Organisation culture and change management Assignment

Organisation culture and change management - Assignment Example In the previous decade, the field of knowledge management was new and had generated anxiety and excitement and also achieved increased recognition for the potential that it had to influence the freshly recognised asset called knowledge and in the process bootstrapped the effectiveness of organisations. During the same decade, the conception emerged that it was possible for organisations to learn and create competencies from that learning that would eventually lead to agility and competitive advantage (Bennet & Bennet, 2004). The fact is that knowledge management is quite a new field, so still a significant amount of learning in the way of trial and error is happening. Nevertheless, knowledge management has been victorious in developing quite an important number of processes that are successful and established its value to quite a number of firms as they still keep putting efforts to respond and understand the prospects and threats that arise from a tumultuous environment. A few insta nces of successful knowledge management processes are knowledge sharing, knowledge acquisition and knowledge audit. While organisational and individual learning have been given recognition as an essential factor for substantial period of time in an environment that is always changing, the idea of organisational learning in comparison to knowledge management is relatively new. This study would mainly focus on their relationship. After providing useful definitions for few of the concepts such as knowledge, organisational learning and knowledge management, the discussion will also involve the importance of organisational learning & knowledge management for being the key factors for achieving organisational competitive advantage and superior performance (Bennet & Bennet, 2004). Data, Information & Knowledge To gain a proper understanding about the relationship of knowledge management and organisational learning, at the outset, an explanation of knowledge can be provided. Knowledge can b e best explained as the ability to take necessary and effective action, with the identification that ability includes both actual and potential capability. Knowledge can be in the mind of a person and/or implementing it in the correct way that is taken in a desired situation. It signifies that an action is of use when it provides the desired and anticipated results. Most of the thoughts that are considered normally to form knowledge (Information, Predictability, Facts, Experience, Concepts, Truths, Theories, Intuition, Judgement and Insight) help in adding to form the ability and understanding that are essential to take necessary action, they all can possess knowledge. Organisations and teams might possess knowledge in collective form (both actual and potential) and thus, be able to take actions that any individual cannot take. While knowledge lays emphasis on making sense and understanding (the â€Å"how and why†), information is about being aware of something (the â€Å"wh at and who†

Surpassing the Passive Hero in Waverly by Sir Walter Scott Essay

Surpassing the Passive Hero in Waverly by Sir Walter Scott - Essay Example Essentially Welsh seems to attempt to debunk the idea that Scott was even a good novelist, let alone a great romantic novelist, within his books. Welsh admits that Waverly is the prototype for the modern novel, but then goes on to argue the various weaknesses within Scott's technique. He suggests that Scott is not a realist, as he seems incapable of drawing a realistic portrayal of life. Neither is he capable of any type of analysis according to Welsh; he argues succinctly that "Scott never criticizes his own society" (Welsh, 1963). Also, Scott is not a very good romantic writer either as he has no full knowledge of the human heart and his characters are "notoriously unemotional" (Welsh, 1963). By way of proving this, Welsh suggests that Waverly's only emotional moment in his very brief attachment to Flora. . . . . the hero is obviously much more at home as a peacemaker than as a warrior, and it is amusing to watch Waverly racing ahead over the battlefield in order to rescue Hanoverian officers, and then being commended for his distinguished service by the chevalier. According to Welsh, the hero of Waverly is irredeemably passive and thus incapable of realistically portraying action and an active role within society. The hoer is caught within an intensely moralistic society which essentially stifles him. A true hero, according to Welsh, at least within the modern period, is a man for whom "masculinity meant self-control under the most trying circumstances" (Welsh, 1963). These characteristics he sees more within the insular, inward-looking Talbot rather than in the antics of Fergus rushing around Scotland performing traditionally "heroic" deeds. Part of this passivity, according to Welsh, stems from the fact that Scott's novels often revolve around the relationship between the individual and the state. In Waverly the hero adopts a positively Twentieth Century stance as he paradoxically invites and then resists his own arrest. He is contradictory if incredibly passive, at least in a traditionally "heroic" sense. But does this need to be an "either/or" question or can it be "both/and" Can the hero of Waverly exhibit passivity at one point and action at another and still be believable It would seem that the answer to this is a categorical "yes". Real human beings do not act according to a formulaic design for their character. He is not either a "passive character" or a "hero". He can be passive and active according to the moment. A simple glance at what actually occurs in Waverly belies the simple dichotomies that Welsh sets up in his attempted criticism of the novel. The opening of the novel starts with Waverly taking very real action, both in terms of his physical movements and in his decision making. Waverly is brought up in the family home of his Uncle, near London, but is soon given a commission in the Hanoverian army and is posted to Dundee, in Scotland. If he were purely passive he would not have taken up this commission in the first place. As soon as he arrives in Dundee, Waverly decides to take leave in order to meet the Jacobite friend of his Uncle, Baron