along with this, it help in retaining and recruiting the top talents
as well. It is to mention that the main elements of Communities of Practise are the
community, practise and domain of interest. This concept is being applied in the associations,
organisations, government education and international developments. All these are the
potential knowledge creating avenues. Transparency International Mauritius use the
Communities of Practices in their Operational Excellence strategy that helps its business units
to close the gaps in the performance and for meeting the potential of the corporate. It is also
to note that the communities of practices possess high potential for the development of
knowledge because of the focus on the shared activities. This is due to the fact that they are
not restricted to the formal and general structures. They give the practitioners enough room
for the self-management of the necessary knowledge. With the same, they could also tackle
the tacit, explicit and the dynamic aspects of the knowledge sharing. It is they who create a
direct link in between the performance and learning as because of the fact that the same
people in the communities of practise could also be in the business units and in the teams.
The members of the team could meet in regular basis in no rigid location and with the same,
they are not constrained by the time.
Furthermore, it is to mention that by social network, (Ataseven, Nair & Ferguson,
2018) have termed it a “Social Collectivity” as it include presence of people in a company or
in an “intellectual community”. In this setting, there are bound to be link and bonds that are
developed both externally and internally termed “social capital”. It is comprised of cognitive,

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structural and relational dimensions. It helps in creating Intellectual Capital. It is also to
mention that it is one of the major categories which create the balance in between the
different Intellectual Capitals. The several others are- Customer Capital, Structural Capital
and Human Capital. The Customer Capital is something that is the value of the external
relationships and how the customers around the organisations are treated and are valued in
the organisation- “Good will”. Secondly, the structural capital refers to the operations and
processes of the organisations. It is also about the cultural set up as well as the innovativeness
in its operations. Thirdly, the Human capital can be defined as the people working within a
company. It is their quality, core competencies, skills, learning ability as well as their
knowledge base.
Intellectual Capital is also called Intangible Assets or IA. It is due to the fact that
Intellectual Capital considers the assets of the organisations which cannot be touched but they
make the company rich. Hence, Rossi et al. (2016) have regarded them as intangible assets of
an organisation as they have no physical existence but yet are of a great value to the
companies. Moreover, Kianto et al. (2014) have defined the Intellectual Capital as holistic
prowess as it is the potential of a company for creating business value. As per Osinski et al.
(2017), the Intellectual Capital is “the difference between the firm’s market value, and its
book value of entity”. It means that a company is more than just a stated result, it is the
relationships, ideas, skills, people, experience and many things that create more value for the
firm. All these, along with the strategic knowledge base combine into the notion of system
thinking. Zambon (2017) have defined the concept of System Thinking as a wide range of
resources that is organised in a way that the desired outcome are gained owning to the
company of their designated functions. In such cases, system thinking is possible only with a
strong knowledge base. It helps in advocating, interacting, interconnectedness as well as in
the holistic enhancement and improvement that is what all the themes that are addressed in

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this paper are all about, i.e., the Soft System thinking, Social Capital, Intellectual Capital,
Balanced Scorecard, Communities of Practice and Knowledge Management.
Hence, from the above analysis it is clear that the main aim of this paper was to
clearly demonstrate the concept of conceptual confusion in the learning field by means of
providing a synthesis as well as by integrating the three very closely related constructs- the
intellectual capital, organisational learning, Soft system thinking, social capital, Communities
of Practice, Balanced Scorecard and knowledge management. The paper has very critically
reviewed the earlier research with an effort for understanding how the literatures fit in
together and how it can be aggregated into much more meaningful conceptual model for the
practitioners and academics. It is to state from the above analysis that intellectual capital and
knowledge management concepts could be integrated into one construct. Also, there is a very
strong relation in between the processes of learning and knowledge management. It is to
mention that Knowledge Management is a strategy that cannot be end within a small time
frame. It is a long term strategy. The balance scorecard could be used as one of the
mechanism for storing and managing the knowledge as well as by the management of this
knowledge, a firm could easily measure its performance. This helps in getting management
focus that refined the performance measures that is contained in the scorecard that create
more skills and knowledge. Balance scorecard helps the firms to get aligned with the
processes of management and focuses the whole organisation for implementing it but by
means of using the ten principles mentioned above for the management of the Intellectual
Capital, the organisational managers could focus on good performance and knowledge
management systems which takes into the account of Intellectual Capital.

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