Culture - The Main Enabler

Culture incorporates a set of shared values, mainly implicit, that the members of an organization have. Culture refers to the underlying philosophy, behavioral patterns, and routines or simply: 'The way we do business here." The power of culture is that it is well entrenched in the psyche9 of the whole organization that it can destroy any new initiative that is based on values different from or contradictory to those underlying the existing culture. Nelson and Winter go as far as claiming that culture and organizational routines form the "organizational genetic material."10 Having the right culture, therefore, has been noted as a major success factor in effecting any orga­nizational change. Conversely, an adverse culture has been found to be the major reason for the failure of many KM and other programs. This is because, when the general consensus of values in an organization are not conducive to sharing knowledge, the employee's willingness to share knowledge is suppressed.

For the success of any ICM initiative (at any of the three stages), it is important that the organ­ization have the right culture. In addition to enabling the changes required for each of the stages outlined in the previous part, the right culture can have a powerful effect on the organization as a whole. First, it emancipates the creativity of employees through recognition of their contribution. Second, it enables employees to make decisions more quickly with less formal control by man­agement, because once the cultural values are explicit, employees are more aware of what is allowed and expected, and what the organization stands for. This leads to the third function of culture, namely, increasing employee loyalty. An employee who feels empowered, part of the organizational community, whose contribution is recognized and appreciated, and who is always challenged to improve and develop displays much stronger loyalty rates. This reduces employee turnover, which in turn reduces the effect of the brain drain, improves customer satisfaction and retention rates,11 and creates a healthy workplace that attracts more talent. A prominent example of this is Nokia, which keeps on attracting the best talent in the telecommunications market despite offering relatively modest remuneration. Talent is continuously attracted by the popular Nokia culture, which is known to be innovative, challenging workers to higher intellectual realms, making them "happily badly underpaid."12

In fact, it has been noted that a strong culture alone can provide a competitive advantage in mature industries (e.g., the airline industry). Southwest's success over the years has been due to its strong culture of unity, teamwork, and collaboration where they work together as one com­munity to beat the competition. This is illustrated by the following excerpt in which CEO Herb Kelleher addresses his people regarding USAirways' entry into the Baltimore market:

The outcome of the latest attack on Southwest by another of the Big Seven Carriers is just as important to ALL of us . . . Just as against the United Shuttle, the crucial elements for victory are the martial vigor, the dedication, the energy, the unity, the devotion to warm, hospitable, caring and loving Customer Service ... I am betting on your minds, your hearts, your souls, and your spirits to continue our great pride and our marvelous success.

Pfeffer and Sutton refer to another very interesting role that organizational culture and philoso­phy can play in changing suppliers' performance. The authors explain how Honda was able to improve its suppliers' performance through alignment between its and the suppliers' cultures.14 This further highlights the role of cultural alignment in the success of strategic alliances and mergers, where it has been noted that culture alone can threaten to break a merger.15 So what are the values that an organization's culture should foster for effective ICM implementation? And how does an organization ensure that it has the right culture before it embarks on change initia­tives? There are two sets of values that an organization should instill in its culture for successful ICM: knowledge sharing and risk taking, as elaborated next.

Knowledge Sharing or Idle Socialization

Organizational culture should encourage and foster information and knowledge sharing as an activity that is part of the job rather than a form of idle socialization. This requires more than sim­ply incorporating knowledge sharing in the organizational culture. It requires a shift in perceiv­ing knowledge sharing as a professional, rather than a social, activity. A striking example is British Petroleum (BP), showing how the first attempts at KM failed, despite leadership's stress on the value of knowledge sharing. It was not until B P made it part of the j ob to move personnel to other divisions and departments, where they are encouraged to share their knowledge, that KM succeeded. Incorporating knowledge sharing in the job design resulted in employees changing their behavior, gradually changing the culture to one in which knowledge sharing became one of the most admired professional skills.

The most important organizational cultural value is to encourage the contribution and col­laboration of everyone in the organization in order for the organization to meet its strategic objectives. Southwest Airlines16 is one of the best examples of an organizational culture in which everyone collaborates to succeed. In a fiercely competitive industry, Southwest's com­petitive advantage was to establish and maintain a reputation of being on time no matter what. From the pilot and crew to its land-based airport personnel, every Southwest employee takes the company's promise seriously and works to maintain it. It is not uncommon for Southwest pilots to help with loading baggage to get airborne on time. The company's outstanding record and award-winning performance are attributed by management to the collaborative culture they have, which the competition has continuously failed to imitate. The second set of values relates to fostering innovation.