The Development of a Storytelling Framework to Support Knowledge Management Processes

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK
TO SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
Khairul Shafee Kalid (G1050413), PhD Information Technology
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof Ahmad Kamil Bin Mahmood
Internal

Outline
Internal
 Background of Study
 Problem Statement
 Research Objectives
 Research Questions
 Research Methodology
 Research Design
 Data Collection
 Data Analysis
 Findings
 Limitations of Study
 Contribution of Study
 Conclusion

Background of Study
Internal
 Knowledge-based view of the firm considers knowledge as an important
strategic asset in organization (Grant, 1996).
 Knowledge is defined
 Knowledge is defined as justified belief that increases an entity’s capacity for effective
action (Huber, 1991;Nonaka, 1994)
 Knowledge is defined as understanding gained through experience or study (Schubert
et al, 1998)
 A fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, values and expert insight that
provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and
information (Davenport and Prusak, 1998)
 Knowledge increases an individual capacity to take effective action (Alavi &
Leidner, 2001)
 Knowledge management (KM) involves people, process, activities and
technology and the broader environment that enable the identification,
creation, communication or sharing, and use of organizational and individual
knowledge (Lehaney et al, 2004).

Background of Study
Internal
 One of the approaches to support KM processes is storytelling.
 Storytelling is seen as an effective way of transferring knowledge
(Denning, 2000;Swap, 2001)
 Reason?
 Most fundamental communication method (Widrich, 2012)
 A study found that social topics accounted for 65 percent of speaking time
among people in public places, regardless of age or gender. (Hsu, 2008)
 Stories represent a significant form of knowledge due to the design of the
human brain to automatically organize information into stories. (Reamy, 2002)
 Narratives allow seekers to explore deeper into the experts thought processes
(Klien cited in Monroe, 2006).

Background of Study
Internal
 Organizations that uses storytelling to share knowledge.
 Xerox (Cox, 2007)
 NASA (Post, 2002;Bailey, 2005)
 3M (Shaw, 1998)
 Shell (The Opal Team, 2001)
 Kumba Resource (Tobin, 2006)

Problem Statement
Internal
 Storytelling is a knowledge transfer tool but it has never become a
major focus (Reamy, 2002) and rarely explored (Haghirian &
Chini,2002)
 Lack of understanding on the role of storytelling in KM.
 Waste of time (Reamy, 2002)
 Lack of a storytelling culture and the failure of the management to understand
the purpose of stories and its benefits to organization (Ioffreda & Gargiulo,
2008)
 Unfamiliar with the concept of storytelling and its used in knowledge transfer
(Kalid & Mahmood, 2008)
 There is a sparseness of empirical support for many assertions claimed
for narrative approaches in KM (Connell, 2007).
Internal

Problem Statement
12/5/2015Internal7
 There is limited consideration has been given to ways in which
storytelling can increase knowledge users' understanding of the
creation and dissemination of knowledge in organizations (Connell,
2007)
 Lack of framework to guide in the implementation of KM storytelling in
organization.
 According to Herschel et al (2001), many chief knowledge officers (CKO) are
advised that using narrative is the best approach in converting expert’s tacit
knowledge to explicit knowledge but lack of advice was given on how to
construct such narrative.
 There is a need to understand how stories work so that experts are able to
become better to write and communicate stories (Peters and Franz, 2012).

Research Objectives
Internal
To develop a KM storytelling
framework that guides organization in
implementing storytelling as part of its
KM initiatives.
1. To investigate existing KM storytelling
practices in an organization.
2. To examine the perception of
knowledge workers on the use of
storytelling as a KM tool.
3. To identify the issues that affects the
implementation of a KM storytelling
initiative in an organization.
4. To develop a process framework that
guides the construction of a knowledge
embedded story.
STUDY 1 STUDY 2

Research Question
Internal
1. To investigate existing
KM storytelling practices
in an organization.
2. To examine the
perception of knowledge
workers on the use of
storytelling as a KM tool.
3. To identify the issues that
affects the
implementation of a KM
storytelling initiative in an
organization.
4. To develop a process
framework that guides
the construction of a
knowledge embedded
story.
1.How storytelling is used as KM tool in an
organization?
2.How do knowledge workers perceive the
concept of storytelling in the context of KM?
3.How do knowledge workers perceive the use
of storytelling as a KM tool?
4.What the issues that affect the implementation
of a KM storytelling initiative in an
organization?
1.What are the phases and roles involved in
constructing a knowledge embedded story?
2.What are the components, structure, attributes,
concept of a knowledge embedded story?
STUDY
1
STUDY2
Research
Objective

Research Methodology
12/5/2015Internal11
 The study adopts a qualitative research design.
 The study adopts an interpretive research paradigm.
 The basic principle of interpretive is that knowledge is gained through social
constructions such as language, consciousness and shared meanings (Klein &
Myers, 1999)
 Understand phenomena through accessing the meanings people assign to that
phenomena (Orlikowski & Baroudi,, 1991).
 The study adopts hermeneutics of the mode of analysis
 Interpret and understand the meaning of the text rather than explains it (Myers,
1997)

Research Design
12/5/2015Internal12
Convenience (with
criteria) Sampling
Knowledge
Management
students
4 academic staff and
9 non-academic staff
Group
Interviews,
Documents
Interviews
Thematic
coding
STUDY 1
KM Storytelling
Practices
STUDY 2
KM Storytelling
Construction
Process
STUDY SAMPLING
METHOD
PARTICIPANTS DATA
COLLECTION
METHODS
DATA
ANALYSI
S

Study 1 - Unit of Analysis
12/5/2015Internal13
 The sample group of Study 1 consists of 13 participants.
 The participants were invited to participate through email.
 The participants include
 9 staff from the information technology department
 4 academic staff from the information technology faculty.
 Participants use knowledge in work.
 The participants have an average of 10 years of experience in their
jobs.
 Education level
 All of the non-academic participants have at least a bachelors degree and all of
the academic participants have a Masters degree.

Study 1 - Data Collection
Internal
 Semi structured interviews
 Average 45-50 minutes face to face interview.
 Participants were briefed about the study and also the concept of KM
storytelling.
 The interviews covers:
 job scope
 perception on the use of storytelling in their line of work
 stories in their department
 views on a KM storytelling session in the department.
 Interviews were video recorded and transcribed to Nvivo 8.
 Memos were written during interview to record analysis, thoughts,
interpretations questions and directions for further data collection (Corbin &
Strauss, 1998)

Study 2 - Unit of Analysis
12/5/2015Internal15
 The sample of Study 2 consists of 19 KM major students being group
into 4 groups.
 The participants were invited to participate through email.
 The participants understand and appreciate the concept of knowledge
management.

12/5/2015Internal16
 Data were collected through a workshop.
 A total of 5 groups with each group has between 4-5 participants.
 The workshop was held in the university’s library discussion room.
 Workshop overview
 The groups are required to construct a story that demonstrates a knowledge
source. Each group took about 45-60 minutes to construct the stories
 A total of 9 stories were constructed.
 Groups were interviewed to discuss on their insights and the methods that they
use in constructing the story.
 Groups were interviewed again to obtain insights on the story that has
been created.
 Each group were interviewed for 20-30 minutes.

12/5/2015Internal17
Flow of the Story Construction Workshop

Data Analysis For Study 1 and Study 2
Internal
Qualitative Analysis in the Views of Miles and Huberman (1994)

Data Analysis – Coding Process
Internal
The Coding Process

Findings
Study 1 and Study 2
Internal

Study 1
Internal
 The content of a knowledge-embedded stories (KES) are job related. It
is realistic and experiential.
 KES provides contextual information to the problem.
 KES prompts interaction between members in a group thus facilitates the
knowledge transfer process.
 KES are used as a source of lessons learned
 KES has a purpose that is determined by the intention of the knowledge
owners.
 KES is relevant to knowledge recipients through title of the story,
summary or tags.

Study 1
Internal
 KES are shared in a setting that is informal and social.
 KES are constructed in group settings because group settings
promotes interaction among group members. Thus, contributing in
building up of the story.
 Issues in implementing storytelling as part of KM initiative is similar to
any studies on knowledge sharing or knowledge transfer.
 Surroundings
 Trust
 Motivation
 Time constraint
 Perceived comfort
 Relevancy

Study 2 – KES Construction Process
Internal

Knowledge Type – Story Construction
Episodic Declarative Procedural
Description Experiential Conceptual, know-what Process, stages, know-
how
Story
construction
Unit
Time Concept Phases
Story role Actual knowledge source complement Complement
Constructing
Difficulty
Easy Depends on complexity Depends on complexity
Embedded
Knowledge
Conflicts, lessons learned Contextual information Contextual information
Point of view 1st view 3rd view 3rd view
Structure Begin – conflict
Middle – events
End – solutions, actions taken
Begin – purpose
Middle – events
End – reflection
Begin – purpose
Middle – events
End – reflection

KM Storytelling Framework
Internal

Limitations of Study
 The knowledge stories constructed are written-based therefore the
process framework could be limited towards written knowledge story.
 For Study 2, the participants of this study are students. Thus the story
is limited to educational organizations.
 The type of knowledge that was 'storytized' in this study are limited to
experiential, declarative and procedural.

Contribution of Study
 This study contributes in the understanding of the role storytelling in
knowledge transfer and the challenges that organization faces in
implementing KM storytelling initiative.
 a response to the report by Iofredda and Gargiulo (2008) on the findings of a
2006 survey conducted by the International Association of Business
Communications (IABC) on storytelling in organization.
 Study contributes to the conceptualization of knowledge embedded
story and KM storytelling.
 Currently, existing literature does not provide insufficient explanation on the
concept of KM storytelling.
 definition, components and characteristics of KM storytelling

Contribution of Study
Internal
 This study contributes in the construction of a knowledge embedded
story.
 component, structure, roles. and process to construct KES.
 The process framework provides a more structural approach in
constructing the content of a KES.
 The process framework can be used by organization or integrated into
storytelling applications such as digital storytelling, knowledge sharing
system etc).
Internal

Conclusion
Internal
 Study 1
 Participants acknowledged KM storytelling as an effective KM tool and it can be
used in the organization but there is a lack of proper platform in which such
stories can be exchanged.
 There are issues such as surroundings, trust, motivation, time constraint,
perceived comfort, relevancy.
 Study 2
 identifies the characteristics of knowledge embedded story such as its
structure, content, attributes and knowledge elements that a story can
represent.
 identify the process framework of constructing a knowledge embedded story.
This framework includes the phases and the roles responsible for each phase.
 Study 2 also corroborates Study 1 particularly in identifying the
characteristics of the story and the type of knowledge that the story
represents.

Output (Papers Published)
Internal
1. Kalid, K. S. (2010). Transfer knowledge using stories: A malaysian university case study. In M. Al-Shammari (Ed.),
Knowledge management in emerging economies: Social, organizational and cultural implementation () IGI Global
snippet.
2. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2008). Government Employees Perception on the Usage of Storytelling Approach
to Share Knowledge in Organisation Environment. Proceedings of Knowledge Management International
Conference, Langkawi, Malaysia.
3. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2008). A proposed organization storytelling conceptual framework for the purpose
of transferring tacit knowledge. Information Technology, 2008. ITSim 2008. International Symposium on
Information Technology, Kuala Lumpur. , 3. pp. 1-8.
4. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2009). The use of storytelling in sharing tacit knowledge in government
organizations. Public Sector ICT Management Review, 3(1), 52-58.
5. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2010). Using stories to share knowledge: A Malaysian organization case study.
Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, 11(1)
6. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2011). The development of a knowledge management storytelling process
framework for the purpose of transferring knowledge. Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS),
2011 International Conference on, pp. 1-5.
7. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2012). A Process Framework to Capture Tacit Knowledge Using Storytelling.
Knowledge Management International Conference (KMICe) 2012, Johor Bharu. pp. 328-334.
8. Kalid, K. S., & Mahmood, A. K. (2014). A Qualitative Assessment of a Knowledge Story Construction Process
Framework. Knowledge Management International Conference (KMICe) 2014, Langkawi.
Internal

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Internal
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Internal
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Availabe at: http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Managing_K_Thru_Ways_of_Working_Within_Shell.pdf (accessed 17 July 2009)
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