Best Practices of Knowledge Strategy in Hospitals: A Contextual Perspective Based on the Implementation of Medical Protocols

Organizational Knowledge And Cognitive Barriers

Knowledge has been claimed as one of the most important sources of competitive advantage and sustained performance based on worker’s intelligence, as well as an important source of superior performance in turbulent environments (Prahalad & Hamell, 1990; Spender & Grant 1996; Nonaka et al., 2006).

Organizations are social ‘organisms’ and it is well known that organizational actions happen as the results of dynamic interactions between social and formal systems. The concept of organizational knowledge involving facts and values can, therefore, be explored in both logical constructions (formal and structured systems) and cognitive constructions (informal and unstructured systems).

The analytical life cycle of the organizational knowledge, shown in the Figure 1, involves two dimensions of knowledge: one based on formal systems and another based on cognitive systems. Knowledge based on formal systems includes all the required explicit knowledge for the implementation of any organizational process, such as: strategic planning, managerial model or information system. Knowledge based on cognitive systems mostly depends on people’s understanding on the application of the formal systems including for instance learning process, decision-making process or leadership characteristics. The cycle starts over again as soon as any experience creates new knowledge which will be incorporated in the formal structure.