The Knowing-Doing Gap: in what manner Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action.

The Knowing-Doing Gap: in what manner Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton. Boston: Harvard Business seminary Press, 2000. 314 pp. $2750

with what intent do companies fail to perform well flat after pouring funds into knowledge management initiatives? This is the main question Pfeffer and Sutton investigated in The Knowing-Doing Gap, a remarkably interesting report on their findings from an investigation of several different organizations in a variety of sectors and industries. Although the authors do not make it explicit, the two academic and practitioner communities should benefit from this main division For academics, the book challenges several assumptions raise in the extant knowledge-management research, demanding that scholars take a pace back to examine the objectives and accomplishment of this research area. For practitioners, this part examines the possible causes of failed implementation of just discovered knowledge initiatives within the organization and moves ways of dealing with these obstacles.

The subject starts by identifying the existence of the question that drives the book: investment in knowledge (training, higher education, acquisition of works and the like) commonly does not always pay not on for organizations. The authors reason (and advance through great lengths to justify) that the cause of this point in dispute lies in the knowing-doing gap, organizations' inability to transform existing knowledge into meaningful action. Pfeffer and Sutton claim that although many companies succe in acquiring and developing novel knowledge, they fail in the actual implementation of this knowledge because of the knowing-doing gap. In their four-year search to uncover the reasons for the knowing-doing gap, the authors reviewed existing academic literature and bearinged a dozen qualitative and quantitative studies.

Chapter 1 also contains undivided of the most thought-provoking sections in this book: a discussion of by what mode knowledge-management projects may be contributing to the knowing-doing gap. Pfeffer and Sutton remind of that by focusing so a great deal of on knowledge-management initiatives that take knowledge as a codifiable commodity, researchers and practitioners expiration up disregarding the more fundamental issue of implementing knowledge the organization already has. The emphasis forward information technology as the paramount issue of knowledge-management contrives contributes to the inactivity observ in companies that fail to create and implement just discovered products and services. This happens because the information-technology focus diverts resources from knowledge implementation initiatives while continuing to provide the appearance that knowledge is a priority in the organization. The authors argue that the really important knowledge is tacit, which is single exemplified by doing and cannot be treated as something that can be stored forward a comput er medium.

The following chapters discuss the main causes for the knowing-doing gap: (1) excessive talk--organizations believe they are doing something steady if they are only discussing it, as if simple discussion would magically lead to execution; (2) excessive reliance forward organizational memory--people's desire for stability and a powerful organizational agriculture may cause the organization to stand still or to play through rules not valid anymore; (3) fear--when fear reigns in the organizational climate, employee will be afraid to expres their ideas and act upon the knowledge they have acquired; (4) measurement problems--with the absence of measures, enigmas with processes will be masked, and management will lack direction to act toward improvement; exaggerated disquiet with outcomes may be an obstacle for experimentation with recently made known ideas; and (5) internal competition--even when a part of the organization knows and implements serviceable ideas, the rest of the organization may cast off these ideas if the organizational climate is too co mpetitive. In each of these chapters the authors reinforce their arguments with the discussion of case studies. Additionally, they provide support for their ideas and findings with existing research from management theory, sociology, and psychology Moreover, in each chapter the authors offer an suggestions that would help managers recognize when a particular question may be hindering the company's attempt to transform knowledge into action. The suggestions are then positively reinforced between the walls of the presentation of cases that identify to what extent some companies overcame particular problems

In the last chapters, the authors extensively discuss the cases of three companies that were able to transform knowledge into action and summarize the main exercise s in the book: (1) action should prevail through talk and real learning will approach from doing; (2) knowing wherefore things are made is as important as knowing how; (3) adjusted responses to mistakes and absence of fear will lead to more positive experimentation and action; (4) competition should be directed toward other companies; (5) measurement should be closely aligned with behavior and organizational culture; and (6) leaders are fundamental in turning knowledge into action. Overall, mostly of those lessons have been discussed before in other exits but the support from the case studies and their direct application to the knowing-doing gap highlight their importance.