10/7/2014
Organizational Memory: a research
agenda at University of Minho
Isabel Ramos
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Agenda
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Introducing myself.
Organizational Memory: our perspective.
Collaborative research being performed at Uminho.
Future research.
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Introducing myself
• In the process of becoming Associate Professor at DSI/Uminho
• Chair of the Doctoral Program in Information Systems and
Technologies (pdtsi.dsi.uminho.pt)
• Coordinator of the ISTTOS research Group and RAO Research
Strand at ALGORITMI (algoritmi.uminho.pt)
• President of the Portuguese Association for the Information
Systems/PTAIS (www.ptais.org – www.apsi.pt)
• Member of the Communications Committee of the AIS
(www.aisnet.org)
• Officer of the IFIP TC8 (Information Systems)
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Organizational Memory: why it matters…
Organizations need to know what they already know to use that
knowledge in present decisions and actions, and to project collective
futures.
OM as an aggregate of
information useful for
decision making and stored in
organizational bins
OM as a repository +
process
Distributed and
reconstructive capability of
the organization
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Organizational Memory: what does it really
mean?
• The concept of OM has followed the evolution of the concept of human memory,
which seems to indicate that human memory has been used as a metaphor of
reference even by implication;
• The term "memory" has its origins in the natural sciences and humanities,
carrying the meanings developed over centuries. By adopting the term, the
sciences of organization are importing the same meanings in the context of the
organization. We must therefore address these meanings and implications
explicitly to understand if they really apply to organizations.
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Human Memory in cognitive psychology: a
model
Environment
Sensory memory
Echoic
Iconic
Central
Executive
Alan Baddeley (1997)
Human Memory: Theory and Practice
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Working
Memory
Long-Term
Memory
Visual Spatial
Sketch-pad
Episodic
Buffer
Phonological Loop
Visual Semantics
Episodic LTM
Language
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Human Memory: reconstructing the past to
anticipate the future
Schacter, D.L. and D. R. Addis (2007). Constructive Memory: the ghosts of
past and future, Nature, 445, pp. 27
“…information about the past is useful only to the extent that it allows us to
anticipate what may happen in the future. But future events are not exact replicas
of past events, and a memory system that simply stored rote records would not
be well suited to simulating future events. A system built according to
constructive principles….can draw on the elements and gist of the past, and
extract, recombine and reassemble them into imaginary events that never
occurred in that exact form. Such a system will occasionally produce memory
errors, but it also provides considerable flexibility.”
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Human Memory dysfunctions
• Distortions - difficult to get information in and out of storage (may be useful
within limits)
• False memories - memories are created to be consistent with current information
• Delusions – a pathological (false, fanciful, or derived from deception) belief that
is held despite evidence to the contrary
• Memory Loss – impoverished knowledge and comprehension
• Impaired ability to learn skills
• Attention deficit
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Organizational Memory: an emerging model
Environment
Sensory memory
Working
Memory
Long-Term
Memory
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Organizational Memory: the model
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Organizational Memory dysfunctions
• Knowledge loss – failure to register information and important decisions,
technological changes affecting a substantial part of the organization,
bureaucratic inertia, processes of re-structuring, high turnover of human
resources.
• Learning Difficulties – ineffective sharing of experience after completion of
projects, leaving of specialists in critical areas, difficulty institutionalizing relevant
knowledge in organizational routines, difficulty in relating past experience with
current challenges.
• False memories – inconsistency between the actual situation and the information
available to decision makers, use of information produced by intelligence systems
(business intelligence / big data) to confirm decisions already made.
• Attention Deficit – excess of information available to decision-makers, frequent
organizational changes, high levels of conflict.
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Organizational Memory: a research agenda
Cultural
memory
Communicative
memory
Sensory
memory
Trajectories of
Organizational
Knowledge
Attention-Based
View of the Firm
William Ocasio
(1997)
Dependent
constructs:
Procedures
and
communication channels, decision makers,
organizational moves
Independent constructs: issues and answers,
attention structures
Robert Grant
(1996)
Dependent constructs: Competitive advantage,
firm performance
Independent
constructs:
Heterogeneous
knowledge bases and capabilities
Knowledge is
created/Captured
Knowledge
becomes a resource
Knowledge is
institutionalized
KnowledgeBased Theory of
the Firm
Institutional
Theory
Paul J. DiMaggio
Walter W. Powell
(1991)
Knowledge forms
stable structures
Language Action
Perspective
Hans Weigand
(2006)
Dependent constructs: Institutional emergence,
conformity, conflict, change, isomorphism
Independent constructs: processes which
establish schemas, rules, norms & routines
Constructs: Speech acts, communication action,
communication
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Organizational Memory: research being
carried on
• Projeto de Gestão de Conhecimento, Planeamento Urbano e Gestão Urbanística, Câmara Municipal do Porto,
Portugal (a iniciar ainda em 2014)
• Uma Análise Das Disfunções Da Memória Organizacional E Suas Implicações No Uso Dos Sistemas De
Informação: Estudo Com Empresas Brasileiras E Portuguesas, Gilberto Perez, Universidade Presbiteriana
Mackenzie, São Paulo, Brasil. Entidades financiadoras: CNPq + Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa.
• WISDOM, projecto de I&D para criação e validação de um modelo de memória organizacional que tem por
referência as funções da memória humana tal como compreendidas em neurociências.
• UFSC: Professora Andrea Steil;
• University of Sidney: Prof. Linda Levine
• The George Washington University: Prof. Andrea Casey
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Organizational Memory: research being
carried on
• Post-Doctoral Work
o Gilberto Perez. Título: As Disfunções Da Memória Organizacional E Suas Implicações No Uso Dos Sistemas
De Informação. Início: Dezembro 2012. Duração: 3 meses
• PhD Dissertations
o Victor Freitas de Azerêdo Barros. O papel das Social Media na construção da Memória Organizacional.
Início: Outubro 2012
o Luís Pestana Mourão. O papel das tecnologias Big Data na construção da Memória Organizacional. Início:
Outubro 2013
o Tiago Echternacht. Gestão do conhecimento como suporte ao processo estratégico no setor público.
Doutorado Sanduiche - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná – PUCPR. Início: Fevereiro de 2015
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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Organizational Memory: our publications
• Ramos, I. and L. Levine (2014). Organizational Memory: a preliminary model based on insights from neuroscience.
In Carolina Machado and J.P. Davim, Transfer And Management Of Knowledge, ISTE-Wiley, UK.
• Perez, G e I. Ramos (2013). Understanding Organizational Memory From The Integrated Management Systems
(ERP). JISTEM-Journal of Information Systems and Technology Management, 10(3).
• Perez, Gilberto and I. Ramos (2013). “Compreendendo A Memória Organizacional A Partir Dos Sistemas
Integrados De Gestão (Erp)”, 10th CONTECSI International Conference on Information Systems and Technology
Management, Junho 12-14, 2013, São Paulo, Brasil
• Ramos, I. and L. Levine (2012). “Organizational Memory: a preliminary model based on insights from
neuroscience”. In Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS 2012 Proceedings, Gmunden, Austria, June 3-6, 2012.
• Ramos, I. (2011). “Organizational memory: a neuroscience-based comprehensive model”. 7th Organization
Science Winter Conference (OSWC-XVII) on Organizational Memory, Sheraton Steamboat Hotel and Conference
Center, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, USA, February 10-13, 2011
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
Obrigado pela aten ª o!
Isabel Ramos
KMBRASIL 2014 - 12º Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento - 17, 18 e 19 de setembro de 2014 - Florianópolis - SC
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