UNICAF UNIVERSITY

STUDENT NAME: IRYA INEKELA AMBAMBI

LECTURER: COSTAS PHOTIOU (PhD)

DATE: 20 MARCH 2022

ASSIGNMENT TITLE: EVALUATING THE IMPORTANCE OF

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS

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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................1
2. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE........................................................................................................................1
2.1 Explicit Knowledge.................................................................................................................................1
2.2 Implicit Knowledge................................................................................................................................1
2.3 Tacit Knowledge....................................................................................................................................2
3. THE CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE AT TOYOTA.......................................................................................2
4. THE TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE WITHIN MANUFACTURING PLANTS AT TOYOTA..............................2
5. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BY THE GLOBAL PRODUCTION CENTRE (GPC) AT TOYOTA...........................3
6. TOYOTA’S USE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT.......................4
7. EVALUATION OF TOYOTA’S TOOLS AND FRAMEWORKS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VERSUS
THE SECI MODEL OF NONAKA & TAKEUCHI.................................................................................................5
8. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT AT TOYOTA........................................6
9. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN CREATING SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AT TOYOTA.
7
10. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN MANAGING STRATEGIC CORPORATE CHANGE AT TOYOTA.......8
11. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................10

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 1. INTRODUCTION
Knowledge management is made up of procedures and tools for properly capturing and sharing
data. It also has to do with how individual knowledge can be applied within a company. For
several years, serious discussions about the importance of knowledge management (KM) in our
society have taken place (Gaimon, Hora, and Ramachandran, 2017). As a result of excessive
business operations failures caused by old forms of operations, the importance of knowledge and
its management has increased.

Knowledge management (KM) and related strategy concepts have become critical components
for current enterprises to survive and sustain their position in today's increasingly competitive
environment. Executives and managers must now deal with KM and related strategies due to the
importance and benefits of KM. It is now considered a precondition for achieving improved
productivity and flexibility in both private and public sector organizations due to its enormous
benefits (Donate, and de Pablo, 2015). Toyota Motor Corporation uses knowledge management
to manage its many corporate activities and processes. As a result of this, the company has
improved its ability to acquire, organize, share, and analyze information in terms of resources,
records, and people skills.

2. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
There are three core types of knowledge: explicit, implicit, and tacit.

2.1 Explicit Knowledge

The most basic sort of knowledge is explicit knowledge, which is easy to pass on because it is
written down and readily available. When data is processed, organized, structured, and analyzed,
explicit knowledge is formed. In the domain of knowledge management, explicit knowledge is
simple to express, record, transmit, and, most crucially, store (Chen, Ellis, and Holsapple, 2015).

2.2 Implicit Knowledge

Implicit knowledge is the application of explicit knowledge in the real world. Implicit knowledge
is almost certainly present in your business (Chen et al, 2015).

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2.3 Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is what we've learned from personal experience and context. If pressed, it's the
information that would be the most difficult to write down, describe, or demonstrate in a tangible
way. Tactic knowledge is the use of implicit knowledge specific to your company in the
workplace (Chen et al, 2015).

3. THE CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE AT TOYOTA

Toyota Motors has witnessed tremendous growth since its inception and has faced numerous
obstacles related to its expansion and administration. Prior to its expansion, the corporation was
only involved in the research and production of automobiles in Japan, with the excess being
exported (Suh, 2015).

Knowledge management at Toyota entails not just the gathering of data but also the simple
repetition of communication processes. Managers in the company are involved in the
transformation of data, which is subsequently used as knowledge by the rest of the organization
through data collection, organization, analysis, synthesis, and decision-making. Within the firm,
knowledge management entails the introduction of numerous enablers, such as knowledge
management objectives, conducting discussions, replacing those in charge of knowledge
reformation, and setting appropriate environments. The corporation has evolved from solely
transferring knowledge from Japan to its subbases to a focus on local employees creating
knowledge in various regions across the world (Collins, Muthusamy, and Carr, 2015).

4. THE TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE WITHIN MANUFACTURING PLANTS AT

TOYOTA
Knowledge sharing is more conducive in the physical setting. The company's working
environment is characterized by large open spaces. Employees will be encouraged to share
information and participate in information exchanges as a result of this. The structure of the
organization's offices reflects the openness that the organization has cultivated over the years
(Matsuo 2015). To facilitate communication between management and employees,

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 organizational leaders have desks in the open space setting, and teams are organized around
the center. Communication is primarily handled within the office using bulletin boards that
are mounted on the walls of each office, plant, or workshop. Employees may read
management announcements or basic information by simply looking at the bulletin boards,
which is efficient. The company also operates a website called 'dealer daily' to engage with
its dealer network (Collins et al. 2015).
Toyota University was created to keep its staff up to date on industry news and so increase
productivity. This is one of the organization's most significant achievements in terms of
encouraging learning. It's also used to teach dealers and employees. With 400 online courses,
the university established e-learning training, which has helped 4500 personnel from all over
the world (Gaimon et al, 2017). New employees, on the other hand, receive training from the
firm's highly trained management and talented employee teams. This aids in the
comprehension of the 'Toyota Way.' Senior managers are responsible for passing on
information and guiding staff through the use of questions.
The knowledge exchange is intrinsically linked to Toyota's people-centered business culture.
The five basic strategies are challenge, Kaizen (improvement), Genshi genbutsu (go and see),
respect, and teamwork (Heisig, Suraj, Kianto, Kemboi, Perez Arrau, and Fathi Easa, 2016).
Human capability development through training, coaching, and mentoring is a priority for the
firm, which views its people as the backbone of its operations. Employees are always
encouraged to bring new ideas and to help the organization grow and improve.

5. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BY THE GLOBAL PRODUCTION CENTRE (GPC)

AT TOYOTA.
The explicit knowledge approach ensures that all tasks accomplished by people or teams of
employees on the manufacturing lines are documented. These documents serve as a helpful
reference point, outlining how all tasks must be accomplished, as well as the time it takes to
complete each activity, the methods involved in completing each assignment, and the
approach that all employees should use when evaluating their own work. The company's
database software is also great for information sharing. This online database makes use of
Analytical Problem Solving, a software package that allows the company to collect problem
data and pinpoint root causes (Suh, 2015). It records all of the company's actions, including

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best practices and challenges. Staff can use it to generate reports on a regular basis, so it acts
as both a library and a database.
The Toyota Production System is built on the idea of maintaining a constant flow of products
to enhance flexibility in response to demand variations. It builds a link between production
processes and actual demand by using Kanban and Just-in-Time. The system also supports in
the organization of manufacturing and shipping operations by including interactive practices
with each supplier and customer (Chen et al, 2015). The TPS system was designed with
specific features in mind. Jidoka is one of the principles, which ensures that if a problem
arises, all equipment operations and processes come to an abrupt halt. This usually allowed
the equipment to prevent the production of inferior goods. The second concept is Just-in-Time
manufacturing, which entails all activities producing materials that will only be used in the
next phase (Collins et al. 2015).
Toyota selects a core group of 200 to 300 new employees and assigns them to one of the
company's existing factories for several months of training and assembly line work. After a
few months of learning the production process and shadowing experienced Toyota assembly
line workers, the new staff are transferred to the new facility. Following these repatriation
staff, one or two hundred long-term, highly experienced Toyota employees will work with
new employees at the new factory to guarantee that knowledge of Toyota's fine-tuned
production system is correctly absorbed into the new week (Matsuo 2015).

6. TOYOTA’S USE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT.
Toyota has adopted all of these knowledge enablers as evidence of its knowledge management
processes. Despite taking a substantial approach to information management and sharing, Toyota
Motor Corporation is still unable to efficiently manage knowledge across all of its resources. The
company is now functioning in a variety of global markets, but it is still unable to increase its
production efficiency and quality, owing to a lack of information management and sharing (Suh,
2015).

The company's management has yet to address the fundamental concerns of knowledge sharing
and organizational learning, both of which are critical drivers of a company's substantial
achievements. It is critical for leaders to generate intellectual capital through knowledge

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generation and sharing on a global scale in order to achieve assured success in the twenty-first
century. The corporation has to put in a lot of effort in the area of information sharing because it
is one of its primary challenges. If a corporation uses effective ways and networks, it will be able
to efficiently resolve challenges linked to information exchange, giving it a competitive
advantage (Suh, 2017).

Toyota Motor Corporation must drastically address its knowledge management challenges in
order to execute and operate successfully. Without this, the company would be unable to
maintain its leadership position in the long run, as information has become increasingly
important in running a successful organization. The organization had a good knowledge
management plan, but it was weak in key areas that, if enhanced, could provide significant
knowledge management and business operations management benefits.

7. EVALUATION OF TOYOTA’S TOOLS AND FRAMEWORKS FOR

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VERSUS THE SECI MODEL OF NONAKA &
TAKEUCHI.
The external business environment is volatile, and Toyota's ability to remain resilient to it will be
dependent on its capacity to maintain expertise. Toyota will rely on its experience to identify
technical advancement and innovation prospects. This will help Toyota obtain a competitive
advantage by establishing company standards (Suh, 2015). As a result, Toyota will have access
to information and will be able to use it to create value perpetually. Hislop, Bosua, and Helms
(2018), agree, arguing that enterprises must continue to have knowledge in order to develop
goods or services. As a result, organizations need to learn and unlearn structures and procedures
to ensure that duplicate methods and expertise are eliminated and that they can quickly adapt to
changing client needs and the environment.

This technique appears to be a good fit for Toyota's knowledge conversion model since it
necessitates proper interaction between tacit and explicit information, which is a phenomenon
that leads to knowledge generation. The SECI paradigm recognizes four types of knowledge
exchange: tacit to tacit knowledge (socialization), tacit to explicit knowledge (externalization),
explicit to explicit knowledge (combination), and explicit to tacit knowledge (externalization)
(internalization) (Suh, 2017).

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The SECI model is expected to promote not only a structured approach to knowledge
management and learning, but also to address some of the challenges that come with knowledge,
such as determining who will own the information, with whom will the information be entrusted
and to what extent, how will information barriers be managed, will the tacit-explicit link be
desirable, will cultural issues affect knowledge management, learning, and relearning, and will
knowledge learned be beneficial (Suh, 2017).

Toyo's board of directors and senior management understand the dynamics of knowledge, its
benefits, and learning, as well as the challenges mentioned above, and have thus set the tone
from the top, ensuring that the emergent strategy's strategic management style allows for
collective participation and convergent behavior in strategy formulation (Suh, 2015). Toyo
believes that by tying knowledge management and the knowledge environment together in this
way, it will be possible to ensure that the environment supports individuals' knowledge-based
development by making social practices, physical and technological frameworks, and platforms
available for knowledge creation, building, and relearning (Suh, 2017). To retain and manage
intellectual capital, Toyota will benefit from investing in its human capital by ensuring that its
employees are suitably qualified, receive appropriate training, have the right balance of abilities,
and have sufficient experience. By investing in intellectual capital, Toyota will be able to exploit
its skills and perhaps produce profit (Suh, 2015).

8. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT AT

TOYOTA.
Toyota's strategic development will center on the company's use of knowledge-based marketing
processes and methodologies for gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage (Gaimon et
al, 2017). Knowledge management in strategic marketing will benefit Toyota because it will
ensure that a product reaches the market by ensuring that a conceptual framework for strategic
management of information and knowledge is in place and that the company is able to create,
share, protect, and discard obsolete knowledge, allowing for the opportunity to relearn and
change. This strategy will ensure Toyota's long-term viability, but management must be
conscious that new knowledge must be protected from competitors and shared as tacit
knowledge, which becomes the organization's culture and can be leveraged for long-term
viability and competitive advantage (Suh, 2017).

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Customers, suppliers, competitors, and partners are contextualized in knowledge-based
marketing, which moves away from traditional marketing's explicit knowledge focus to include
tacit knowledge. Tacit information in marketing is difficult to codify and has already taken
center stage, with face-to-face interaction between staff essential for marketing knowledge
sharing and meeting sales targets (Gaimon et al, 2017).

Models that allow for concentration and a planned manner in which information and knowledge
is created, maintained, shared, and discarded will be achievable as a result of strategic
management knowledge. Toyota, for example, could benefit from Consumer Relationship
Marketing (CRM), a set of operations that allows for the management of client connections as
well as the creation of brands and consumer loyalty through marketing data. Management can
employ Product Data Management (PDM) and Supply Chain Marketing (SCM), where
interconnected networks are built in providing items needed by customers in the supply chain, to
preserve a competitive advantage through automated product design, manufacture, marketing,
and distribution (Hislop et al, 2018).

According to Suh (2015), knowledge co-creation is at the heart of knowledge-based marketing,

and managers must think like customers and interact with them to co-create tacit knowledge.
Others, on the other hand, believe that collaborating with consumers to co-create tacit knowledge
is a risky proposition. While knowledge co-creation with other stakeholders like suppliers,
competitors, and partners may be more practical, management should not underestimate the
importance of customer co-creation.

9. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN CREATING SUSTAINABLE

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AT TOYOTA.
Toyota will benefit from aligning products with customer needs through the creation of a
marketing plan that identifies new markets and emerging markets, clearly describes the
competitive advantage, explores ways to expand distribution channels, and includes plans to
improve customer service levels in order to maintain a competitive advantage (Gaimon et al,
2017).

Toyota can gain a competitive advantage through developing, exploiting, and leveraging
intellectual capital, allowing it to operate efficiently in the information economy. It's important to

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remember that organizational knowledge is a strategic advantage and that there's a connection
between intellectual capital and organizational knowledge (Suh, 2017). Intangible assets, like as
intellectual capital, are not typically reflected on financial sheets. Patents, brands, copyrights,
research and development, staff skills, and asset use innovation are all examples of intellectual
capital.

Toyota must invest in human capital, structural capital, and relational capital since they are the
foundations of intellectual capital. Human capital will ensure that employees add value to the
company through their skills, know-how, and technical expertise; structural capital will ensure
that the company has adequate non-physical infrastructure to allow human capital to operate
through the application of processes or the use of company databases; and rational capital will
ensure that the company can manage things like licenses, trademarks, franchises, trade names,
and customer and supplier relationships (Suh, 2017).

There are still possibilities to invest in social capital, which is a resource derived from human
connections. As technology progresses and people's appetite for information grows, there will be
greater opportunities for marketing via social contact, particularly on the internet. Social media
may help you find new consumers and can also be utilized for quality control. Clients can be
reached through social media in locations where the company does not have a physical presence,
and technology can further enable such customers to be served through digital sales platforms
such as online shops (Hislop et al, 2018).

10. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN MANAGING STRATEGIC CORPORATE

CHANGE AT TOYOTA.
Toyota stands to benefit from corporate by identifying skills gaps in employees at all levels and
implementing strategies to ensure that there is learning throughout the company in order to gain
a competitive advantage, make profit in order to be sustainable, generate wealth, and improve
production through an embedded culture of knowledge creation, storage, and sharing (Gaimon et
al, 2017). Employee buy-in will be determined by the means and manner in which change
management is implemented. One way to improve learning and ensure that tacit and explicit
knowledge continue to exchange is for marketers to make learning an everyday activity; create
employee quantitative assessments and distribute to all employees; and encourage inter-

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departmental knowledge sharing with marketers and the external environment (Imran, Bilal,
Aslam, and Rahman, 2017).

Toyota will use a balanced scorecard technique to measure performance in order to find areas for
development and change in the company's internal operations, as well as their impact on the
external environment (Gaimon et al, 2017). As a result, the model will collect and analyze
information about training and knowledge resources in order to determine how well utilized
information is converted into competitive advantage; second, the model will evaluate business
processes in order to determine how well products are manufactured; third, the model will assess
customer satisfaction with product quality, availability, and price; and finally, the model will
analyze financial information and data in order to determine the financial viability of the
company (Imran et al, 2017).

11. CONCLUSION
It can be said that Suh (2017)'s perspective on knowledge management as a part of
organizational culture aligns with Toyota's ideas. Knowledge management should be used to
guarantee that hard-to-express organizational knowledge is shared and converted into explicit
knowledge that can be documented and disseminated across the organization. Management
should ensure that adequate programs and models are in place to allow for continued learning
and the transformation of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge, which becomes part of the
organization's culture, ensuring that employees relearn at a higher level of knowledge within the
organization.

As a result, knowledge management becomes the catalyst for organizations to maintain a

competitive advantage in the market, develop new goods, and formulate new concepts. There is a
trend toward achieving competitive advantage through knowledge economies, in which
consumers, suppliers, partners, and competitors form networks and links to develop new
knowledge within or outside the firm.

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REFERENCES
Chen, L., Ellis, S. and Holsapple, C., (2015). Supplier development: a knowledge management
perspective. Knowledge and Process Management, 22(4), 250-269.

Collins, K.F., Muthusamy, S.K. and Carr, A. (2015). Toyota production system for healthcare
organisations: prospects and implementation challenges. Total Quality Management & Business
Excellence, 26(7-8), 905-918.

Gaimon, C., Hora, M. and Ramachandran, K., (2017). Towards building multidisciplinary
knowledge on management of technology: an introduction to the special issue. Production and
Operations Management, 26(4), 567-578.

Heisig, P., Suraj, O.A., Kianto, A., Kemboi, C., Perez Arrau, G. and Fathi Easa, N., (2016).
Knowledge management and business performance: global experts’ views on future research
needs. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(6), 1169-1198.

Matsuo, M., (2015). Human resource development programs for knowledge transfer and
creation: the case of the Toyota Technical Development Corporation. Journal of Knowledge
Management, 19(6), 1186-1203.

Suh, Y., (2015). A global knowledge transfer network: The case of Toyota's global production
support system. International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 15(2), 237-251.

Suh, Y., (2017). Knowledge Network of Toyota. Annals of Business Administrative Science,
16(2), 91-102.

Donate, M.J. and de Pablo, J.D.S. (2015). The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in
knowledge management practices and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68(2), 360-370.

Hislop, D., Bosua, R. and Helms, R., (2018). Knowledge management in organizations: A
critical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Imran, M.K., Bilal, A.R., Aslam, U. and Rahman, U.U., (2017). Knowledge management
strategy: an organizational change prospective. Journal of Enterprise Information Management,
30(2), 335-351.

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