Article 2- KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MODEL-SECI

According to Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (1995), knowledge creation process is more effective, and divided into 3 elements: (1) SECI; (2) Ba and (3) Knowledge Assets
The above 3 elements interact with each other in the organisation which helps to share their tacit knowledge in a spiral format, Nonaka gave more importance to Japanese because they are the creator of new knowledge. In this article, I focus on the first two elements.

SECI
Socialization: the sharing of tacit knowledge between individuals through joint activities, physical proximity.
Externalization: the expression of tacit knowledge in publicly comprehensible forms.
Combination: the conversion of explicit knowledge into more complex sets of explicit knowledge: communication, dissemination, systematization of explicit knowledge.
Internalization: the conversion of externalized knowledge into tacit knowledge on an individual or organizational scale. The embodiment of explicit knowledge into actions, practices, processes and strategic initiatives.
BA
It helps to share the contents of the knowledge; this is popularly used in Japan to improve their tacit knowledge
Originating Ba: It is same of socialization; it enables interaction with each other.
Dialoguing Ba: It is used to dialogue the tacit knowledge of the individuals
Systemizing Ba: The storage of tacit knowledge to local storage.
Exercising Ba: All the information stored are improved to the benefit of the organisation

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Socialization: The transformation of tacit to tacit knowledge, which mean personal knowledge is processed by other according to McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999) and Maen Al-Hawari (2004).

Externalisation: The transformation of tacit to explicit knowledge, which mean formalised way of converting personal knowledge into procedures and figures according to McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999) and Maen Al-Hawari (2004).

Internalisation: The transformation of explicit to tacit knowledge, which means the individual knowledge are translated into theory of practice according to McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999) and Maen Al-Hawari (2004).

Combination: The transforamtion of explicit to explicit knowledge, which means the combination of all the existing theories into specific one according to McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999) and Maen Al-Hawari (2004).

According to McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999), under the knowledge category there are two models namely Boisot’s model and Intellectual Capital model, where Boisot’s model is considered as knowledge as either codified (knowledge that can be easily transmitted at reason) or uncodified (knowledge that cannot be easily transmitted at reason), and as diffused (knowledge is easily shared from one another) or undiffused (knowledge that is not shared from one another), within an organisation. He finally states this model is mechanistic and more consistent. The intellectual capital(IC) model can be separated into human, customer, process and growth elements which are contained in two main categories of human capital and structural/organisation capital.

Socially constructed models of KM assume a wide definition of knowledge and views knowledge can be linked with social and learning processes within the organisation (McAdam R and McCreedy S, 1999).

REFLECTION FROM PRACTICE
In my view SECI model can be classified as; Socialization is sharing of knowledge between two individuals, it’s just like spend time or living with colleagues. Externalization is peer to peer network, It involves sharing of individual knowledge are committed into group and then represented in group according to nonaka (1995), the sum of individual intension and ideas fuse and became integrated with group mental world, the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge can be done in two factors as follows; converting knowledge as image, figure, concepts and words and converting knowledge as customer understandable form. Combination is a group to group network, conversion of knowledge in the organisation into complex set of knowledge, this is done by capturing information then presenting and then reporting it. Internalization involves converting of explicit to tacit knowledge; this requires how individuals are contributed to the organisation.

For example if we consider a MNC company, there are different department doing different project, assume, the project term consists of 6 members it also act as an organisation, when peoples chat with each other this is known as socialization then when we are processing a project we are in need of team meeting, all the members in the term contribute as a individual but the information on the whole come out as group then it is called externalization, when the decision about the project is captured and documented in the form of report it is called combination finally when the project is finished and given to other organisation is called Internalization.
Now let us connect SECI model with Earl 7 school Earl (2001), when we compare the above example, MNC company with 7 school, I feel it connected to all the three main categories namely; Technocratic, Commercial and Behaviour schools because the technology or the coding used to complete the project is under the technocratic school, the statistical information gathered for the success of the project comes under Behaviour school and finally the market share is termed as Commercial school.

But now I have a doubt how SECI model is been used in practise, if it is used who is responsible to implement it? The concept of knowledge storing is not acceptable due to ego between many people’s therefore it is difficult to convert tacit to explicit. When I consider other two models namely; Boisot’s model and intellectual capital(IC) model, it is also not easy to transfer knowledge. Therefore in my view models should not be adapted it should be created depending upon the organisation and their employees for the better investment.

REFERENCE
[1] Ackoff, 1989, retrieved from http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm[accessed on 4th February, 2009]

[2] Earl M. (2001),”Knowledge Management Strategies: Toward a Taxonomy”, Journal of Management Information Systems. 18, (1), p.215-233. [Available at http://staffweb.ncnu.edu.tw/hyshih/download/KM/Paper/KM%20strategy%20taxonomy.pdf, accessed on 30th January, 2009]

[3] McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999),”A critical review of knowledge management models. The Learning Organization”: An International Journal, vol.6, no.3, pp.91-101 accessed on 3rd February, 2009.

[4] Maen Al-Hawari(2004),"Knowledge Management Styles and Performance: a Knowledge Space Model From both Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives”, The university of Wollongong. pp.31-36, 40-59 [available at http://www.library.uow.edu.au/adt-NWU/uploads/approved/adt-NWU20050308.141504/public/02Whole.pdf, accessed on 1st feb,2009]

[5] Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press [accessed on 2nd February, 2009]

[6] SECI MODEL, Retrieved from http://www.12manage.com/methods_nonaka_seci.html [accessed on 2nd February, 2009]