RESEARCH - AUSTRALIAN KM CHAPTER DEBATES SHARING VS COMPETING DILEMMA.

Entered 25/06/03

AUSTRALIAN KM CHAPTER DEBATES SHARING VS COMPETING DILEMMA.
Knowledge Management Leadership Forum Meeting, 19 June 2003
Cooper's Inn, Melbourne. Sponsored by CPA Australia and Deakin Prime.

Does a competitive environment, internal or external, inhibit knowledge sharing ?

Four debaters : from IBM, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Enterprised Knowledge and EcoRecycle Victoria. Notes were taken as they spoke.

Panel

AFFIRMATIVE VIEW - COMPETITION ENHANCES SHARING

Debater No. 1. Yes, certainly with a caveat that "it depends on the context."
Gave one case. The first was Ford Motor Company. When 5% productivity targets were set across 37 plants, Best Practice sharing methods produced dramatic improvements. Then went on to real obstacles to professional knowledge sharing [Ed.- Weakened argument ?]. (1) Ignorance - workers just do not realise the feasibility and benefits of routine sharing. (2) Level of Trust in culture - Here gave a case with Australian Geological Survey Institute where researchers hold a "publish or perish" mentality and personal reputations are at stake. Even the best knowledge architecture won't necessarily encourage professionals to share [Ed - sounds like almost arguing against knowledge sharing !]. (3) Time to Share not part of HR practices.
Concluded by saying, "Ridiculous proposition..that sharing and competition are incompatible."

Debater No. 2. String of loose anecdotes and rhetoric."Why do we come to meetings such as these ?...Has human nature changed all these years ?... competition is everywhere...Chairman Mao used sharing to great effect" Then gave account of their experience in previous company - negative experience - how Sales functions and Marketing functions did not adequately collaborate for optimal sales success..."Imagine if they did."[Ed- again, sounds like almost arguing against knowledge sharing]. "In fact, people are desperate to share their knowledge....Where would we be if Xerox R&D did not share their inventions like GUI with others (Steve Jobs who later founded Apple) ... we would have no computers !" The debater refocuses sharing on a wider scale, saying that real knowledge improvement occurs only when there is heavy competition between experts."We are always learning from each other..."

NEGATIVE VIEW - COMPETITION KILLS SHARING.

Debater No. 1. String of loose opinions, anecdotes and rhetoric. "Competition and knowledge sharing is an oxymoron." Example : Knowledge vs Information - we might share generic information that is routine and non-critical with each other but we guard our hard-earned codified knowledge. [Ed - Evidence ?] Goes on to give reasons why we don't share. Basicly the system is at fault that does not allow for high trust cultures to happen and believes that the industrial age mindset will thrive for years to come [Ed - Evidence ?]. Dismisses the viability of real knowledge sharing communities.
"Let's face it...it is all about Natural Selection...survival of the fittest."

Debater No. 2. Focused solely on external competition giving some local anecdotes of four types of cases. (1) Government Agency inviting Round Table forum prospective consultants to gather competitor intelligence and types of services and policies. Consultants had uncomfortable feeling about each other where there was no clear agreement in handling intellectual property. Other consultants were excluded from this forum which seemed like unfair sharing. Lesson : Direct competitors obviously won't share liberally. (2) Consortium of consultants to Government Agency. Similar to above argument. Often politics going on amongst them..."playing off between partners." (3) Contractors - all competing for a reduced market, they do not liberally share their expertise. (4) Local Government Outsourcing Drive - Competitive tendering creating services like HR and tree management in the hands of contracting firms. Thus not geared to share practices. Then the debater added a business philosophy case that current knowledge sharing efforts have produced copy-cat processes ie., benchmarking, which she quotes from Prahalad and Hamel is not about reinvention. Business should be about "pathbreaking not benchmarking." Finally, the "human nature" argument again which she espouses by saying, "Sharing is not the norm- it does not happen naturally, intuitively, all the time....People have to be taught to do that sort of thing."

Audience Vote

Audience

Based on the arguments presented by the debaters, the negative team won overwhelmingly : Competition kills sharing.

So, the arguments were aimed mostly at an organisational and market level with only a cursory glance at the individual level. When human nature was brought up in audience questions people dismissed this phenomenon as too hard to comprehend ("We could be here all night." and another "human nature is culture dependent ie., East vs West thinking, so 'it-all-depends.' ")

Other comments further developed were the nature of human trust. It was claimed that there needs to be both a Trust and Distrust equilibrium occurring, meaning with different people we need to know how far we are prepared to share with them. Another shared their experience at BBC World, witnessing its successful extensive sharing of know-how with broadcasters who were even sometimes in competition with this broadcaster. But another retorted that privatisation of these broadcasters will inevitably reduce process sharing. Finally, another person commented that they avoid using the term 'knowledge management' in their company but instead use more common terms like business improvement initiatives. The term will be risked being seen as a 'fad' and so substitutes that term for more accepting term. They also added that KM is simply the means and the wrong emphasis in what we want to communicate. "Keep focusing and talking up the tangible initiatives...that's where the business case (for KM) comes from."

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