虚拟企业的知识转化与整合研究

Research on Knowledge Conversion and Integration ofVirtual EnterpriseShan Wei，Zhang QingpuSchool of Management，Harbin Institute of Technology，Harbin （150001）E-mail：shanwei2000@AbstractVirtual Enterprise is a new organization form in knowledge-based economy times. It breaks up the boundary of traditional enterprise, realizes dynamic resources optimization. Based on analysis of virtual enterprise and its characteristics, the paper studies the operating mode of virtual enterprise and knowledge conversion and integration in different operating modes. Then it discusses the issue on conversion and integration of inner knowledge in member enterprise and conversion and integration of network knowledge among enterprises, especially conversion and integration of tacit knowledge. It concludes that persistent conversion and integrations of various kinds of knowledge factors of a virtual enterprise is the core inner mechanism of innovation.Keywords：Conversion，Integration，Operating mode，Tacit knowledge，Virtual Enterprise1 IntroductionWith the development of technology and knowledge economy, facing changeful market, enterprise must x possess high flexibility and fast reaction to survive and develop, and its organization structure will also tend to become dispersive and virtual gradually. So modern enterprise turns to make its organization structure simple and flat, then virtual enterprise comes into being, which can integrate all kindsof resources such as knowledge, technique, funds, raw material, market and managerial factors together. At the same time, knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, is replacing traditional production factors such as labors, capital and lands, and become the most important resource of enterprise. Therefore, under the dynamic environment, enterprise must operate cooperative competition, knowledge sharing and collective intelligence to converse and integrate all kinds of knowledge in order to enhance adaptive and innovative ability of enterprise.2 Virtual enterpriseSince the 1990s, theoretic research on virtual enterprise becomes a new research focusSponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (70672063), and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (20060213025). of management science. Many domestic and overseas scholars have been studying the concept, establishment process and integration environment of virtual enterprise. Though there are various concepts about virtual enterprise, the viewpoint that William H. Davidow and Michael S. Malone systematically expounded in VIRTUAL COPORATION is accepted mostly by scholars. They concluded that virtual enterprise is a temporary network made up of some independent enterprises which comprise suppliers, marketers, customers and rivals, they apply network information technology to compose a whole, share technique, share in cost and enter into mutual market [1].Synthetizing past research results, we summarize several characteristics of virtual enterprise as follows:(1) Blurry boundary. Virtual enterprise isn’t an integrated economic entity, but an alliance that some enterprises which possess different advantage resources compose for common goal[2].This new type of organization mode breaks up traditional enterprise’s organization boundary and makes enterprise’s boundary become blurry.(2) Cooperative competition. Virtual enterprise’s members both cooperate and compete for common goal and benefit. Virtual enterprise is a dynamic alliance made up of a central enterprise and a few member enterprises, and they span enterprises’ boundary to achieveresource sharing, advantage supply and effectivecooperation.(3) Dynamic and agile. Virtual enterprisecan integrate enterprise’s preponderant resourcesdynamically, thus keep ahead in technique andknowledge. Virtual enterprise comes into beingalong with market opportunity’s appearance anddisjoints along with market opportunity’s disappearance. At the same time, the participantsof virtual enterprise are changeful, so virtualenterprise must adapt to changeful market withdynamic organization structure and agilemeasures.(4) Flat organization. Flat network organization can quickly respond to changes ofmarket environment. By socialization cooperation and contract connection, virtual enterprise decreases administrative levels, extends the boundary of the organization, buildsup a network organization structure, carries ondynamic evolvement and responds to changefulenvironment.3 Knowledge conversion and integration in differentoperating modes of virtual enterprise3.1 Operating mode of virtual enterprise The biggest dissimilarity in virtual enterprise and traditional enterprise lies in it is a management that crosses enterprises. Virtual enterprise is a virtual team made up of dispersive enterprise alliance. And it adopts cooperative administration and parallel engineering to achieve a certain common target together. The operating mode of virtual enterprise is the behaving mode and the operating method, which base on modern network information technology, cater to requirements of fast changeful market, core enterprise cooperates with suppliers, marketers, customers to research, develop, produce and sell various kinds of products. The operating modes correlate with product type, mode of production and surrounding environments [3]. In terms of theory of resource distribution, operating mode of virtual enterpriseis an integration of resources, these resourcescome from different enterprise members and be optimized and integrated, which have the effect of “1+1>2”. This kind of collaboration mode that crosses over the enterprise boundary is an inevitable trend of enterprise evolvement. Combined some instances, this paper analyzes the knowledge conversion and integration in virtual development, virtual producing andvirtual administration. 3.2 Knowledge conversion andintegration in virtual developmentVirtual development is a process that several enterprises unite to develop high-techproduct, acquire the common market advantage and try for more development. For example, in order to obtain common goal and benefit, several enterprises which hold own key technique anddifferent market advantage unite their technique and knowledge to form a technique alliance or knowledge alliance, and then develop more advanced technique. In order to compete against Intel Corporation, IBM and AMD unite togetherto develop next generation of microprocessor.Due to AMD lack of enough R&D funds, it is difficult to develop new product without partner,and with the limitation of IBM’s microprocessor technique, IBM can’t be sure that it can get thebetter of Intel. Therefore, cooperative development is very important to both IBM andAMD. Each enterprise has own key technique and knowledge which other enterprise doesn’t hold, also, each enterprise can’t get all knowledge which other enterprise holds. Therefore, under the system of knowledge distribution, most member enterprises will focus on strengthen the core innovation ability to accumulate relevant key knowledge, enhance core competition advantage of the whole enterprise. In the process of knowledge conversion and integration, member enterprise should share knowledge and communicate with others. It is very important to transform and integrate tacit knowledge and key technique effectively. Once integration comes through effectively, enterprise will acquire new knowledge. 3.3 Knowledge conversion andintegration in virtual producingVirtual producing is that enterprises weaken their function of direct manufacturing product, transfer their manufacture function to other enterprises, only hold own high-value development and marketing function, and strengthen these departments’ administration. NIKE Corp. is a famous typical example, whichis an American company producing jogging shoes. NIKE hasn’t own product line, but focuses its whole enterprise knowledge resourceon designing and marketing, and make the manufactory in developing countries manufacture the shoes [4].There is a great many of knowledge communication in designing enterprise and manufacturing enterprise, including a great dealof tacit knowledge conversion and integration. The designers designing product is a process of knowledge conversion and integration. The designers not only get the feedback from customers to make designs better but also workers in manufactory can put forward some new thoughts and good suggestions. The designers extract tacit knowledge of workers in manufactory and transform it into explicit knowledge. Thus the designers can absorb the workers’ knowledge, then integrate various kindsof knowledge and put the new design project into product line. The designers communicate with the workers each other time after time, knowledge conversion and integration in virtual producing often occurs and new products will be created and produced constantly.3.4 Knowledge conversion and integration in virtual administration Virtual administration is that some departments are virtual in enterprise, although reserved partial function of these administration departments, its administration organization doesn’t exist inside of the enterprise. Enterprise authorizes other specialized companies to undertake the responsibility of this department. For example, enterprise may not establish the department of human resource management and authorize specialized training organization to train employees.This kind of form mainly means to absorb knowledge from the exterior. Modern enterprises face open environment, communicate with the exterior frequently. By building up partner relationship with specialized management organization, the employees can receive the exterior training and they can get more advanced special technique, management means and culture etc. Through this kind of knowledge integration, enterprises transform outer knowledge into theirs own knowledge and enterprise knowledge repository can be enlarged. Enterprises can set up effective outer knowledge network to absorb outer information about customers, suppliers, partners and some relevant technique, policies into enterprise knowledge management system.4 Knowledge conversion and integration in each member enterprise and among enterprise networkThe knowledge of virtual enterprise is mainly made up of inner knowledge of member enterprise and network knowledge among enterprises [5]. From different aspects and levels, we discuss the issue on knowledge conversion and integration of virtual enterprise.4.1 Knowledge conversion and integration inside each member enterpriseKnowledge conversion and integrationinside each member enterprise is a complicated dynamic process, and we generalize inner knowledge of member enterprise in two dimensions combines each other and finally forms a persistent and spiral process.From the dimension of ontology, inner knowledge of member enterprise can be divided into personal knowledge, group knowledge and organization knowledge. Inner knowledge transforms into each other in different subjects such as individual, group, organization, so does in each subject. On one hand, fragmentary personal knowledge is absorbed into group knowledge and organization knowledge; on the other hand, organization knowledge also melts into personal mind.From the dimension of epistemology, inner knowledge of member enterprise can be divided into explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Various kinds of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge in member enterprise interact and converse each other, four processes of knowledge conversion are formed: socialization in which tacit knowledge transforms into tacit one, externalization in which tacit knowledge transforms into explicit one, combination in which explicit knowledge transforms into explicit one, and internalization in which explicit knowledge transforms into tacit one (the SECI process). At the same time, inner knowledge conversion and integration of member enterprise succeeds in corresponding “Ba” (as shown in Fig.1). Through dynamic spiral rising of inner knowledge of member enterprise, the enterprise will constantly create knowledge, even a breakthrough innovation [6].Explicit knowledge’s coding is convenient and easy to be learned by rivals, so it is difficult to form persistent competitive advantage of the enterprise. Tacit knowledge is implicit and difficult to be copied and filched, so it is the headspring and foundation basic of an enterprise’s core competitive ability [7]. The effective conversion and integration of tacit knowledge is a key for the enterprise to succeed, so we must analyze the issue on conversion and integration of inner tacit knowledge in detail.We divide inner tacit knowledge of member enterprise into tacit knowledge of difficult explicit identification and tacit knowledge of easy explicit identification. Easy explicit identification one is only a little and most tacit knowledge can’t be coded and explicit. At the same time, inner tacit knowledge of member enterprise includes three layers: first, individual tacit knowledge, it is high individuation, difficultto be explained and simulated, and it rooted in personal activity, experience, value and the mind mode etc. Second, group tacit knowledge, it includes group craft, collective operation process, members’ privities, teamwork and cooperation ability etc. Third, enterprise tacit knowledge, it includes enterprise culture, value system and enterprise tradition etc. Classifying and delaminating tacit knowledge exactly let us understand to take different means to identify, converse and integrate inner tacit knowledge of member enterprise. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of means: The first one, we can converse tacit knowledge that is difficult to explicit from one layer subject to another layer subject (or among the same layer subject) by the way of socialization. The second one, through mining, coordinating and summarizing, we can make tacit knowledge that can be explicit of one layer coded and explicit, consequently produce sharable explicit knowledge.The knowledge of different source, different layer, different structure and different content forms a knowledge spiral process during conversion and integration. In this process, various inner knowledge of enterprise makes complicated and nonlinear interaction constantly, Personal knowledge converts into organizational knowledge constantly, fragmentary knowledge integrates to systemic knowledge continuously, knowledge spiral of ascend s and enlarges constantly, new knowledge emerges constantly.4.2 Framework model of knowledge conversion and integration inside each member enterpriseInside of member enterprise, various kindsof knowledge make nonlinear interaction constantly. Through analyzing mutual conversion and integration of personal and organization knowledge, tacit and explicitknowledge, original and new knowledge, we build up the model of knowledge conversion and integration inside enterprise (as show in Fig.2).In this model, enterprise knowledge repository comprises not only deposit equipment used to save explicit knowledge (explicit knowledge repository) but also tacit knowledge repository used to conserve experience and mindin knowledge workers and enterprise cultures etc.We discuss how enterprises transform and integrate different knowledge resources and how they integrate them into enterprise knowledge repository effectively. (1) Personal knowledge and organization knowledge transform each other to realize knowledge integration.Fig.2 The framework model of knowledgeconversionBy such knowledge integration, personal knowledge storage and organization knowledge repository are enlarged and knowledge creation emerges constantly [8]. (2) Tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge have complicated interaction. We think this complicated interaction is due to constant conversion and integration of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge in socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (the SECI process). Through persistent spiral rising of knowledge, enterprise can create new knowledge constantly, and enlarge and develop enterprise repository. (3) Various kinds of original knowledge and new knowledge are integrated constantly. Enterprise build knowledge repository to sort out, update and rebuilt original knowledge, then enlarge new knowledge and skills in enterprise knowledge repository.According to inner actual situation of member enterprise, each enterprise should constantly optimize various enterprise knowledge factors, improve intellectual’s ability, adopt modern info-technology means, establishwell knowledge exchanging circumstance, accelerate the innovation of system, construct effective inspiriting mechanism, set up a learning organization and construct knowledge leading culture.4.3 Conversion and integration of network knowledge among enterprisesConversion and integration of network knowledge among enterprises is the necessary condition of virtual enterprise’s formation and development [9]. That valid interaction of explicitand tacit knowledge among knowledge systemof member enterprises and effective integration among enterprises’ knowledge compose network knowledge of virtual enterprise. Supported by various relevant condition and environment, all kinds of knowledge factors form new collective knowledge among enterprises after complicated interaction (such as conversion and integration),that is network knowledge among enterprises.Virtual enterprise members integrate and synthesize respective preponderant knowledgeand carry through to reconstruct. The enterprise members’ respective specialized knowledge and complementary knowledge make knowledge integration possible. Flowage and conversion of knowledge among each member enterprise make knowledge of different subjects and various sources integrate each other, and then form anew knowledge system. Through knowledge conversion and integration, member enterprises promote knowledge communication and knowledge sharing, thus increase the opportunityof knowledge collision. Each enterprise absorbsouter information and knowledge into inner one,thus inner knowledge of enterprise accumulatesand knowledge creation emerges constantly.Member enterprise should speed to set up effective outer knowledge network, thus they cannot only react according to the change of exteriorenvironment but also through knowledge network share, integrate and create knowledge among virtual enterprises at any moment The knowledge network provides medium condition for knowledge conversion and integration of virtual enterprise, and using knowledge network, virtual enterprise efficiently integrates exterior customers’ knowledge, suppliers’ knowledge, associates’ knowledge and relevant information into knowledge system of the enterprise. It shows the relation about conversion and integration of network knowledge among core enterprise, member enterprises, customers, rivals, upper stream suppliers and down stream marketers (as shown in Fig.3).Fig. 3 Network knowledge conversion and integration of virtual enterpriseAmong virtual enterprise, some are exclusively engaged in raw materials supply, some are exclusively engaged in distribution, some have stronger ability to expand market, some have large-scale production ability and some possess mutual complementary property or technique with core enterprise. The collective efficiency of virtual enterprise is based on enterprise’s own advantages and long-term cooperation among enterprises, and knowledgeis conversed and integrated quickly in product value chain. Member enterprise must make useof knowledge of relevant enterprise to cooperate with others according to production need and market need. Collecting existing research data, customers’ information and rivals’ information, analyzing and abstracting the experience that enterprise acquires in the process of research and development, processing and analyzing information from other enterprises according to enterprise own need, virtual enterprise acquires valuable knowledge. Through frequent, bidirectional, and extensive knowledge flowing, various formal and informal cooperation and communion of member enterprise constantly form network mode and promote knowledge conversion and integration.5 ConclusionBased on summarizing characteristics of virtual enterprise, this paper studies the issue on knowledge conversion and integration of virtual enterprise. We conclude that various knowledgeof virtual enterprise keeps transforming and integrating, and it is inner core mechanism of knowledge creation. By strengthening knowledge sharing, virtual enterprise can reduce cost of creating knowledge, enhance efficiencyof knowledge usage, and quicken reaction speed facing market. In order to attain high-efficiency operation of virtual enterprise, member enterprise should make use of knowledge each other, and harmonize knowledge storage, learning ability and creativity, at the same time, cumulate consistent enterprise culture and management principle.References[1] William H. Davidow, Michael S. Malone. TheVirtual Corporation: Structuring and RevitalizingThe Corporation For The 21st Century. Harper Business, a division of Harper Collins Publisher ,1992: 54–63[2] Weixuan Xu, Yiming Wei. Virtual enterprise andits intelligence management. Computer & Industrial Engineering, 42(2002), pp. 199–205 [3] Olivier Perrin, Claude Godart. A model to supportcollaborative work in virtual enterprises. 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