Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Selvi Kannan
This paper will discuss critical areas concerning <strong>the</strong> experts’ expertise in knowledge sharing in relation
to creativity and innovation. Changing workforce dynamics that pose unique set <strong>of</strong> challenges to
organizations will be initially discussed. I will <strong>the</strong>n go on to introduce a debate on knowledge
exchange between experts and novice talents towards innovation. The discussion will lead onto
introduce a diagrammatic illustration <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> exchange-barrier innovation process model. This
conceptual paper is based on findings from a case organization.
2. A Multigenerational Workforce
The current challenges facing organizations are workforce retirements, recruitments and retentions.
The ageing workforce, many with great number <strong>of</strong> years <strong>of</strong> experience and expertise are retiring.
Industrialised countries such as Japan, USA, Europe, Italy and Australia have been experiencing this
since 2005 and will face this with more intensity towards 2020. In relation to innovation McCrindle
(2010) said, “Every organisation, every product and every brand is just one generation away from
extinction. Unless companies can recruit and retain <strong>the</strong> new generation <strong>of</strong> staff, and engage with <strong>the</strong>
emerging customers, <strong>the</strong>y will struggle to survive". The McCrindle report (2010) however fails to
discuss <strong>the</strong> retiring experts’ and <strong>the</strong> loss <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge. On <strong>the</strong> contrary, <strong>the</strong> Committee for
Economic Development, New Opportunities report that: “<strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> experience may be difficult to
measure in individual firms, but it provides concrete and quantifiable benefits to <strong>the</strong> economy as a
whole” and identifying that older workers demonstrate a higher degree <strong>of</strong> loyalty and are “more stable”
than younger hires (American Taskforce Report, 2008). The critical issue for organisations is to
continue engagement with customers. Threatened are just not companies who may potentially lose
significant number <strong>of</strong> employees through <strong>the</strong> retirement process but employees who may wish to
continue to be in <strong>the</strong> workforce face being threatened with more qualified, even though less skilled
and experienced younger challenging workers who stand to make <strong>the</strong> long-standing expert's
knowledge and skills redundant. The diverse workforce challenges make organisations struggle in
active management <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge which not only is critical to <strong>the</strong>ir commercialisation but from <strong>the</strong>
inception <strong>of</strong> an idea.
This paper's focus given <strong>the</strong> workforce dilemmas is to understand if experts' knowledge can act as a
hindrance or assistance in <strong>the</strong> innovation.
3. Research methodology
In order to investigate <strong>the</strong> intricate details <strong>of</strong> exchange and barriers <strong>of</strong> experts within <strong>the</strong> innovation
process, <strong>the</strong> qualitative method was used for understanding <strong>the</strong> complexity <strong>of</strong> this knowledge
exchange-barrier process. A case organisation was sourced and 30 employees were interviewed
who included experts, specialists, trainees and cadets. This conceptual paper aims to introduce a
framework based on <strong>the</strong> research findings and literature review. It is realized that <strong>the</strong>re is scope to
fur<strong>the</strong>r expand on this research. This paper may also raise <strong>the</strong> challenges in designing an
appropriate methodology for knowledge management-innovation type research. The weakness <strong>of</strong>
this paper is that <strong>the</strong> findings are on a case organisation and an extended research will help test <strong>the</strong>
Expert Knowledge Exchange-Barrier Model and provide more evidence.
4. Literature review and conceptual findings
4.1 Experts Vs novices - tacit exchange and barriers towards innovation
In today’s competitive business environment organisations aim to obtain as much knowledge as
possible to ensure <strong>the</strong>ir continued sustainability. In particular tacit knowledge has become extremely
important due to <strong>the</strong> aging workforce where managers are needing to find ways to extract, impart and
transfer as much information as possible before workers retire (Ebrahimi, Saives & Holford, 2008;
Alfeis, 2008). The two diverse groups at work that managers facilitate on managing knowledge are
experts, belonging to <strong>the</strong> retiring group and novices, belonging to <strong>the</strong> younger cohort mainly from
Generation Y.
Experts are people who perform routine and non-routine jobs and generate new knowledge as
necessary (Jacobs, 2001, 2003). Expert knowledge is a fusion <strong>of</strong> knowing, know-how and reflection
constructed from social interaction within a specific socio-cultural setting (Gherardi, Nicolini & Odella
(1998). Sassower (1993) defines expertise as one who has "gained skill from experience and ability to
replicate past successes and modify past failures" (Sassower, 1993 : 55) where <strong>the</strong>re is boundless
acquisition <strong>of</strong> tacit knowledge in <strong>the</strong> domain <strong>of</strong> specialization (Polanyi, 1966). It is evident that experts
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