KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY IN THE BRAZILIAN INDUSTRY

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1 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY IN THE BRAZILIAN INDUSTRY Alex V. Teixeira 1, Alisson M. Laurindo 2, Maria do Carmo D. Freitas 3 1 Centro Universitário Curitiba (BRAZIL) 2 Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (BRAZIL) 3 Universidade Federal do Paraná (BRAZIL) Abstract This paper discusses the rapid transformation of industries in southern Brazil, due to management methodologies and the phenomenon of economic globalization. The study investigates the Corporate University (CU), as a management tool embedded in organizational planning, in order to identify the degree of importance perceived by managers to adopt this practice. Management with tools, methods and processes consistent with the organizational level, creates conditions for market positioning and search anticipate societal changes or crises inserting useful knowledge for the right organizational level without wasted effort in data collection. Based on these arguments, the research seeks to present a review of the practices of knowledge management, especially the corporate university and organizational management. The knowledge as an organizational resource stood out over the past two decades, especially with the advent of the Knowledge-Based View (KBV), which show a mixture between the knowledge management and business efficiency. The structure of these processes, tools and / or methods consolidates incorporating these practices of knowledge management (KM), among others the practice of UC. This applicability is a decisive factor for the organization, because knowledge is a strategic tool that leads to the increase in benefits, for creating sustainable competitive advantages. Methodologically the study was descriptive in nature applied quantitative approach and data collection was done through online survey - Survey. The technique adopted was non-probabilistic sampling and for sample calculation, we applied the formula for infinite population industries of southern Brazil and 659 employees in strategic, tactical and operational level were researched. The questionnaires were returned by respondents electronically. Among the responses, over half of the respondents 54.55% considered the UC practice important and 25.97% consider, according to the non-parametric statistical Kruskal-Wallis, very important no significant difference in the response of this practice of knowledge management among the strategic, tactical and operational groups. In this setting, it was concluded that the practice (UC) is pretty important for strategic development of industries in southern Brazil, as well as reveals the concern by industry in protecting the knowledge (technology watch) and ensure the right of marketing your products or process improvements. Keywords: Corporate university, knowledge management, management. 1 INTRODUCTION The competitive environment in organizations is characterized by rapid changes and transformations due to new management methods and phenomena of economic globalization. In the past, the changes were dictated by large organizations and their practices in the formation of the manufacturing plant and market structuring arising from industrially structured and high level of economic and social development of countries. Today, organizations are more open, learning from their clients [1], and are not limited to physical barriers must be reconsidered what new threats and how to give the creation of strategies. If used appropriately, organizational planning will boost every company towards growth and development, diversification and innovation. The structuring of this tool is with the incorporation of the practices of knowledge management (KM) in this scenario. This applicability is a decisive factor for the organization, because knowledge is a strategic tool that leads to the increase of benefits by creating truly sustainable competitive advantage [2]. The knowledge as an organizational resource had increased attention in the last two decades, especially with the advent of the knowledge-based view [3] (KBV - Knowledge Based View), as that show the mix between knowledge management and business efficiency.

2 The success of industrial organization, or the growth of the sector is proportional to the intellectual capital invested in the business environment. Knowledge-based resources represent an asset in the developed economies, which means that the Gross National Product is based on intangible people skills and intellectual assets. In this sense, we realize that management is vital to the future of the organization and the industry's ability to generate knowledge in these activities allows one to obtain competitive advantages. This study aims to embed this context the Corporate University (CU) and its influence on the actions of the different planning levels (strategic, tactical and operational) as a management tool embedded in organizational planning in the South of Brazil industries. 2 MAPPING THE LITERATURE Considering the complexity of the proposed subject is required to perform a conceptual study on the organizational planning and knowledge management topics, showing the corporate university as an accepted practice in industry then presenting concepts of different authors. 2.1 Organizational Planning The formation of organized groups seeking the same goal comes from the early days, the figure of the tribes, families and church groups. These "groups" so to speak, influenced the structures of relationships in pursuit of achieving your objectives. In industry, in the early twentieth century, Frederick Winslow Taylor and Jules Henri Fayol began the improvement of production practices giving input that moves the industries with the conceptualization of administrative planning organizations. Industrial perspective, companies, during the twentieth century, have undergone significant changes in the behavior and way of relating, thus improving the ways of planning and organizing. The planning has two vital aspects to the organization: determining the organization's goals and choosing the means to achieve these goals [4]. These aspects are guided by methods planes, tools or logic, not being in any way intuitive assumptions. Thus, the organization sets its goals and the best procedure to achieve them. However, the strategy hold a time perspective and proposes that the planner understands how plan a direction, a course of action for the future, a way from here to there "tab and under the prospect of a standard" consistency in behavior over time. [5] In the structure of these two perspectives is possible to analyze past patterns and create prospects for the future. Defining planning and strategies hierarchy is displayed within the industries for this application. This should be understood by everyone from corporate strategy (strategic level of decision), through business strategy (level tactical decision) until the functional strategies (level of operational decision) [6]. Each function in the organization need to declare what is their role in contributing to the goals. Because of this, strategic planning is directly related to business success and contributes by supporting and boosting corporate strategy [6]. Tactical planning in turn, aims to improve the business strategy and operational planning considers the formalization of actions to achieve the goals proposed. In fact, the three levels overlap and mutually influence one [6]. When used properly, the planning will boost the entire company towards growth and development, diversification and innovation [7]. In this sense, we realize that organizational planning is of vital importance for the future of the organization and the industry's ability to generate knowledge in these activities allows one to obtain competitive advantages. 2.2 Knowledge Management The transition from industrial society to a knowledge society transformed social values and its modes of production. The employee had to be a costly productive contributor to a generator of ideas and essential to organizational dynamics answers. In this context, focus is on quality of life and employee participation in decisions of everyday life, establishing a partnership relationship that often extends beyond the physical boundaries of the organization. The work in the knowledge society and their productivity now constitute the most valuable assets for the organization. The knowledge worker is being the new source of wealth, it has pro-activity that lets you interact with all the elements around them, creating an environment conducive to learning and the emergence of new ideas [8] environment. In this context, it is necessary to create methods that they are valued and turned into actions that generate a return for the industry. Therefore, the knowledge management is given by the ability of a company has to create knowledge, disseminate it within the organization and embed it in products, services and systems. This ability must be linked to appropriate context for facilitating group activities and creation and accumulation of knowledge at the individual level [9]. An organization is qualified when it meets the five conditions in knowledge creation: Intent - requirement that the company has a vision and goals that guide their

3 guidelines; Autonomy - in an environment that includes the freedom of establishment; Fluctuation and creative chaos - must provide liaison with the external environment; Redundancy - as full information availability factor beyond the immediate need; Variety of requirements - it is achieved when all employees of the organization hold quick access to the information in the internal environment reflecting the variety found in the external environment [9]. 2.3 Corporate University Industrial changes generated in the twentieth century sought to complement their strategic actions in different ways. The speed of these changes mobilized researchers and practitioners in the reflection of the needs of the organization. The concept of training and perfecting his collaborators were one of these changes, keeping the process of continuous learning, and the concept of organizational learning responded to this demand in the context of the Corporate University (CU). Several authors show that education in business can and should be understood as a key element for competitiveness and for the achievement of business strategies [10], [11], [12]. The term Corporate University is attributed to Jeanne Meister, president of Corporate University Xchage, American consulting firm in corporate education. You now have UC as a strategic umbrella for the development and education of employees, customers and suppliers, seeking to optimize organizational strategies, and a learning laboratory for the organization of a permanent pole [10]. The corporate education is a differential in modern industry, able to critically articulate the present reality, to position and modify it cyclically. The corporate education contributes to the high performance of the industry is well employed, always focusing favorable results. Because of this the theme "Corporate Universities" has become a practice in many industries because the UC is shown as an efficient strategy for alignment and organizational development and human talent for management as a whole. Therefore, we know that currently, it takes more than simple training to achieve great business goals. We need to involve the employees within the organization with medium and long term plan in continuous improvement programs. The corporate university is seen as based on a mindset that permeates throughout an organization, and this mentality needs to encourage people to share the knowledge seen as critical to the business of the company, and invigorating forming an internal and external network of relationships [12]. Being then a process of continuing education, with a view to updating the staff uniformly in all areas of the organization. Existing UC are similar between and consist of similar principles and objectives to achieve the ultimate goal, ie, to become an institution where learning is constant [10]. The Corporate Mission of the University is to train and develop human talent in the management of business, promoting organizational knowledge management (including generation, assimilation, dissemination and application). Its main objective is the development and installation of professional, technical and managerial skills considered essential for the viability of the strategies of the organization. However, to set them, it is essential that the company identify what your business competency. Ie, the one skill that really constitute its competitive edge and be responsible for its success [13]. In addition to training, the organization needs a structured development program as a minimum requirement for creating a corporate university [11]. But even so, the organization will need something else to create your corporate university as educational activities related to corporate strategy. There are three stages in the development of the corporate university [14]: Operational - Represents a little more than the traditional activities of the Training and Development department with classroom modules, specifically targeted to institutional interests. The emphasis is on the acquisition of corporate values; also considers the activities of fragmented between various corporate training areas, are joined under one umbrella. The coordination of training activities aimed to increase operational efficiency and boost education; Tactical - reflects a broader strategic direction for organizational learning, and tends to be offered in specifically designated organizational and academic posts; This stage happens when the corporate university determines the priorities in the curriculum. The ultimate goal is to reproduce and disseminate knowledge so that individual and corporate goals are matched. At this stage the corporate university serves as the backbone of corporate knowledge, developing the socialization and leveraging knowledge; Strategic - Have virtual elements to the process of learning and covers a wide variety of strategies for the development of intellectual capital. At this stage, teachers and students of the corporate university

4 are involved in research programs to create new and relevant strategic knowledge thus generating competitive advantage. It was identified that organizational culture is crucial for corporate education [12], and that managers are decisive on this point. The differentiation of an industry with traditional training for a knowledge industry, implementing corporate education system is the conception of a project from strategic focus. To this end, the author presents four points needed: 1) Obtain the commitment and involvement of top management; 2) Align the model of people management to business strategies; 3) Implement a model of competence for managing people; 4) Develop aligned to corporate strategy educational programs. The success of the corporate university is seen in the professional environment, with qualified and motivated people contributing quality of services and the achievement of goals. Finally, we notice that the UC part of the development of individual skills, forming entrepreneurial skills. This scenario is based on the organizational planning and aims to align with the goals and objectives of the industry, to achieve the expected profit. 3 METHODOLOGY Knowledge management is a strategy for the development of the business. Realized this, insert the study of corporate university along with organizational planning so that there is a synergy in the subject and the results applied in the levels of organizational planning are perceived in a satisfactory manner. The research investigates the Corporate University as a management tool embedded in organizational planning industries in southern Brazil. We conducted a descriptive research with quantitative method. This type of research is to describe the characteristics of a population, a phenomenon or an experience. In this approach we used descriptive analyzes of the variable for Interpretation of the tables, as well as the crossing of variables and their frequencies. Chronologically, a summary was presented to the subjects as: organizational planning, knowledge management and corporate university. Conceptualized the theme carried out a survey (Survey) through an online questionnaire. Focusing on the effectiveness of the practice oriented competitiveness, and had as study setting industries in southern Brazil. The choice of locations was due to the geographic proximity to the capital of Paraná, where researchers are inserted, and for being the largest industrial center of the state according to the Paraná Institute of Economic and Social Development [IPARDES] (2010), with 32% of total state industries. The sampling technique used was non-probability sample calculation and applied the formula of infinite population because there is a quantitative managers makers predetermined decision, ie, a technique used when you can not measure the population. Given this, we used the confidence level ( ) of 95%, α 2 and 5% sampling error (e2). The survey was sent to the industries between the months of August 2012 to November 2012 and was characterized as a non-deterministic study for not achieving the minimum margin for generalization. Because not meet the required sample, the results of this study can not be generalized, with the analysis performed only for the sample obtained. Finally, the purpose of the research was descriptive in nature applied, using quantitative research method and technique of data collection was through a questionnaire. 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS The basis of this study is the result of a study conducted in the industries of southern Brazil which investigated the practices of knowledge management. The questions that comprised this analysis were "what knowledge management practices are embedded in the routines of those surveyed, according to issues of applicability and personal knowledge" and "the degree of importance of the practice of knowledge management that realizes the shares of industrial management. "The theme of the Corporate University, as its relevance and adherence to the organization's management was investigated. The Corporate University seeks to develop employees, suppliers and customers of the corporation always focusing on results already planned. The UC received no response where there was ignorance of the term, getting 46.75% in the application of industry practice and 53.25% of respondents who know the practice, but did not apply. Graphic 1.

5 Graphic 1 - Frequency: Corporate University The level of planning that uses UC is more tactical, with 69.23% followed by the strategic level with 55.17%. It is also observed in Table-1 that the operational level uses little practice with the industry (9.09%). Eboli (2004) considers the Corporate University as a strategic model for the classification of basic [12] skills. Because of that one realizes that the operational level does not apply to practice, because it must be applied by the highest levels of decision to base qualification initially. Faced with this description was found that this practice is no difference between the groups analyzed ( 2 (2)=18,638, p-valor<0,000). Table 1 - Level Of Decision X Corporate University Know and apply industry Know and do not apply in the industry Do not know Total Strategic 55,17% 44,83% 0,00% 100,00% Tactical 69,23% 30,77% 0,00% 100,00% Operational 9,09% 90,91% 0,00% 100,00% Total 46,75% 53,25% 0,00% 100,00% This same practice had an average 3.19 with a standard deviation of 0.903, with a reasonable consensus on the answers to the degree of importance of practice. Among the responses, more than half (54.55%) of respondents considered the practical and important, others 25.97% extremely important. As Chart 2 shows this reasonable consensus.

6 Figure 2 - Frequency: Corporate University According to the non-parametric statistical Kruskal-Wallis there is no significant difference in the response of this practice of knowledge management with the decision level (H (2) = 4.645, p-value <0.098). The interpretation of the frequency distributions of the decision variable level (Table 3) in its entirety response is shown below. Given the level of decision before this practice is perceived that tactical planning is the one who gives the "extremely important" option (19.23%) as well as "unimportant" (19.23%) in the responses. The highest frequency for both levels of the decision was important choice, with 63,64% for operating, 55.17% to 46.15% and the strategic to the tactical. Table 3 - Grade Level Of Importance Of Decision X Corporate University Extremely Important Very Important Important Not very important No Importance Total Strategic 0,00% 44,83% 55,17% 0,00% 0,00% 100,00% Tactical 19,23% 7,69% 46,15% 7,70% 19,23% 100,00% Operational 0,00% 22,73% 63,64% 13,63% 0,00% 100,00% For best viewing, we present the Graph-3; Graph 3 - Bars Absolute: Level Of Decision X Corporate University Operational Tactical Strategic 0,00% 10,00% 20,00% 30,00% 40,00% 50,00% 60,00% 70,00% No Importance Not very important Important Very Important Extremely Important

7 Management with tools, methods and processes consistent with the organizational level, creates conditions for market positioning and search anticipate societal changes or crises inserting useful knowledge for the relevant organizational level. The study shows the applicability of the organizational levels where UC helps overcome difficulties in abstract business management and provides coverage and reporting of results at each level of decision. You can see the gap between the study consider important to the decision level UC and applies it in industrial organization. The strategic level, the sample surveyed, UC considers important or very important for decision making, yet this practice is not as applied by these same managers, with a percentage of 55 % of the entire application. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges within the industry is maturing practices and engagement of their application to decision making. The tactical level seeks to solve the problems and organizational challenges which seeks new ways resulting positive changes. It is noticed in studies previously carried out the most used actions at this level are directly linked to the strategies of innovation and quality in processes and customer service, also highlighting evidence that the employee is moving the organization due to the fact corporate university is regarded as a very practical applied (69.23 %). 5 CONCLUSION The present study investigated the actions of UC management and planning industries. Focusing on this issue originated from a literature review on the topic. The methodology was applied nature with descriptive quantitative approach and data collection was done through a questionnaire. Data analysis was descriptive and the application of non- parametric techniques to find the difference between groups. As regards the UC was found that it is applied with greater intensity at the tactical level and the light intensity operational level. Note with what UC is useful for all kinds of industries, which are recognized and used for organizational management. In this scenario, it was concluded that the practice (UC) is pretty important for strategic development of industries in southern Brazil, as well as reveals the concern by industry in protecting the knowledge (technology watch) and ensure the right of marketing your products or process improvements. REFERENCES [1] Chesbrough, H. (2006). Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting. Boston. Harvard Business Press. [2] Choi, B.; Poon, S. K.; Davis, J. G. (2008). Effects of knowledge management strategy on organizational performance: a complementarity theory-based approach. Omega The international Journal of Management Science, v. 36. pp [3] Eisenhardt, K.; Santos, F. (2002). Knowledge-Based View: A New Theory of Strategy?. In: A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas, & R. Whittington (Eds.). Handbook of Strategy and Management, pp [4] Stoner, J. A. F.; Freeman, R. E. (1995). Administração. 5. ed. Rio de janeiro: Prentice Hall do Brasil. [5] MINTZBERG, H. (1994a), The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Reconceiving the Roles for Planning, Plans, Planners. The Free Press. pp. 34. [6] SLACK, N. et al. Administração da produção. São Paulo: Atlas, [7] OLIVEIRA, D. P. R. Planejamento estratégico: conceitos, metodologia e prática. 6 ed. São Paulo: Atlas, [8] DRUCKER, P. O advento da nova organização. In: Gestão do conhecimento: on knowledge management. 2. ed (Harvard Business Review). Rio de Janeiro: Campus 2001 [9] NONAKA, I. TAKEUCHI, H. Criação de conhecimento na empresa: como as empresas japonesas geram a dinâmica da inovação. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1997

8 [10] MEISTER, J. C. Educação Corporativa. São Paulo: Makron Books, 1999 [11] ALLEN, M. Introduction: what is a corporate university, and why should an organization have one. In: ALLEN, M. (org.) The corporate university handbook. New York: Amacom, 2002 [12] EBOLI, M. Educação corporativa no Brasil: mitos e verdades. São Paulo: Editora Gente, 2004 [13] EBOLI, M. Desenvolvimento e alinhamento dos talentos humanos às estratégias empresariais: o surgimento das Universidades Corporativas. São Paulo: Schmukles Editores, 1999 [14] RADEMAKERS, M; HUIZINGA, N. How strategic is your Corporate University? The New Corporate University Review, v. 6, n. 6, p.18-23, 2000.