Using
Stories To Share Knowledge: A Malaysian Organization Case Study
Khairul Shafee B Kalid, Ahmad Kamil
B Mahmood, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS , Malaysia
ABSTRACT:
There has not been much literature that focuses on using stories as a
knowledge transfer approach in
Keywords: Storytelling, Knowledge transfer, Knowledge sharing
Introduction
In this new economy, knowledge and expertise of employees need to be seen as
a critical strategic resource (Drucker, 1992; Bender & Fish, 2000) and
organizations need to explore ways in retaining them (Joe & Yoong, 2006).
However, capturing knowledge particularly tacit knowledge has been one of the
main challenges in knowledge management (Santoro & Brezillon, 2005). One of
the ways to capture knowledge is through storytelling. Storytelling is a part
of human’s daily life. Everybody tells stories everyday without even
realizing it. Recently, storytelling has become a potential approach in
knowledge transfer. Stories are a fundamental form of knowledge and
communication and are particularly suited to knowledge management (Ma &
Keppell, 2004). Storytelling is a powerful tool in knowledge capturing as
storytelling is a natural and direct behaviour (LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006). Given
the nature of stories, storytelling is suitable for conveying tacit knowledge
(Reamy, 2002; Swap et al. 2001;LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006; Hannabuss, 2000).
Stories provide a bridge between the tacit and the explicit form of knowledge
as stories conveys the speaker’s moral attitude (Linde, 2001). Stories
told in organizations are most effective when they focus on teaching,
inspiring, motivating, and adding meaning (LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006). Organizations such as NASA (Post, 2003;
Bailey, 2005), 3M (Shaw et al, 1998), IBM (Tietze et al, 2003) Shell (The Opal
Team, 2001) and Kumba Resource (Tobin, 2008), a mining company in
Storytelling in organization settings can be seen negatively as stories circulated are probably not work related therefore being deemed as a waste of time (Reamy, 2005). However, in the modern business world, storytelling (narrative) is emerging as an important informal method of communication in modern organizations and is regarded as important to convey experiences of work whilst communicating shared knowledge and learning and maintaining organizational memory (Lehaney et. al, 2003). Furthermore, this criticism is likely a result of a misunderstanding of what storytelling can do for knowledge management in companies, and more importantly the techniques involved in implementing storytelling as a tool (LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006). Kalid (2008) conducted a case study on the perception of storytelling among government employees which see the results indicate a lack of understanding and unfamiliarity on the concept of storytelling as a knowledge transfer tool. The understanding of storytelling practice for the purpose of sharing knowledge is still unclear.
Objectives And Scope Of Study
The significant of this study is that it sheds light on the understanding of
storytelling as a way to transfer knowledge in a Malaysian organization. This
study shows how other organisations are establishing its storytelling practice
and in what way organisational stories are being used. This study explores the
perception of storytelling as a knowledge transfer medium. This study makes
attempt to identify the factors that influence the applicability of
storytelling as part of the organization’s knowledge transfer practices.
Literature Review
A great deal of research and literature has been dedicated to the role that storytelling plays in effective knowledge transfer. This can be seen from the work on the role of stories among disparate project members (Macleod & Davidson, 2007; Nielsen & Madsen, 2006), the role of stories in representing tacit knowledge (LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006) and also the tools used to create and construct organisational stories (Santoro & Brezillon, 2005; Appan et al 2004).
Storytelling in KM is used as a technique to describe complex issues,
explain events, understand difficult changes, present other perspectives, make
connections and communicate experience. Stories are useful in knowledge
management because people learn things easily from stories which make it
capable of externalizing tacit knowledge (LeBlanc & Hogg, 2006).
Storytelling in knowledge management context is seen as a powerful management
tool to communicate tacit knowledge in organisation. Bailey (2005) cited Larry
Prusak, the founder of and executive director of the
Knowledge Transfer
As storytelling approach is widely used to
communicate experience and transferring tacit knowledge, it is important to
consider the literature on knowledge transfer.
In reality, distribution and sharing of knowledge is not an easy task (
Factors Influencing Knowledge Transfer
Many studies have been conducted on factors that influencing knowledge transfer. However, most of the factors mentioned are broad and not associated to any particular knowledge transfer methods.
Joshi & Sarker (2006) conducted a study that examines the factors associated with knowledge transfer in information system development project teams. The study focuses on the team member's absorptive capacity, motivation, communication among members, group culture and group cohesion on knowledge transfer. The findings of the study indicate that an individual is able to internalize significant amount of transferred knowledge if the knowledge source perceived the individual to have a high absorptive capacity, interacts extensively with other team members and belong to a collectivist team whose members have a high motivation to transfer knowledge.
Li & Zhu (2009) studies factors that influence informal knowledge transfer. They proposed that knowledge transfer opportunities, motives and capacity are the decisive influential factors to informal knowledge transfer among individuals. Knowledge transfer opportunities concerns with the difficulty degree of knowledge search and richness of channels, which provides the possibility of knowledge transfer among individuals. Knowledge transfer motives contain transfer willingness and reputation interests. Transfer willingness refers to the willingness of the knowledge source to transfer his or her knowledge to knowledge recipients. A person transfer knowledge for the sake of building his or her reputation. The knowledge source does not only enhance recipients’ capability of solving problems but also obtain admiration from others. Knowledge transfer capacity contains absorptive capacity and imparting capacity. Absorptive capacity refers to the personal ability to distinguish knowledge value, get external information, digest and then make use of knowledge. The ability of knowledge source to transfer and express knowledge and how to carry out effective knowledge transfer refers to imparting capacity.
Hashim and Othman (2005) cited from the following authors on the four factors that influence knowledge transfer from organizational perspectives. They include:
Ø Relational channel (Rulke et al, 2000) Relational channels provide the human-to-human connection necessary to support the transfer of tacit knowledge.
Ø Partner similarity (Almeida et al, 1999; Darr et al, 2000). This refers to the similarity that exists between knowledge giver and receiver. People with similar backgrounds, levels and experiences.
Ø Organizational self-knowledge (Rulke et al, 2000) Individuals know what they know and also know what other people knows.
Ø Divergence of interest (Alchian et al, 1972; Jensen et al, 1976). The divergence of interest between sender and receiver can inhibit knowledge transfer.
Research Method
A small scale case study was conducted to gain insights on the practice of
telling organization stories. Given the context,
motivation and nature of the study, it is appropriate to use qualitative case
study as the research approach (Yin, 2002). This study uses a case study
approach to investigate employees’ understanding of the using stories as
a knowledge transfer tool and the perception of the employees on the
facilitators and barriers of deploying storytelling approach in the
organization.
Data were collected through semi structured
interviews. Semi structured interviews are used to gather data on the storytelling
practices in the organization and employees’ perception on storytelling.
The data is analysed to look for emerging themes using the research software
NVivo. In, thematic analysis the data collection and analysis are done
simultaneously and the researcher going through back and forth between
transcripts, memos, notes and the research literature (Tere, 2006). After the
interviews have been transcribed, the data are then coded into patterns. At the
next level, the themes are then grouped together patterns into sub themes. The
themes emerged are then being referred back to literature to obtain a valid
argument for choosing those themes (Tere, 2006).
Results
Participant Summary
Respondents were selected from IT-related departments in a private university
fully-owned by
Table 1: Respondent
Summary
|
Resp
No. |
Position (Years of
Experience) |
Department |
Job Scope |
Knowledge Used in Job |
|
R1 |
Executive (3 years) |
ITMS (User Support Unit) |
Responsible in supporting
users with IT facilities such as computers and maintaining server for ID for
email and network. |
Technical-Explicit and
Tacit knowledge |
|
R2 |
Executive (10 years) |
ITMS (Application Unit) |
Manages a IT project in the
organization |
Explicit and Tacit
knowledge |
|
R3 |
Executive (6 years) |
ITMS (Network Unit) |
Responsible in the design
and managing the university’s network. |
Tacit knowledge |
|
R4 |
Technician (8 years) |
ITMS (User Support Unit) |
Responsible in managing the
lab and ensure equipment are in order. |
Tacit knowledge |
|
R5 |
Technician (10 years) |
ITMS (User Support Unit) |
Attached to the Support
Unit. Responsible in supporting end user server. |
Tacit knowledge |
|
R6 |
Lecturer (3 years) |
CIS |
Lectures Programming
subjects. Conduct research |
Explicit knowledge |
|
R7 |
Lecturer (3 years) |
CIS |
Handles Final Year Project
course. Conduct research |
Explicit and Tacit
knowledge |
The Themes Concerning the Usage of Stories in the Organization
Amid the lack of formal platform in the organization, stories were used for various purposes in the organization through its informal channel. Even though the focus of the study is on the usage of stories in transferring knowledge, it was found that stories are not mainly used knowledge transfer alone. With regards to the use of stories in the organization, the data analysis has yielded four major themes: Experience sharing, Immediate Response, Mental Model and Shared Understanding. These themes can be plotted in a checklist matrix as presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Checklist
Matrix On The Usage Of Stories
|
Respondent |
Experience
sharing |
Immediate
response |
Shared
understanding |
Mental
model |
|
R1 |
X |
|
|
|
|
R2 |
X |
|
|
|
|
R3 |
X |
X |
|
|
|
R4 |
X |
X |
X |
|
|
R5 |
X |
|
|
|
|
R6 |
|
|
|
X |
|
R7 |
X |
|
|
|
The primary usage of stories in the organization is to share experience among colleagues. In the workplace, job description, manuals or policies in document form are deemed to be inadequate in providing the details. The tacit part of the job is conveyed through stories thus making it the primary purpose of using stories. R1 and R7 for example, learn how to provide perform their job better through stories shared by their predecessor. R1 who is in charge of the User Support unit of ITMS learned how to manage users in the organization who comes from various background and culture. R7 who is a lecturer handling undergraduate’s final year project learned from her predecessor on how to manage the tasks effectively. R3 and R4 prefer to use stories because stories are not only used to share stories but it is also a means where immediate response can be obtained. This indicates the process of telling stories as a two-way communication in which stories are exchanged and constructed collectively. R3 implies that he prefer stories to be shared in an informal settings where responses can be obtained immediately. Toolbox session is an example of storytelling platform in which stories are used to share experience and able to obtain immediate response.
The Themes Emerged From their Overall Understanding of Storytelling
Data was also collected on the respondents general
understanding of what organization storytelling should be. As shown in Figure
1, the responses from the respondents indicate that storytelling can be seen from
a story construction and story delivery point of view.
Figure 1: Summary Of
Themes Emerged From Overall Storytelling Understanding
From a story construction perspective, respondents define stories in the way a story is constructed. The construction of a story is a collective effort. This suggests that a story should be constructed collectively through interaction between members. Interaction in storytelling allows the listener to interrupt to ask questions or wait until the end of the session for questions which provides some sense of informality. This can be seen from the statement:
Storytelling session should not be too formal.
It should be in a discussion form with interactions. If there is no
interaction, it will be a dead end.
In organization storytelling, it is important that the teller and listener interact to construct the stories ensure that shared meaning and understanding are established (Santoro & Brezillon, 2005; Valle et al, 2002). In the organization, the Toolbox session provides the opportunity of group storytelling.
Other themes that emerged are content and presentation which denotes story delivery standpoint. While organization stories can be used for many purposes, the content of a story should reflect practice-based about work experience. The content should be presented informally and possessing characteristics such as gestures, high and low peak, voice tone and many others with the help of visual aids.
The content must be presented in Powerpoint but
the explaination should be informal like one presenter when he talked about his
experience in getting a PhD scholarship grant ...u know that day, I applied bla
bla.....
A respondent provides the following statement that summarized of what a story should be like that demonstrate the general understanding of stories and storytelling:
A story must have pictures. When you tell it
must be with expression. Must have visual aids and then make it interesting too
tell. If not people will not be interested to tell. If tell the stories in a
monotone voice, it will not be interesting. That is storytelling in general.
Storytelling is just telling stories. Telling what you know to people. Chatting
with colleagues is storytelling. When stories are told, there might be
knowledge that is transferred to you. We share opinions and ideas within that
storytelling session. It is one to one. Even if we chat with our boss, it can
be storytelling. We tell the boss our problems and boss can give solutions.
The Themes Emerged on Storytelling Factors
Figure 2 visualize the themes emerged in this influential
factors category. The themes are Comfortability, Story content and Knowledge
transfer issues.
Figure 2: Summary Of
Themes Emerged From Influential Factors
Comfortability
As depicted in Figure 2, the themes emerged in informal platform are comfortability and low knowledge management culture. In order to promote storytelling, the environment in which storytelling happens is important. Respondents indicate comfortability as one of the factors that could influence the practice of telling stories. Comfortability in this context refers to the comfortability of the person towards the other people that he or she is engaging in storytelling with and the environment of which storytelling happens. Comfortability with another person relates to trust. In knowledge transfer literature, trust is cited as one of the factors that influence knowledge transfer (Rhodes et al, 2008; Dahlan et al, 2005; Bechina, 2006; Fengjie et al, 2004). This reflected in the statements,
I might share with people that don't know yet.
So, I'd rather share with someone that I'm close with and definitely know that
the person don't know about it yet. I'm quite selective in sharing.
Knowledge sharing story?....No. I believe people
in this department work in silos. And if they share they share among the
colleagues that they are close to….
The environment in which storytelling happens is also another factor that facilitates the use of stories. The term ‘informal’ is being used widely by participants to illustrate the suitable type of storytelling settings. Examples of informal settings are stories exchanged during breakfast and lunch or other social platforms such as department gatherings or tea talk. Storytelling also happen in formal settings such as departmental meetings but departmental meetings have minutes that need to be adhered and decision that needs to make which gives limited amount of space for storytelling.
We have lots of formal meetings but formal
meetings are mostly straight to the point. You have to give decision at that
time. When there are problems to be discussed, a solution is required straight
away. In informal sessions, when we tell problems, the solutions are given in
the form of other member's experience.
I think it
(storytelling session) must be informal...maybe with food <laugh>people
may be there. Food brings people in. I think the session should short and
concise.
Even though respondents acknowledge that sharing knowledge is important and beneficial but with the inexistence of KM practices and culture in the organization has caused knowledge and experience to remain circulated and eventually lost. The culture of managing personal knowledge and willingness to transfer knowledge is not fully understood.
I think one reason why knowledge is not captured
is because the person is always there with you. If you need something, you will
just dial or email and I'll get the solution. No one actually put the
initiative to record it because like for me, I am here. If the person needs me,
they can find for me. I think the
problem is not recorded because it is not part of the work process. If I have
to do step 1 to step 10, and that thing falls under step 8, I'll record it. But
the step is not there.
Knowledge Transfer Issues
Motivation, imparting capacity and low awareness are factors in knowledge transfer issues. There is low awareness on the importance of sharing knowledge in the organization. The low awareness has led to the storytelling session as being unimportant. This can be seen from the statement,
We used to organized a session last time after
Friday prayers one hour where we would gather in the auditorium we talked about
whatever happens in the department but it does not work because people won't
take it seriously. They feel that it is a waste of time to come and chat.
People won't respond to that session.
Imparting capacity refers to the ability of knowledge source to
transfer and express knowledge and how to carry out effective knowledge
transfer (Li & Zhu, 2009). It is an acceptable fact that there are people
who are not able to speak in public which could affect the delivery of the
story. Imparting capacity could also affect the motivation of employees to
become storytellers. Another perspective to look at motivation is that
employees give excuses for not attending the session.
What benefit would they get in attending that session? If it
is not in their KPI or the boss isn’t aware of their attendance, it will
be difficult to get participation. Unless, they know by doing this, I'll get
something. They want something tangible like KPI.
We need to compile the reasons why they can't come to the
session. The thing is they gave lots of excuses. They will give excuses like
the venue is far, the story is not interesting, they'll get bored if listen to
the story, there is no refreshment….
Content
Another theme emerged that have caused unsuccessful formal storytelling effort is content applicability and topic applicability. The respondents commented that the topic should be made interesting and related to the audience. The topic of the story is the first contact with prospective audience. Audience might decide not to attend the storytelling session if the topic does not sound appealing to them. The respondents highlighted that the content of the story should be work-related, based on a person’s experience and original. Original in this context means that the story has not been told to anybody or that the majority of the people have not heard of it. The topic and content applicability supports the divergence of interest factor of knowledge transfer (Alchian et al, 1972;Jensen et al, 1976 cited in Halim & Othman, 2005) which states that people will only transfer knowledge if people share the same interest. This also implies that the topic and content should be applicable to the audience. One of the advantages of telling stories is that people can relate to the story and make sense of any events that happened in the audience. Table 3 shows the elements within the topic and content theme for the use of stories in formal storytelling platform.
Table 3: Topic And
Content Applicability Themes Summary
|
Theme |
Element |
Statement |
|
Topic
Applicability |
Applicability to audience |
I
think the topic needs to be interesting that .addresses to certain
group...Your topic depends on who are your target audience...topic must be
applicable to your audience. I
guess it depends on what topic to be shared and my needs at that point of
time and what I think might be useful for me in the future. The
attendance of the session depends on the topic. The topic gives purpose and
objectives. If there is no benefit, then people will not come. It
is not about the KPI but it is about whether the topic is applicable to their
work. |
|
Content
Applicability |
Experience |
Stories
about my experience because the most popular topic here is about your
experience. |
|
Work-related |
Content
is important because the content must relate to work and it is fresh. Stories
about what is interesting working here. People might also be interested in
what happened in my previous employment. |
|
|
Original |
Content
is equally important. It is actually how we present the content especially on
matters that we don't know about. The
content should be like what other people don't know but you know. If
the content of the story is something that people have not heard, people will
come to the session. |
Discussion
The focus of this study is to explore the usage of stories with the focus of transferring knowledge in mind. However, it can be seen that stories are not used for knowledge sharing alone. While its main objective is to share knowledge, stories are also used to prompt immediate response (Sole, 2002), replace outdated mental model (Sole, 2002) and to create shared understanding among colleagues (Lehaney et al, 2003; Nielsen & Madsen, 2006; Macleod & Davidson, 2007).
In general, the findings supported the literature. The respondents of this study acknowledged storytelling as an acceptable knowledge sharing tool but a low KM culture could be a barrier. Even with a strong social bonding but if the organization members are not aware of the importance of knowledge sharing, any knowledge sharing methods–including storytelling–will not work. The organization has conducted a number of knowledge sharing programs in which storytelling happens. However, some of the platforms failed. The platform most suitable for storytelling is informal platform but the problem with telling stories in an informal platform is that it is rarely captured if not never. In formal platform, the themes emerged from the study has caused the platforms to be discontinued. In order for a successful implementation of storytelling as a knowledge sharing approach, leadership support is crucial to create awareness of knowledge sharing benefits, to provide informal platform for more exchange of stories.
Li & Zhu (2009) and Rulke et al cited in Halim & Othman (2005) states that the knowledge transfer channels is a knowledge transfer influential factors. In the organization, the management has provided many knowledge transfer channels through the knowledge sharing formal and informal platforms such as the Buddy System and the Knowledge Sharing Session. All respondents were willing to transfer their knowledge using stories but it is unclear about respondents’ expectation of gaining reputation by sharing stories. Respondents from the ITMS admitted that they have strong social bonding. However, the nature of their jobs, which required them to be out on the field, makes it difficult for them to interact extensively professionally (Joshi & Sarker, 2006). This is similar to CIS department where the staffs worked in silos. The consequences of this type of environment is that the organization members are unable to interact extensively thus causing them to be in a group of people who have low motivations to transfer knowledge. The findings also do not support the partner similarity factor (Almeida et al, 1999; Darr et al, 2000 cited in Hashim & Othman, 2005). While it is expected people to share stories with others who have similar backgrounds and experiences, it is trust that appears to be more prominent in influencing stories exchanges.
Conclusion
Storytelling is a social process endeavour. Therefore, storytelling in the organization occur everyday regardless of place and time. However, the main concern of this paper is the stories that are used for the purpose of knowledge transfer. In this paper, it is seen that stories are used mainly to share experience of other colleagues. Knowledge that is created based on experience is considered as an important asset to organization and storytelling is used mainly to share experience.
Knowledge sharing stories are constructed collectively through interactions between people. These interactions also help in filling in the gaps of the story. In order for the platforms to be successful, issues that need to be considered are the topic and content of the story. In the organization, the content of the story and the presentation should be appealing to the audience. Appealing in this context means that the content is relevant to the audience. In order for a story to be appealing, the content of the story should focus on work and also based on a person’s experience. The settings in which a story is being presented should be informal. The use of visual aids and gestures are recommendable.
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Contact the Authors:
Khairul Shafee B Kalid, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Department of
Computer and Information Science, Seri
Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak; Tel: 605-3687472; Fax: 605-3656180; Email khairulshafee_kalid@petronas.com.my
Dr. Ahmad Kamil B Mahmood, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Department of
Computer and Information Science, Seri
Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak; Email: kamilmh@petronas.com.my