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

Es<strong>the</strong>r Lage et al
environment and human resources are presented for all employees. Monthly, during meetings related
to routine management, all <strong>the</strong> employees have <strong>the</strong> opportunity to know <strong>the</strong> role, goal and processes
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir department. Also, <strong>the</strong>re are seminars that are held quarterly in order to discuss and share
research and development results related to <strong>the</strong> long-term strategy.
The third practice identified is <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> stories. According to Swap et al. (2001), stories are an ideal
mechanism for transmission <strong>of</strong> values. The most commented story among employees refers to <strong>the</strong>
innovative feature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> company since its founding, as shown below:
The company was born revolutionary in all its processes, it created an attitude…that
remains. It was passed down from generation to generation and I believe that if we lose
this, in essence, <strong>the</strong> company ends, <strong>the</strong> company survives because <strong>of</strong> this culture
(Interviewee 7).
The fourth practice is a monthly magazine published by <strong>the</strong> company. This magazine contains
sections related to technology and innovation.
The last routine are <strong>the</strong> standardization and certification processes achieved by <strong>the</strong> company such as
<strong>the</strong> ISO 9000 and ISO 14000. In order to obtain <strong>the</strong>se certifications, <strong>the</strong> company had to explicit all <strong>the</strong>
knowledge that was disorganized or implied. In terms <strong>of</strong> safety, for instance, <strong>the</strong> knowledge came from
<strong>the</strong> operational level employees. Periodic meetings were held, in which groups <strong>of</strong> 40 people per shift
participated. Diverse topics were discussed such as production, equipment, mail systems, etc. Each
group was led by an engineer whose function was to ga<strong>the</strong>r all <strong>the</strong> information about <strong>the</strong> topic. At <strong>the</strong>
end <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> meeting with all groups, an agreement about which procedures <strong>the</strong> company should apply
was expected.
4.5 Knowledge use
Aiming to prevent knowledge from not being transformed into best practices and decisions within <strong>the</strong>
company, <strong>the</strong>re is, according to one interviewee from <strong>the</strong> Technological Development Department, an
informal routine, named Rolling Load. Effective practices that were identified but were not
implemented in o<strong>the</strong>r departments are checked by <strong>the</strong> Technological Development Department,
which tries to identify <strong>the</strong> causes for <strong>the</strong>ir no implementation. The goal, according to <strong>the</strong> interviewee is
not to penalize people who do not use knowledge, but make sure <strong>the</strong>y know it. The mandatory use
will depend on <strong>the</strong> result brought by <strong>the</strong> implementation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> knowledge in o<strong>the</strong>r departments.
There is also a strong association between <strong>the</strong> courses <strong>of</strong>fered or sponsored by <strong>the</strong> company and <strong>the</strong>
application <strong>of</strong> knowledge. All training programs are aligned with <strong>the</strong> long-term strategy and emerge
from <strong>the</strong> needs identified to meet <strong>the</strong> goals. They have an application module by which <strong>the</strong>
employees, knowing <strong>the</strong> deficiencies and improvement opportunities in <strong>the</strong>ir areas, seek to apply <strong>the</strong>
content learned during <strong>the</strong> training. The Field <strong>of</strong> Ideas Program itself was created from ideas <strong>of</strong> an
applied project.
4.6 Knowledge protection
The company understands <strong>the</strong> strategic role that knowledge plays in ensuring its competitive
advantage and defined practices that seek to prevent that relevant knowledge is lost by naivety or
carelessness.
To this end, <strong>the</strong> policy <strong>of</strong> intellectual property was created to recognize <strong>the</strong> creativity <strong>of</strong> employees,
enable <strong>the</strong> economic exploitation <strong>of</strong> patents and develop <strong>the</strong> organization's memory. By means <strong>of</strong> its
Program <strong>of</strong> Patents, <strong>the</strong> company intends to inform employees about <strong>the</strong> patenting process and
encourage <strong>the</strong>ir participation. All employees can access information on patents and insert a request
for evaluation online. The application is evaluated by a collegiate, which will examine <strong>the</strong>
technological state <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> art <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> proposals. If <strong>the</strong> ideas are found patentable, <strong>the</strong>y are forwarded to
<strong>the</strong> Industrial Property National Institute and <strong>the</strong> inventor receives an award.
Through its Code <strong>of</strong> Ethical Conduct <strong>the</strong> company seeks to clarify <strong>the</strong> acceptable behavior with
respect to <strong>the</strong> information entering and leaving <strong>the</strong> organization. Ano<strong>the</strong>r form <strong>of</strong> protection used is
<strong>the</strong> filtering <strong>of</strong> strategic information that can not leave <strong>the</strong> company, ei<strong>the</strong>r at conferences, papers or
presentations. An exception is made for matters relating to safety. The company recognizes its
responsibility to share such information, no matter how innovative, with o<strong>the</strong>r companies.
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