Linking Human Resource Management to Knowledge Transfer for Organizational Development

Abstract

Knowledge is a key element to all the Human Resources and a major reason as to why some companies do better than the others. The more knowledgeable employees are in the organization, the more competitive that organization is. If the management is able to help employees to share this knowledge they have with the rest of the team, the organization becomes more productive. Human Resource Management is the management of an organization’s workforce. Knowledge transfer is the process through which one unit such as department, group, team, division etc. is affected by the experience of another (Argote and Ingram, 2000).Organizational knowledge can be observed through changes in the knowledge or performance of the recipient of the unit. It should always be noted that transfer of this organizational knowledge is not an easy task. Knowledge transfer is of two types: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is more subjectively related to individuals making it difficult to formalize and transmit. Tacit knowledge has inherent value because it is inimitable, rate, unique and path dependent (Ghemawat, 1991). From individual perspective, tacit knowledge is acquired by experience through learning by doing and learning by using (Collins, 1991). On the other hand, explicit knowledge can be codified and is conveyed through formal and methodical language. Knowledge transfer is important to the organization in that it can produce more innovations and organization enjoys better performance if they occupy central network position that provides access to new knowledge developed by other units. Knowledge transfer can be done using two mechanisms which includes face-to-face communication and written media. The role of human resource management is to ensure that the organization has the knowledge that the company need for its success. The management faces a lot of challenges in transfer of knowledgewithin the organization among them being language barrier, trust problems, communication challenges and faulty information.