Global business managers should consider and deal with the knowledge Essay

Global business managers should consider and deal with the knowledge management challenges in a holistic manner taking into a - Essay Example â€Å"There are various ways used in gathering and dispensing of information and this is done in various departments† (Adas 2010, p. 30). They include human resource department, marketing department or information technology department. Data can be gathered from secondary and primary sources. There are many research secondary sources that provide information needed by a company. Trade magazines, newspapers articles, libraries, government agencies and the internet can be used as secondary sources. Primary sources involve collection of information through ways such as observation, networking, interviewing, focus groups or experimentation. Questionnaires are also used for collecting data. Observation is the simplest method. Networking is a more of an informal method to gather primary data from experts (Anderson 2006, p. 35). Business managers use knowledge for organization objectives like sharing intelligence, improving the performance of a company, for competition or innovation. Knowledge transfer is either through training, peer discussions and mentoring programs. For example, a company solves the problem of culture barrier by teaching different cultures of people to its employees. Learning different cultures of people help in understanding them well and hence avoid work conflicts (Anderson 2009, p. 56). Offering training to employees is important because it improves working efficiency. Dealing with Knowledge Management Challenges Global business managers should deal with the knowledge management challenges in a holistic manner in order to achieve their business goals. There are various knowledge management challenges that need to be solved in order to achieve goals. Information collected is sometimes not accurate and this affects decision making in a company. Global business managers should deal with this problem of data inaccuracy by validating the information presented to them. There is another problem of data misinterpretation (Allen 2011, p.98) Infor mation gathered should be interpreted the way it is. Data biasness results in making the wrong conclusion. Data collectors and researchers in a company should be very careful in recording the information given (Bartlett 2002, p. 34). They are not supposed to record mistakes or include information that is not provided by the respondent. Another transnational strategy of managing information is by having a good system of storing information. FedEx is a company known to have a good paperless system of storing data of its employees. They have programs called PRISM HIRS which records any information pertaining to a worker. This programs record jobs posting, applicants and training information (Birkinshaw 2001, p. 23). It is important to maintain this strategy because information can never be lost. Information stored in files is mostly misplaced. The information stored in this system can be accessed any time. Importance of International Knowledge Management International knowledge managem ent is important for global business managers because they will get and share knowledge concerning global markets. This is explained in the Theory & practice of knowledge management. There will be sharing of explicit knowledge from the international world. This is the transnational strategy used by global firms. This is important because the global environment is complex and need to be studied well. There are