Strategic Knowledge Management

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Customer (Relational) Capital

Customer (Relational) Capital (CC) is the relationship an organisation has with its internal and external stakeholders, Sulait, (2010). The UWI, CC involves upholding good functional associations with all stakeholders (National and Regional Governments, and Private and Public Sectors) it serves to result in sustainable development and promote higher education. Fostering good relationships with stakeholders is an asset to the organisation and can take quality time and effort to form; and can easily fail. The UWIs’ relations with key players in the regional and national public and private sectors has offered them a system of sharing knowledge though discussion forums, annual meetings and seminars geared towards advancing potent tactics in program executions toward attaining the objective of economic growth and development. The UWI in networking with stakeholders produced knowledge on continuous growth in the economy in which it functions.

Structural Capital

SC refers to the OL and explicit knowledge (codified experience) residing within and utilized via databases, patents, etc. Mouritsen et al., (2001) stated SC is knowledge that is property of the organisation and stays within it at the end of the working day when employees leave. In additional, SC focuses on organisational activities, operations, techniques, infrastructures and protection granted. In comparison, Gogan et al., (2015 p. 1140) found SC includes “all deposits of non-human knowledge in organisations such as databases, organisational charts, process, strategies, routines and concludes that any company whose value on the market is greater than its financial value includes the SC.” In other words, organisations that have strong SC create environments that allow employees to experiment, to practice and learn.

At the UWI, SC is focused mostly on the organisations business identity which includes its vision, mission, core values, and goals and objectives. Furthermore, the development of IC significantly rest employee acceptance, understanding and partnership in the vision and values of the organisation. The UWI provides a clear vision and mission statement and core values which are embraced by employees’ at all levels. They are embedded in the strategic plan 2012-2017 and refer to its fundamental business of promoting regional education, regional sustainable social and economic development, consultative engagement, and employee engagement. The exceptional approaches employed by UWI to increase the knowledge of students and staff, the courses and workshops offered and technologies used and the measures employed to show success are an essential part of its IC value. Additionally; UWI has an online knowledge students and staff database that allows quick and easy access where publication; procedural manuals; financial reports; confidential information; and other important documentation are uploaded. This function as an organised system that collects, saves, restores and sends knowledge across departments, units and persons. For instance, each department has its own share folder that all employees have access to. All information is entered either into excel or word document, saved and uploaded for retrieval when necessary; i.e. financial statements. These statements can also be accessed by other departments if necessary.

Furthermore, knowledge is segmented as tacit and explicit. Agoston (2014) expresses that various forms of knowledge including tacit and explicit knowledge, is at the core of IC. It can be seen from the discussion above that IC plays a major role to the UWI strategic standing by providing heightened understanding of the division of organisational assets and generating an information folder which will be able to be retrieved in the administrative process. HC, SC and CC elements of IC are interdependent and by balancing them the UWI creates an environment conducive to learning and organisational change. This enables them to adapt to and effectively handle new challenges presented by a dynamic growing knowledge economy. The UWI through the use of the multi-dimensional measurement system (Balanced Scorecard) is capable to generate its own knowledge support. Such support helps management decide on strategy implementation keeping insight its vision and objectives.

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Balanced Scorecard

According to Tracy (2012) Management uses the Balance scorecard as a financial trajectory and observer to monitor development concerning precise objectives and goals. In contrast, Kaplan and Norton (1996) views the BSC as an all-inclusive tool that transforms a company’s vision and plans into comprehensible and connected routines.

The UWI uses the “BSC framework for aligning its vision to its strategic goals and associated objectives to enhance communications, and observe organisation performance against strategic goals” (Strategic Plan 2012-2017). Furthermore, the UWI’s management utilises the BSC aimed at handling the putting into practice plans although permitting the plan to change in reaction to environmental, technological and market changes.

Moreover, the BSC proposes that organizations can be viewed from four different perspectives; that can be used to improve objectives, key performance indicators, goals, and initiatives relative to each of these perspectives, such as Balanced Scorecard Institute (2017).

The UWI utilising the BSC tool is viewed through six perspectives with their respective themes, goals and objectives. The six perspectives identified comprises

- Financial,

- Employee Engagement and Development,

- Internal Operational Processes,

- Teaching, Learning and Student Development,

- Research and Innovation,

- Outreach.

Nevertheless, the BSC focuses on improving the relationships among perspectives; forming responsibility for all perspectives; and increasing a reward basis for goal attainment. In developing relationships between perspectives as shown in diagram 1 - an increase in employee competencies (Employee Engagement & Development Perspective) through workshops and training can lead to superior delivery of services (Internal Operational Perspective) can then lead to greater fulfilment of the financial, communal, learning and other critical emerging needs of the region (Outreach Perspective).

Diagram 1: