非正式团体:知识传播的有效途径

Informal Groups: The Key Way to Spread Knowledge

知识经济时代企业不再主要依靠资本、自然资源、劳动力等传统资源创造财富 ,而是更多地依赖于知识 ,企业唯一的竞争优势就是比竞争对手学习得更快的能力。组织学习发生在正式和非正式团体中 ,非正式团体比正式团体具有更好的沟通作用。本文讨论了组织中非正式团体的特点和知识传播过程 ,认为“实践社团”和非正式网络等非正式团体都具有传播知识的功能 ,而且最终增进了组织知识。非正式团体的管理对管理者来说是一个两难的选择 ,本文建议管理者通过识别潜在的非正式团体、为非正式团体提供基本条件和采用非传统的绩效评估方法来培育非正式团体。最后 ,作者建议我国企业界和学术界加强对非正式团体的实践探索和理论探讨 ,使非正式团体成为企业创造和传播知识的重要途径。

Firms creating value depend on knowledge but traditional capital such as money, natural resources and labors: The only competitive advantage of the firm is learning faster than its rivals. The process of organizational learning occurs in groups including the formal ones such as teams and work groups, and the informal ones such as communities-of-practice and the informal networks, but informal groups have better communication than the formal ones. This article discusses the characters of the informal groups and the processes of the knowledge creating in the groups .The authors consider that both communities-of-practice and informal networks can spread knowledge and can take the individual learning toward the organizationl learning. The management of informal groups is a dilemma, the authors propose that managers can foster informal groups through identifying potential informal groups, providing the infrastructure, and using nontraditional methods to measuring value. In the end of the article, the authors suggest that practitionors and scholars should pay more attention to the informal groups in Chinese firms.