Antoni Gaudis Architecture Style

Antoni Gaudis Architecture Style Introduction In order to appreciate Antoni Gaudis creative vision we must look at the context in which he worked. It seems that previous studies of Gaudi have not researched extensively into placing him within this cultural context; and have rather preferred to outline him as a lonely reclusive figure or concentrated on his elaborate architectural forms. This dissertation will explore whether political, social and economic developments in the late 19th and 20th Centuries in Catalonia and Spain proved touchstones for the architect, his work and his immediate circle; and whether these factors influenced his creative decisions and have been overlooked throughout his life. The work is composed of three inter-related sections. The first section will discuss Gaudis Catalan roots, and early social influences. Park G?ell will be used to illustrate this. The second section explores Catalan nationalism, social classes and the rise of Catalan industrial capitalism. It will also examine the political conflict and tensions between Castile and Catalonia, including the three Carlist wars, which were fought out on Catalan territory, the disastrous effects after Spains loss of her empire in 1898, and the impact of Tragic Week in 1909. It will consider how these may have affected Gaudi and his working rationale. This section will be analysed through the example of the Casa Mila. The third section will examine Gaudis shift in faith and the impact that this had on his architecture. This will be shown through the example of the Sagrada Familia (Holy family) Cathedral. This discussion starts by considering the view expressed by Clara Gari of the Catalan architects approach: Perhaps what makes a quick understanding difficult in Gaudis work is its daring and fascinating uncertainty, that range which slips between architectural code and structure. Such ambiguity is accentuated much more when the matrixes from which Gaudi extracts a determined stylistic code are not always clearly evidenced. But rather they appear, as often happens, ambiguously confused as a consequence of a sort of intervention, prior to the adoption of the chosen code, which by way of a distorted lens, varies the facets and the colour in it, tricking us with a free all embracing conduct, and with an underlying energy directly emanated from the ethnic heritage which is difficult to simplify Gari seems to be commenting that, despite Gaudis classical education and training as an architect, he could risk being very radical in his use of the accepted architectural codes and structures of his time. In Gaudis work, codes and structures seem to be passed through the filter of his imagination and his Catalan identity, and are transformed into something which may appear distorted but can have a powerful effect upon us as observers. Gaudis Catalan roots and early social influences Antoni Placid Guillem Gaudi I Cornet was born in Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain on June 25, 1852, into a family which had come from a long line of Catalan merchants, miners, farmers, weavers, boilermakers and coppersmiths. Gaudi was introduced to the family craft tradition at an early age when watching his father in his workshop. He was proud of this heritage and once said: I have the quality of spatial apprehension because I am the son, grandson, and the great grandson of coppersmiths All these generations of people gave me preparation. Gaudis predecessors came from a cross-Pyrenean culture that bordered the Mediterranean Sea and were accustomed to absorbing influences from different cultures, while somehow retaining their own Catalan identity. The Catalan language, for example, is closer to the tongue of Languedoc in France than it is to Castilian which is spoken in most of Spain. Joan Bergos explains in his book, Gaudi the man and his works, that: Gaudis lineage therefore has deep, i f distant roots in central Europe, mixed with the virtues traditionally found among the people of Tarragona, a typically Mediterranean people, passionate, industrious, courageous in the face of adversity and somewhat inclined to irony. The Mediterranean region of Tarragona, with its natural surroundings and quality of light, are elements of the rural world that Gaudi seems to provide as references to his architectural forms. His love of nature began as a small child, when rheumatoid arthritis, made physical exploration and play painful and difficult and he was restricted to riding around on the back of a donkey, according to family stories, he was able to study his natural surroundings and to create his own imaginary world. Perhaps because of his difficult start in life Gaudi may have developed an inner world of fantasy, shape, structure and colour, produced by his knowledge of the artisans craft and the natural forms found in his environment. Gaudi came from a deeply religious family and received a thorough Catholic religious education generated from the continuation of medieval Guilds. This would have included obligatory prayer to the Virgin, Christian doctrine, religious morals and religious history. By 1874, at the age of 22, Gaudi had moved to Barcelona with his brother Francesc; and here he began his preparation to train as an architect at the Escuela Tà ©cnica Superior de Arquitectura (Upper Technical School of Architecture). Here he studied Spanish architecture which would have focused upon its many cultural traditions, including: Phoenician, Roman, Greek, Visigothic, Celtic, Arab, Berber and Jewish. These would have been completely absorbed into the thinking of contemporary design so that there was no prejudice against the adoption of Islamic motifs and symbols. One could imagine how important this multi-faceted cultural heritage of Spain would have been for the development of Gaudis own approach to architecture. Gaudi also seemed to share the concerns and ideals that surrounded the dynamic and intellectual atmosphere during his youth, and would have been influenced by the famous intellectuals of the time: Pugin, Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc. The latter was responsible for the Gothic revival in France and as a pupil of Le Grand Durand he had influenced Frances adoption of Renaissance models and rationalist approach to city planning, which had put the country at the forefront of European artistic and architectural debate. One could also presume that Gaudi had read the work of the English writer Ruskin, in which he states, in his book: The seven lamps of Architecture: I say that if men really lived like men, their houses would be like temples which we would not dare to violate so easily and in which it would be a privilege to live. There must be some strange dissolution of family affection, a strange ingratitude towards everything that our houses have given us and that our parents have taught us, a strange awareness of our infidelity with respect and love for our father, or perhaps an awareness that our life is not for making our house sacred in the eyes of our children, which induces each one of us to want to build for ourselves, and to build only for the little revolution of our personal life. I see these miserable concretions of mud and limestone that shoot up like mushrooms in the boggy fields around our capitalI look at them not only with the repulsion of the offended view, not only with the pain that is caused by a disfigured landscape, not with the painful presentiment that the roots of our national grandeza must have infected with gangren e right down to their tips from the moment that they were planted in such an unstable manner in out native soil. It seems that Ruskins moral and aesthetic dilemma was one that Gaudi would also experience as a young professional architect, and he would move between his support of socialist ideals and various privileged connections with the aristocracy and upper middle classes (his possible clients) throughout his life. Gaudi was discovered by the bourgeoisie without whom his architecture would not stand today. However it seems he was not indifferent to the social life of his age and its contradictions. Other contemporaries working towards these ideals, were: Elies Rogent (1821-1897), whose design of Barcelonas University building was influenced by the German Rundbogenstil, which was a Neo-classical rounded arch; Joan Martorell (1833-1906) who designed the Neo-gothic brick and glazed-tiled church of Saint Francesc de Sales (1885); Josep Vilaseca who collaborated with Lluis Domà ¨nech i Montaner (1850-1923) on the Batlo tomb (1885). As his former professor at the Escuela Tà ©cnica Superior de Ar quitectura, Lluis Domà ¨nech i Montaner was at the forefront of the Catalan Modernist movement, also known as the Renaixenca (or Rebirth), which encouraged art, theatre and literature in the Catalan language. He was also responsible for designing the Palau de la Musica Catalana which symbolises the coming together of the Catalan nationalist sentiment and international culture. It also shows a particular connection to Gaudis Colonia Guell, Casa Vicens and Park Guell, though its elaborate ornamentation, sculptures and colourful ceramic mosaics, all of which seem to refer to a deep connection with Catalan nature and nationalism that were apparent at the time. This connection can be seen in the leaf and flower patterns on the facade of the Palau de la Musica Catalana which are inspired by Moorish architecture and followed the curvilinear design seen in Art Nouveau. At the same time, the civil engineer Ildefons Cerda (1815-1876) had been given the commission to expand Barcelonas boundaries by demolishing its walls and providing land for new residential areas. It seems that his plans were influenced by Haussmanns redesign of Paris, and were based on a similar grid system. Cerda was shocked that the working classes were paying proportionately more in rent for their confined living accommodation than the wealthy paid for their luxurious housing. The design for city, although Neo-classical, was also considered realist because of Cerdas understanding of modern urban sociology and living conditions. It seems that this expansion signalled to other architects that it was acceptable to explore new ways of designing public and private spaces. This new sociological attitude towards urban spaces can be seen as the catalyst for the creation of the idea of the Garden City. The concept of setting up communities outside cities was started by enlightened industr ial philanthropists such as Robert Owen, Titus Salt and George Cadbury, creating small housing projects for their workers in England as far back as 1800. However, the most important of the Garden City movement was Ebenezer Howard whose book Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, published in 1898, was to become highly influential in town planning throughout the 20th century. The Garden City movement is a good example of the changing social attitude towards the built environment and can be seen in the later planning texts of Tony Garnier and of Le Corbusiers ASCORAL, first published as Les Trois Establissements Humains in 1945. In a short text called Notes on the family house (Casa Pairal) written by Gaudi between 1878 and 1881, he reflects on the relationship between house and family: The house is a small nation of the familyThe privately owned house has been given the name of Casa Parial (family home) who among us does not recall, on hearing this expression, some beautiful example in the countryside or in the city? The pursuit of lucre and changes in customs have caused most of these family homes to disappear from the city, and those that remain are in such a terrible state that they cannot last long. The need for a family house is not only limited to one age and one family in particular but is an enduring need for all families. The text seems to be referring to the unity of a nation and of its people, it reflects the understanding of an architect who strives for sanitation and well being, as well as the anti-urban feeling which had arisen in England and spread throughout Europe. One could presume that it also reflects Gaudis deep-rooted connection with the rural world, that of peasant and craftsman, a world from which he had come. Maria Antonietta Crippa explains in her book, Living Gaudi that: Gaudis attention was not directed immediately to the bourgeois house, but to the needs of everyone. She goes on to say that He does not hide his unease at the excessive, over accelerated growth of cities, which uproot many people from the land of their birth and force them to live in rented houses in the land of emigration. And he applauds the decision to abandon congested city centers for the spacious, light-filled, leafy suburbs. Perhaps this sociological approach is what allowed Gaudi to think up the imaginative design that he created for Park G?ell in 1900. This was a garden city which captured the spirit of the 20th century and followed the fashionable trend in Europe for creating large ornamental spaces. It was a public space which would create a haven away from industrialisation, where the common man, both wealthy and poor, could exercise and see public events during their new-found leisure hours. It was also designed as a space where nouveau-riche families could live comfortably away from the crowded city centre. The park seems to reveal Gaudis extraordinary imagination in what could be seen as an optimistic phase of his life. Maria Antoietta Crippa explains that: Gaudis gardens are reminiscent of The Rose Garden, evoked in the first of T.S Eliots Four Quartets: a place that arouses memories of childhood, but which is also a symbol of a past and a future that are alive in our present: Humankind cannot b ear too much reality. / Time past and time future / what might have been and what has been / point to one end, which is always present. She goes on to explain that the garden is a metaphor not just for an earthly paradise, but also of the power of human memory, another expansion of Gaudis inner world. The park draws together urban sociology, his early childhood interest in nature and his strong sense of Mediterranean Catalan nationalism and symbolism. Gaudi uses the Moorish art of trencadis, a method of deliberately breaking tiles and re-arranging them into intricate patterns. He uses this technique on the long serpentine bench-balustrade where broken ceramic pieces have been arranged into words and symbols with religious and Catalan nationalist connotations. Some historians have also suggested that the Doric columns which consist of fluted shafts made of rough stone, covered at the base with white ceramics, and joined to the ceiling by domes which are supported by gently curving be ams, not only evoke the motion of Mediterranean waves but are also reminiscent of the Temple of Delphos and reflect the culture of Greece and the Mediterranean. They believed the structure of these columns existed as a tribute to Greece, which had won its independence from the Turkish Empire, drawing parallels with the political situation of Catalonia and the Catalans desire for independence. Gaudi arrived in Barcelona at a time of important change in architectural thinking and it seems that he benefited from meeting and leading architects of his day, who were involved in the regeneration of Catalan culture, in which, the re-birth of the language had a vital contribution in Catalans rediscovering their heritage and their common identities. In the journal: Tongue tied: The role of linguistics in Basque and Catalan Nationalism, Ryan Barnes explains how important the rebirth of the Catalan language was: Language has always been an essential element of nationalism, providing a distinctive feature and source of pride for a collective people. The ability to communicate with one another is essential to building bridges between strangers and forging the idea of a nation, which instils the idea of unity among a people that have never met Moreover, communication brings knowledge with it. Language conveys the ideas of a people or nation through literacy works such as poems or novels, which nationalists can look back on with pride. It seems that Catalan nationals were comparing themselves, not to the intellectuals in the Spanish capital, Madrid, but to artists and designers of other nations in Europe who were more technologically advanced, such as: England, France and Germany. The Catalan language had been suppressed for many years by Spains central government but now Catalans seemed to take pride in self-expression, while being aware of developments from the other side of the Pyrenees, including the redevelopment of Paris and the creation of the London squares with their ornamental gardens. They also seemed aware of the Neo-gothic architecture which was encouraged by intellectuals such as Pugin, the architect of the Houses of Parliament and John Ruskins ideas on workers education and benefits. It seems that Gaudi too was aware of these ideas, and although Catalonia was isolating itself from the decline of Spain, it was also keeping up with new and important influences from abroad. Catalonia was becoming a deve loped region within an undeveloped country. The history of Catalan nationalism, social classes and the rise of Catalan industrial capitalism and political tensions in Catalonia and Spain. Catalonia had become the industrial centre for the rest of Spain during the 19th century, a period when there was increasing unrest in the whole country. During the 18th century Catalonia had evolved from an economy based on goods for local consumption to an economy with wider commercial aspirations. This industrialisation took place in a country of untapped raw materials and very low purchasing power. Catalonias manufacturing expansion depended upon its source of energy generated from hydraulic turbines on its irregularly flowing rivers, but in the 20th century the hydroelectric potential of the Pyrenees was eventually secured for advancing industrial production. The class system of Catalan society was largely the result of three successive long waves of industrialisation and capital accumulation, with the attendant growth of new factory-linked centres, the massive importance of the workforce, the consolidation of a skilled working class and a large middle class, together with furth er advances in the direction of secularisation and urbanisation. These three long waves entailed the following developments: the growth of the bourgeois class, the rise of an industrial society based, at first, as in so many other places, on the textile industry, and the establishment of great family fortunes. Karl Marx was writing in Das Kapital at this period of time about the expansion of the bourgeoisie in Europe: Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeoisie epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cites, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and thus rescued a considerable part of the population from rural idiocy. In common with the bourgeoisie across Europe there was an increasing number of newly rich Catalan industrialists such as Eusebi G?ell and Pere Mila i Camps who were seeking the outward expression of their fortunate position in society. The city culture of Barcelona attracted them because it offered them a style of life that was equivalent to what they witnessed in other European industrialised societies. To express their power, and their love of the new, as Marx discusses, they needed modern fashionable architects who could take advantage of the trends in design that were current in those other countries. Most of the architects at this time were drawn into the Capitalist desire to use space as a commodity that could be built on and sold. Gaudi, although willing to offer his considerable talent to industrialists who were acquiring land for building projects, eventually rejected this approach to architecture in favor of a return to the traditional architectural forms, such as church building, as a symbolic representation of Catalan nationhood. According to Maria Antonietta Crippa, Gaudi was already setting out on a different path in terms of the secularisation of modern architecture, as will be demonstrated in the example of the Casa Mila. In her book, Living Gaudi, The architects complete vision, she suggests that: (Gaudis) constructions were built at a time when a utopian, secularising trend was developing in the world of European architecture. This trend, which was radically different from the direction taken by the Catalan architect, proposed the creation of the new urban and residential spaces that would resolve the imbalances caused by the violent growth of cities and by the technological revolution that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Despite the apparently luxurious life of Barcelonas bourgeoisie, the political situation in the whole of Spain was increasingly unstable throughout the 19th century. Instead of developing a system of political parties Spain had been confronted by a series of military coups; and instead of political debate there were attempts to change the written constitution. Between 1822 and 1875, opposition to liberal capitalism led to five civil wars, which were fought out on Catalan territory. The last three were to be known as the Carlist wars, in which royalists and the military opposed the liberals and republicans, and this conflict continued into the 20th century with increasing brutality and bloodshed. The Third Carlist war ended in 1876 when Gaudi was 24. Gaudi believed that: war, offering violence as a solution to any problem, is inevitably demoralising. The Crusades were a failure and many sensible Carlists abandoned that cause in the face of the behaviour of the Carlist forces. It seems that Gaudi was interested in public affairs and followed developments on the political scene. He once said: I am very like my father. At one point, not long before he died, there had just been elections, and he still had enough enthusiasm for the subject to ask me to tell him which candidates had been elected He railed against separatism and he defended energetically the ideas of rationalism and a strong and united Spain. Gaudi was one of a large group of intellectuals known as the generation of 98. In 1898 the political decline of Spain worsened when it entered a war with the USA, which it could not afford to fight. America supported the minority of planters in the colony of Cuba, who were making demands for emancipation from Spain. Following Spanish reprisals against these rebels, and supported by fictitious claims in the US press, America launched an attack on Spanish forces which caused enormous loss of life and led to Cuba being liberated into an American sphere of influence. The shock of defeat in Spain was overwhelming, as Gabriel Tortella explains in The Development of Modern Spain, an Economic History of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: the loss of markets for industry and agriculture, the loss of human life, of physical and military resources and income to the Treasury, the disappearance of various transportation and communication networks, and perhaps the most important, a widespread sense of revulsion and demoralization. For Spanish rulers and people, it seems that such a national humiliation inflicted by a relatively young democratic state would mark their country out as deeply flawed and unstable in the modern age of the early 20th century, and would be linked to decline, political chaos and eventual brutal civil war in 1936-1939. A few years after this catastrophe, Gaudi began work on the Casa Mila, a building six stories high, with eight apartments on each floor grouped around two internal courtyards, one circular and the other oval. It is designed so that light floods in through the two inner courtyards which are open to the sky. Gaudis idea was that the building should be a pedestal for an enormous statue of the Virgin Mary accompanied by two angels, which he had hoped would stand 25m above the roof of the building and would have dominated the city. The building seems to reflect Gaudis revulsion at the anti-clerical violence in Spain and loss of spiritual meaning in modern day society. Perhaps he would have agreed with Kandinskys view that: the nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past: it holds the awakening soul still in its grip. It seems that Mila I Camps was uneasy about the appearance of the proposed vast statue of the Madonna on the roof of his property, as according to art historian Robert Hughes: given the turbulence of 1904 it would probably lead to the destruction of his building by infuriated anti-clerical mobs. It seemed that Gaudi was obliged to convey the importance and opulence of the life of this new entrepreneurial class, who: did not look to the past, but only desired one thing: to invent their own future. Instead of the statue of the Virgin Mary, Gaudi was compelled to replace it with ventilation towers, chimneys and sculptures. The stair units are topped with crosses with four equal arms and the chimneys are surmounted by small domes similar to warrior heads. According to Maria Antonietta Crippa the resulting sculptures on the roof: (carry) a powerful emotive charge. She goes on to say consider, for example, that way that he uses catenary structures and fluted surfaces, or the features that appear in his artificial landscapes and stone gardens; these elements all work to create a fantasy world, as in the case of the multitextured, undulating faà §ade of Casa Batllo, or the mysterious ghost world of the roof terrace of Casa Mila. Could these anguished, twisted shapes express Gaudis inner fantasy world? Or indeed his mental state at the time? Could they possibly convey the violence of his times and his personal bereavements? It is reasonable to consider that the architects creative process is strongly influenced by his unconscious mind, as Karl Jung argues: Archetypes are numinous structural elements of the psyche which have a degree of autonomy and energy of their own, which allows them to attract whatever contents of the consciousness that suit them. These are not hereditary depictions, but rather certain innate predispositions to form parallel representations, which I called the collective unconscious. One could assume that these distorted forms were connected with his distress at the loss of his preferred sacred symbol, the Mother of Christ, but may also have held a more personal significance as a representation of his own mother, who had died 30 years previously along with his brother Francesc. The period following their deaths, in 1876, had caused an all enveloping depression for Gaudi. Reflecting on the Casa Mila it was probably a good idea that Gaudi had not used the building as a living shrine, as violent protests again erupted in the city, and saw the burning of 40 religious schools, convents and monasteries, and 12 Parish churches in 1909, the rioters considering the Church to form part of the corrupt bourgeois structure. The so-called Tragic Week seemed to affect Gaudi deeply; perhaps this is why everything he produced afterwards seemed to be built in the Catholic spirit of somehow making amends for the destruction. Could it be that he was carrying the burden of unconscious guilt for his own losses and for those that had devastated the Mother Church? At the same time as dealing with this spiritual crisis, it seems that he was coping with failing physical health. The death of Gaudis patron Don Eusebi G?ell in 1918 ground him to a complete halt, after which it is presumed that he had a psychological breakdown. During his last eight years of increasing isolation, perhaps he turned his back on the chaotic events in his country and withdrew into a life of abstinence and religiosity. Upon these painful tragic loses, after his fathers death and the death of his sisters daughter Rosa, his sense of uncertainty about life and on suffering from bouts of Mediterranean fever. He began his descent into a strict life of religiosity. My closest friends are dead; I have no family, no clients, no fortune, nothing. Now I can dedicate myself wholly to my church. Gijs Van Hensbergen summarises the crisis for Gaudis generation when he explains in his book: Gaudi the Biography: Spains loss of her empire in 1898 and the Tragic Week of 1909 in which convents and churches were burnt down; both had strong effects on Gaudi, his friends, patrons and completely changed his working patterns. The political situation in Catalonia was a complex, potentially explosive one. Catalonias alliance with Spain (Castile) was one of immense tensionBefore the civil war, some Spanish intellectuals and politicians recognised the dangers, but tragically they didnt have the power to halt the momentum of the approaching crisis. Few generations have ever been so savagely self analytical as Gaudis. Few have put themselves through such painful discoveryThese political and social tensions between reform and reaction provide the subtext and hidden structures of Gaudis work. Shift in faith and its impact on Gaudis architecture The wish to form something uniquely powerful and symbolic in a time of unpredictable political and social events may be at the heart of Gaudis most famous design, the cathedral. A personal account of Gaudi is given by one of his close friends Joan Bergos who remarked on the transformation in Gaudi during the latter years of his life, when he became completely consumed by his creative masterpiece. Bergos said: Faith changed the passionate, impetuous, irascible youth into a serene, balanced, exemplary man, who only on rare occasions gave vent to any temperamental outburst and who radiated such a beneficent aura that he sometimes inspired conversion and even heroic sacrifice in those lives he touched. Furthermore, Mark Burry suggests in his book Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia: Architecture in detail: The Sagrada Familia is a biography of a singular architects coming to terms with his time, his personality and, eventually, his vulnerability. Also one could also consider that Gaudi had been influenced by Viollet-le-Ducs statement that: We must find creativity through an accurate knowledge of the works of our ancestors. Not that such knowledge must lead us to imitate them slavishly, but rather it will reveal and make available all the secret skills of our predecessors. Perhaps what was important for Gaudi was that a designer must take from the traditional what he has absorbed into his own knowledge and re-interpret and re-work it so that it can appear innovatory and familiar, as well as inspirational. When Gaudi moved to Barcelona as a young man, it seems that he had been impressed with its wealth of historical architecture, which dated back to the Middle Ages. He had visited the Basilica Church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Ribera district which has three aisles forming a single space with no transepts and no architectural boundary between nave and presbytery. The simple ribbed vault is supported on slender octagonal columns, and daylight streams in through the tall clerestory windows. The foundation stone was laid by King Alfonso IV in 1329 and the whole building was carried out by local people including dockworkers, who collected the large stone slabs from near

Marketing Mix Of Audi Essay

Audi is a German based car manufacturing company, known around the world as part of the big three luxury car manufacturers. Along with Mercedes and BMW, Audi is the biggest luxury car manufacturing company globally. Audi oversees all its global production from its head quarters in Bavaria, Germany, and has further nine production facilities world-wide that manufactures their vehicles. Audi has been a majority owned subsidiary group of Volkswagen since 1966, after a purchase by Daimler-Benz of Audi’s predecessor group Auto Union. Volkswagen re-launched the Audi brand with the F103 series, and Audi has gone on to carve itself a niche as a quality manufacturer of automobiles, producing aesthetically pleasing designs combined with a satisfying drive and being mechanically reliable as well. Audi has been selling their luxury cars in India since 2004, but in 2007 Audi India was established as a division of Volkswagen Group Sales India, and began to set up long term plans, involving large scale investments, recruitment drives and high quality sales services to meet its goal of becoming the number one luxury car to be driven in India. Audi is represented in 110 countries world-wide. Product in the Marketing mix of Audi In the early 1990s, Audi had some problems with its microprocessors, causing electronic failures that threatened the company’s reputation, especially in the American market. Audi have worked hard to remedy the problems, and their new motor cars today have much less issues with the electronics, as new and improved technology is found. Audi have added to their range and now offer a wider variety of cars, from the A1, through to the company’s venture into the 4Ãâ€"4 market with the Q5 and Q7. The Audi A4 remains popular, as does the impressive looking Audi TT. As part of the Big Three of car companies in Germany, Audi are one of the top selling luxury sports car brands in the world. In late 2009, Audi posted profits of $1.85 billion. In 2012, the company enjoyed a 10% increase in sales. Audi has a good presence in India, boosted by the opening of a production plant in 2007. As a result, many of the vehicles from the Audi range are available, and car owners are able to go to Audi garages to repair and maintain their vehicles properly. Where Audi India sold 3,003 units in India in 2010, it has sold 10,002 units in  2013 showing 200% growth in 3 years. Place in the marketing mix of Audi Presently, Audi has 28 dealerships across 11 states in India, and in 2010 Audi India reported an increase in sales, compared to the previous year, of 81%. In mid-2014, Audi India will start production of its premium sedan, the A3 at its facility in Aurangabad, and go on to sell it across its dealerships in the country. Although based in Germany, Audi has a world-wide presence, and continues to be a prolific seller of motor cars. The company has set out major plans and investments in markets such as India, to achieve long term goals, and it continues to grow in the Asian countries. Establishing and maintaining a presence through exclusive dealerships and excellent after care services are being used by the company to build on its European reputation. Production numbers for the Audi Company are impressive, with well over a million vehicles being produced in total in 2013. Promotions in the Marketing mix of Audi Audi are involved in many sports and sponsorship ventures, such as sponsoring some Italian football teams, and having a permanent feature in Sony’s Playstation Home. Audi manages to keep itself in the public eye without over doing it. Advertised on billboards and in magazines, and with advertisements on television (TV commercials) over the years, the company was famous for its slogan â€Å"Vorsprung durch Technik† meaning progress through technology and today still uses the same words on its adverts. Recently, it was changed, in the USA only, to ‘truth in engineering’. Audi relies on the quality of its cars, as well as its reputation as one of the Big Three, to ensure that sales and production figures continue to grow. Its cars in India are often launched by celebrities like the recent launch of Audi RS 7 Sports coupe was done by Bollywood biggie Salman Khan. Because of its niche market, Audi never takes part in mass marketing but instead advertises only in the very premium segment so that it can pull its target market towards the brand. Price in the Marketing mix of Audi The cost of a new Audi A1 in the UK is around 14,000 GBP and in India it is around 19 lac rupees, which shows that Audi has premium pricing or skimming price. Off course, the pricing is completely justified looking at the  quality and the brand image of the car. This pricing is also necessary for the proper positioning of the brand. People like the reputation of the company, and this is reflected in the production of this car – 123,000 plus units in 2013. Dealerships and showrooms offer repayment plans allowing a wide variety of people access to the brand. Of course, Audi has a well respected range of sports cars, such as the Audi TT RS Coupe or the R8 Coupe, but continues to show a steady growth in production of most of its cars over the last 15 years. Audi has witnessed a stellar performance during the last year and the first quarter of 2014 in India. There has been a price rise off late which has been attributed to the increase in the forex rates. However, the company tries its best to rationalize the prices and provide innovative finance options through their own Audi Finance making the purchase attractive. It has it closest competitors in BMW, Volkswagen and Skoda among others.

Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice

â€Å"Tacit Knowledge† versus â€Å"Explicit Knowledge† Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice by Ron Sanchez Professor of Management, Copenhagen Business School and Linden Visiting Professor for Industrial Analysis, Lund University Contact information: Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy Solbjergvej 3 – 3rd floor DK 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark email: [email  protected] dk Abstract This paper explains two fundamental approaches to knowledge management.The tacit knowledge approach emphasizes understanding the kinds of knowledge that individuals in an organization have, moving people to transfer knowledge within an organization, and managing key individuals as knowledge creators and carriers. By contrast, the explicit knowledge approach emphasizes processes for articulating knowledge held by individuals, the design of organizational approaches for creating new knowledge, and the development of systems (including information systems) to disseminat e articulated knowledge within an organization.The relative advantages and disadvantages of both approaches to knowledge management are summarized. A synthesis of tacit and knowledge management approaches is recommended to create a hybrid design for the knowledge management practices in a given organization. JEL code: Moo 1 Introduction Managers concerned with implementing knowledge management in their organizations today face a number of challenges in developing sound methods for this still emerging area of management practice.Both the growing literature on knowledge management and the advice offered by various knowledge management consultants, however, seem to advocate forms of knowledge management practice that often appear incomplete, inconsistent, and even contradictory. This paper suggests that the current lack of coherence in the diverse recommendations for knowledge management practice results from the fact that the development of both theory and practice in this emerging fi eld is being driven by two fundamentally different approaches to identifying and managing knowledge in organizations.These two approaches are characterized here as the â€Å"tacit knowledge† approach and the â€Å"explicit knowledge† approach. This paper first clarifies how these two fundamental approaches differ in both their philosophical premises and derived recommendations for practice, and it summarizes the main strengths and weaknesses of each of the two approaches in practice. We then suggest that sound knowledge management practice requires a creative synthesis of the two approaches that enables the strengths of one approach to offset the inherent limitations of the other approach, and vice versa. . Tacit Knowledge versus Explicit Knowledge Approaches Even a casual review of the many articles and consulting recommendations on knowledge management practice today soon reveals a plethora of recommended processes and techniques. Unfortunately — especially fo r the many managers looking to researchers and consultants for insights to guide development of sound knowledge 2 management practices — many of these recommendations seem unconnected to each other, and in the worst cases many seem to be quite at odds with each other.Close analysis of these recommendations, however, usually reveals that the many ideas for practice being advanced today can be grouped into one of two fundamentally different views of knowledge itself and of the resulting possibilities for managing knowledge in organizations. These two views are characterized here as the â€Å"tacit knowledge† approach and the â€Å"explicit knowledge† approach. Let us consider the basic premises and the possibilities for knowledge management practice implied by each of these two views (see Table 1 for a summary of the differences in the two approaches).The Tacit Knowledge Approach The salient characteristic of the tacit knowledge approach is the basic belief that k nowledge is essentially personal in nature and is therefore difficult to extract from the heads of individuals. In effect, this approach to knowledge management assumes, often implicitly, that the knowledge in and available to an organization will largely consist of tacit knowledge that remains in the heads of individuals in the organization. 1Working from the premise that knowledge is inherently personal and will largely remain tacit, the tacit knowledge approach typically holds that the dissemination of knowledge in an organization can best be accomplished by the transfer of people as â€Å"knowledge carriers† from one part of an organization to another. Further, this view believes that learning in an organization occurs when individuals come together under circumstances that encourage them to share their ideas and (hopefully) to develop new insights together that will lead to the creation of new knowledge.Recommendations for knowledge management practice proffered by resea rchers and consultants working within the tacit knowledge approach naturally tend to focus 1 Some writers and consultants have even gone so far as to argue that all knowledge is tacit in nature. The irony in trying to communicate to others the â€Å"knowledge† that all knowledge is tacit, however, should be obvious. 3 on managing people as individual carriers of knowledge.To make wider use of the tacit knowledge of individuals, managers are urged to identify the knowledge possessed by various individuals in an organization and then to arrange the kinds of interactions between knowledgeable individuals that will help the organization perform its current tasks, transfer knowledge from one part of the organization to another, and/or create new knowledge that may be useful to the organization. Let us consider some examples of current practice in each of these activities that are typical of the tacit knowledge approach.Most managers of organizations today do not know what specific kinds of knowledge the individuals in their organization know. This common state of affairs is reflected in the lament usually attributed to executives of Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s: â€Å"If we only knew what we know, we could conquer the world. † As firms become larger, more knowledge intensive, and more globally dispersed, the need for their managers to â€Å"know what we know† is becoming acute.Thus, a common initiative within the tacit knowledge approach is usually some effort to improve understanding of who knows about what in an organization — an effort that is sometimes described as an effort to create â€Å"know who† forms of knowledge. 2 An example of such an effort is the creation within Philips, the global electronics company, of a â€Å"yellow pages† listing experts with different kinds of knowledge within Philips’ many business units.Today on the Philips intranet one can type in the key words for a specific knowledge domain — say, for example, knowledge about the design of optical pickup units for CD/DVD players and recorders — and the yellow pages will retrieve a listing of the people within Philips worldwide who have stated that they have such knowledge. Contact information is also provided for each person listed, so that anyone in Philips who wants to know more about that kind of knowledge can get in touch with listed individuals. 2Know-how, know-why, and know-what forms of knowledge can also be described (see Sanchez 1997). 4 An example of the tacit knowledge approach to transferring knowledge within a global organization is provided by Toyota. When Toyota wants to transfer knowledge of its production system to new employees in a new assembly factory, such as the factory recently opened in Valenciennes, France, Toyota typically selects a core group of two to three hundred new employees and sends them for several months training and work on the assembly line in one of Toyota’s e xisting factories.After several months of studying the production system and working alongside experienced Toyota assembly line workers, the new workers are sent back to the new factory site. These repatriated workers are accompanied by one or two hundred long-term, highly experienced Toyota workers, who will then work alongside all the new employees in the new factory to assure that knowledge of Toyota’s finely tuned production process is fully implanted in the new factory. Toyota’s use of Quality Circles also provides an example of the tacit knowledge approach to creating new knowledge.At the end of each work week, groups of Toyota production workers spend one to two hours analyzing the performance of their part of the production system to identify actual or potential problems in quality or productivity. Each group proposes â€Å"countermeasures† to correct identified problems, and discusses the results of countermeasures taken during the week to address probl ems identified the week before. Through personal interactions in such Quality Circle group settings, Toyota employees share their ideas for improvement, devise steps to test new ideas for improvement, and assess the results of their tests.This knowledge management practice, which is repeated weekly as an integral part of the Toyota production system, progressively identifies, eliminates, and even prevents errors. As improvements developed by Quality Circles are accumulated over many years, Toyota’s production system has become one of the highest quality production processes in the world (Spear and Bowen 1999). 5 The Explicit Knowledge Approach In contrast to the views held by the tacit knowledge approach, the explicit knowledge approach holds that knowledge is something that can be explained y individuals — even though some effort and even some forms of assistance may sometimes be required to help individuals articulate what they know. As a result, the explicit knowled ge approach assumes that the useful knowledge of individuals in an organization can be articulated and made explicit. Working from the premise that important forms of knowledge can be made explicit, the explicit knowledge approach also believes that formal organizational processes can be used to help individuals articulate the knowledge they have to create knowledge assets.The explicit knowledge approach also believes that explicit knowledge assets can then be disseminated within an organization through documents, drawings, standard operating procedures, manuals of best practice, and the like. Information systems are usually seen as playing a central role in facilitating the dissemination of explicit knowledge assets over company intranets or between organizations via the internet. Usually accompanying the views that knowledge can be made explicit and managed explicitly is the belief that new knowledge can be created through a structured, managed, scientific learning process.Experim ents and other forms of structured learning processes can be designed to remedy important knowledge deficiencies, or market transactions or strategic partnering may be used to obtain specific forms of needed knowledge or to improve an organization’s existing knowledge assets. The recommendations for knowledge management practice usually proposed by researchers and consultants working within the explicit knowledge approach focus on initiating and sustaining organizational processes for generating, articulating, categorizing, and systematically leveraging explicit knowledge assets. Some examples of knowledge management practice in this mode help to illustrate this approach. In the 1990s, Motorola was the global leader in the market for pagers. To maintain this leadership position, Motorola introduced new generations of pager designs every 12-15 months. Each new pager generation was designed to offer more advanced features and options for customization than the preceding generat ion. In addition, a new factory with higher-speed, more flexible assembly lines was designed and built to produce each new generation of pager. To sustain this high rate of product and process development, Motorola formed teams of product and factory designers to design each new generation of pager and factory. At the beginning of their project, each new team of designers received a manual of design methods and techniques from the team that had developed the previous generation of pager and factory.The new team would then have three deliverables at the end of their project: (i) an improved and more configurable next-generation pager design, (ii) the design of a more efficient and flexible assembly line for the factory that would produce the new pager, and (iii) an improved design manual that incorporated the design knowledge provided to the team in the manual it received — plus the new and improved design methods that the team had developed to meet the product and production goals for its project.This manual would then be passed on to the next design team given the task of developing the next generation of pager and its factory. In this way, Motorola sought to make explicit and capture the knowledge developed by its engineers during each project and to systematically leverage that knowledge in launching the work of the next project team. In addition to its tacit knowledge management practice of moving new employees around to transfer knowledge of its production system, Toyota also follows a highly Using modular product architectures to create increasingly configurable product designs, Motorola was able to increase the number of customizable product variations it could offer from a few thousand variations in the late 1980s to more than 120 million variations by the late 1990s. 7 disciplined explicit knowledge management practice of documenting the tasks that each team of workers and each individual worker is asked to perform on its assembly lines.These d ocuments provide a detailed description of how each task is to be performed, how long each task should take, the sequence of steps to be followed in performing each task, and the steps to be taken by each worker in checking his or her own work (Spear and Bowen 1999). When improvements are suggested by solving problems on the assembly line as they occur or in the weekly Quality Circle meetings of Toyota’s teams of assembly line workers, those suggestions are evaluated by Toyota’s production engineers and then formally incorporated in revised task description documents.In addition to developing well-defined and documented process descriptions for routine, repetitive production tasks, some organizations have also created explicit knowledge management approaches to supporting more creative tasks like developing new products. In the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler Corporation, for example, several â€Å"platform teams† of 300-600 development engineers have responsib ility for creating the next generation platforms4 on which Chrysler’s future automobiles will be based.Each platform team is free to actively explore and evaluate alternative design solutions for the many different technical aspects of their vehicle platform. However, each platform team is also required to place the design solution it has selected for each aspect of their vehicle platform in a â€Å"Book of Knowledge† on Chrysler’s intranet. This catalog of developed design solutions is then made available to all platform teams to consult in their development processes, so that good design solutions developed by one platform team can also be located and used by other platform teams.Other firms have taken this explicit knowledge management approach to managing knowledge in product development processes even further. For example, GE 4 A platform includes a system of standard component types and standardized interfaces between component types that enable â€Å"plu gging and playing† different component variations in the platform design to configure different product variations (see Sanchez 2004). 8 Fanuc Automation, one of the world’s leading industrial automation firms, develops design methodologies that are applied in the design of new kinds of components for their factory automation systems.In effect, instead of leaving it up to each engineer in the firm to devise a design solution for each new component needed, GE Fanuc’s engineers work together to create detailed design methodologies for each type of component the firm uses. These design methodologies are then encoded in software and computerized so that the design of new component variations can be automated. Desired performance parameters for each new component variation are entered into the automated design program, and GE Fanuc’s computer system automatically generates a design solution for the component.In this way, GE Fanuc tries to make explicit and capt ure the design knowledge of its engineers and then to systematically re-use that knowledge by automating most new component design tasks. 9 Advantages and Disadvantages of Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Approaches Like most alternative approaches to managing, each of the two knowledge management approaches we have discussed has both advantages and disadvantages.We now briefly summarize the main advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches (these are also summarized in Table 2). Advantages and Disadvantages of the Tacit Knowledge Approach One of the main advantages of the tacit knowledge approach is that it is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to begin managing knowledge. The essential first step is a relatively simple one — identify what each individual in the organization believes is the specific kinds of knowledge he or she possesses.Managers can then use this knowledge to assign individuals to key tasks or to compose teams with appropriate sets of knowledge to c arry out a project, to improve performance in current processes, or to try to create new knowledge in the organization. As Philips did with its intranetbased â€Å"yellow pages,† managers may also elect to create an open database listing the knowledge claimed by individuals in the organization to facilitate knowledge sharing between individuals.A tacit knowledge approach may also lead to improvements in employee satisfaction and motivation when an organization â€Å"officially† recognizes and makes visible in the organization the kinds of knowledge that individual workers claim to have. In addition, the tacit knowledge approach is likely to avoid some of the practical and motivational difficulties that may be encountered in trying to secure the cooperation of individuals in making their knowledge explicit (discussed under the explicit knowledge approach below). 10A further advantage often claimed for tacit knowledge management approaches derives from the view that maki ng knowledge explicit increases the risk that knowledge will be â€Å"leaked† from an organization, so that leaving knowledge in tacit form also helps to protect a firm’s proprietary knowledge from diffusing to competing organizations. (The potential disadvantages of leaving knowledge in tacit form are summarized below. ) Although relatively easy to begin, the tacit knowledge approach also has some important long-term limitations and disadvantages.One disadvantage in the tacit knowledge approach is that individuals in an organization may claim to have knowledge that they do not actually have or may claim to be more knowledgeable than they really are (Stein and Ridderstrale 2001). The knowledge that various individuals have is likely to evolve over time and may require frequent updating to correctly communicate the type of knowledge each individual in the organization claims to have now.In addition, if knowledge only remains tacit in the heads of individuals in an organ ization, then the only way to move knowledge within the organization is to move people. Moving people is often costly and time-consuming and may be resisted by individuals who fear disruptions of their careers or family life. Even when knowledgeable individuals are willing to be moved, an individual can only be in one place at a time and can only work so many hours per day and days per week, thereby limiting the reach and the speed of the organization in transferring an individual’s knowledge.Moreover, sometimes transferred individuals may not be accepted by other groups in the organization or may otherwise fail to establish good rapport with other individuals, and the desired knowledge transfer may not take place or may occur only partially. Most seriously, leaving knowledge tacit in the heads of key individuals creates a risk that the organization may lose that knowledge if any of those individuals becomes 11 incapacitated , leaves the organization, or — in the worst case — is recruited by competitors. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Explicit Knowledge Approach In general, the advantages and disadvantages of the explicit knowledge approach constitute an inverted â€Å"mirror image† of the advantages and disadvantages of the tacit knowledge approach. Whereas the tacit knowledge approach is relatively easy to start and use, but has important limitations in the benefits it can bring, the explicit knowledge approach is much more challenging to start, but offers greater potential benefits in the long term.Let us first consider the long-term advantages of the explicit knowledge management approach, and then the challenges that have to be overcome to start and sustain this approach in an organization. Perhaps the main advantage of the explicit knowledge approach is that once an individual articulates his or her knowledge in a document, drawing, process description, or other form of explicit knowledge asset, it should be possible thro ugh use of information systems to quickly disseminate that knowledge throughout an organization or indeed anywhere in the world.In effect, converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge creates an asset that is available 24/7 and is free from the limitations of time and space that constrain the dissemination of tacit knowledge by moving individuals. Moreover, knowledge that has been made explicit within an organization can often be more carefully codified and more effectively leveraged than tacit knowledge assets. To codify some forms of knowledge is to categorize and order the knowledge so that important interrelationships between different kinds of knowledge within the firm can 5Of course, under patent, copyright, or trade secrecy laws, an organization may have intellectual property rights in the tacit knowledge developed by individuals in the organization, and these rights may discourage — though not entirely prevent — individuals from sharing such knowledge wit h other organizations. 12 be identified. For example, forms of knowledge that are related by sharing a similar theoretical or practical knowledge base can be identified, as can forms of (complementary) knowledge that are interrelated by being used together in an organization’s processes.Once the various forms of explicit knowledge in an organization are codified in this way, knowledge created in one part of an organization can be proactively leveraged through information systems to people and groups elsewhere in the organization that can benefit from having that knowledge. Moreover, by disseminating some instance of explicit knowledge to other individuals who have expertise in that knowledge domain, the explicit knowledge can be discussed, debated, tested further, and improved, thereby stimulating important â€Å"incremental† forms of organizational learning processes.Such processes also help to identify which individuals in the organization are actually capable of mak ing significant contributions to the organization’s knowledge base, and which are not. An important further advantage of systematically articulating and codifying an organization’s knowledge is that this process makes an organization’s current knowledge base more visible and analyzable, and this helps an organization to discover deficiencies in its knowledge assets.In effect, by making an organization’s current knowledge base more visible, so that the organization can begin to see more clearly what knowledge it does have, it should be possible for an organization to begin to see more clearly what knowledge it does not have. Focused, structured, managed learning processes to remedy important knowledge deficiencies can then be launched and may lead to more â€Å"radical† forms of organizational learning.Once an organization establishes processes for articulating, codifying, and leveraging explicit knowledge assets, the systematic dissemination of exp licit knowledge within the organization should minimize the risk that it will lose vital knowledge if key individuals become unavailable or leave the organization. 13 To obtain the potentially significant benefits of an explicit knowledge management approach, however, a number of organizational challenges must be overcome. These challenges arise primarily in assuring adequate articulation, evaluation, application, and protection of knowledge assets.Individuals may not have sufficient skill or motivation to articulate their useful knowledge. Individuals vary greatly in the precision with which they can state their ideas, and some individuals — perhaps many — may need organizational support to adequately articulate their knowledge into useful knowledge assets. 6 Providing organizational support to individuals to articulate their knowledge may have a significant financial cost and inevitably takes time. An even more fundamental challenge arises when an individual is capab le of articulating his or her knowledge, but resists requests by the organization to do so.At the heart of such resistance is usually a belief that an individual’s job security or position of influence in an organization depends on the tacit knowledge that he or she has and that the organization needs. Such beliefs result in fear that full revelation of an individual’s important knowledge would be followed by dismissal or loss of influence in an organization, because — presumably — the individual would no longer be as necessary or important to the organization. Overcoming such fears is likely to require a profound rethinking of the employment relationship in many organizations, especially with regard to key knowledge workers.New employment norms may have to be defined and institutionalized that both seek and reward ongoing learning by individuals and their continuing contributions of explicit knowledge to the organization. 7 6 Of course, the more knowledg e-intensive an organization’s work is, and the more an organization is populated by â€Å"knowledge workers† with advanced education and training in formally communicating their ideas, the less difficult the articulation of explicit knowledge within the organization should be. Further, not all knowledge of individuals will necessarily be worth more to the organization than it may cost the organization to help or to reward individuals who try to articulate their knowledge. Essentially, managers must try to understand when the marginal cost of articulating knowledge is becoming greater than the marginal benefit of 14 Organizations must also meet the challenge of adequately evaluating knowledge that has been made explicit by individuals.Individuals with different backgrounds, education, and organizational roles may have varying sets of knowledge, with resulting differences in their deeply held ideas about the most effective way to get something done. Such differences will be revealed in the process of making their ideas and knowledge explicit, and managers implementing explicit knowledge approaches must establish a process for evaluating the individual knowledge that has been made explicit and for resolving conflicting knowledge beliefs of individuals.Organizations with experience in managing this process have found that the people involved in such evaluation processes must be respected within the organization for their expertise, objectivity, and impartiality. In most organizations, the time of such people is usually both very valuable and in short supply, and involving such people in evaluating explicit knowledge in many forms may impose a significant cost on the organization (although the resulting benefits may far outweigh the costs).Since knowledge is useful to an organization only when it is applied in action, a further challenge in implementing explicit knowledge management approaches is assuring that knowledge articulated in one part of the organization is not rejected or ignored by other parts of the organization simply because they prefer to stay close to their own familiar knowledge base — i. e. , because of an intra-organizational â€Å"not invented here† syndrome. One approach to managing this concern is the implementation of organizational â€Å"best knowledge† and â€Å"best practice† practices.In this practice, the committee of experts responsible for a knowledge evaluation process (discussed above) examines both the theoretical knowledge and practical applications of knowledge articulated within the organization, and defines the â€Å"best extracting the next bit of knowledge from an individual. Since no one currently knows exactly how to make such a cost-benefit analysis at the margin, as a practical matter organizations that implement the explicit knowledge approach do not strictly try to optimize this process and tend to prefer to â€Å"err† on the side of articulating mo re -rather than less — knowledge. 5 knowledge† and â€Å"best practice† in applying that knowledge currently available within the organization. The various groups within the organization to whom this knowledge or practice applies are then required either to adopt and use the currently defined â€Å"best knowledge† and â€Å"best practice,† or to demonstrate convincingly to the committee of experts that they have developed better knowledge or better practice in applying knowledge.If a group persuades the expert committee that their knowledge or practice is better than the currently defined â€Å"best knowledge† or â€Å"best practice† in the organization, the expert committee then modifies the current â€Å"best knowledge† or â€Å"best practice† for the organization in light of the new knowledge they have received from the group. Implementing such a rocess for assuring that an organization’s best knowledge and prac tice are actually used requires a high degree of organizational discipline in adhering to the organization’s current best knowledge and best practice, and such discipline will normally require building a high degree of organizational trust that the process of the expert committee for deciding best knowledge and best practice is objective, impartial, and transparent. Finally, an organization that creates explicit knowledge assets must take care that those assets remain within the boundaries of the organization and do not â€Å"leak† to other organizations, especially competitors.Security measures of the type most organizations now routinely use to protect their databases must be extended to provide security for the organization’s explicit knowledge base. 16 Conclusions As described above, the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches involve quite different emphases and practices, and one might naturally be led to ask, â€Å"Which approach is right? â⠂¬  As with most alternative approaches to management issues, however, the answer is â€Å"Both are right — but in the right combination. As the discussion in this chapter has suggested, there are important advantages to be obtained through both the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches, and in many respects, the advantages of each approach can be used to help offset the disadvantages of the other. In any organization, therefore, the goal is to create a hybrid design for its knowledge management practice that synthesizes the â€Å"right† combination and balance of the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches.What the â€Å"right† combination and balance may consist of will vary with a number of factors — the technology the organization uses or could use, the market conditions it faces, the â€Å"knowledge intensity† of its strategies and operations, the current attitudes of its key knowledge workers toward the organization, the degree of geographical dispersion of its knowledge workers, the resources available to the organization to invest in developing infrastructure and processes for its knowledge management practice, and so on.However, some basic guidelines may be suggested. Organizations that have not implemented systematic knowledge management approaches should in most cases begin with tacit knowledge management practices of the type discussed in this chapter. Such practices are relatively inexpensive, fast to implement, and less challenging organizationally than full-blown explicit knowledge management practices, and they often create surprising organizational interest in and energy for developing more extensive knowledge management practices.In any event, implementation of tacit knowledge management practices should be seen and communicated within the organization as only the first step in an evolving management 17 process that will eventually include more formal and systematic explicit knowled ge management practices. Achieving some initial organizational successes through use of tacit knowledge practices also helps to build confidence that the much greater organizational demands involved in implementing explicit knowledge management practices will be worth the effort.We have discussed here a number of reasons why in the long run organizations that manage to implement effective explicit knowledge approaches not only will be more effective at leveraging their knowledge, but will also become better learning organizations. When the respective advantages of tacit and explicit knowledge management practices can be combined, an organization should be able to develop and apply new knowledge faster and more extensively than organizations that do not try to manage knowledge or that use only tacit or only explicit knowledge management practices.Thus, the eventual goal for most organizations will be to devise and implement hybrid knowledge management practices in which explicit know ledge management practices complement and significantly extend their initial tacit knowledge practices. 18 References Sanchez, Ron (2004). â€Å"Creating modular platforms for strategic flexibility,† Design Management Review, Winter 2004, 58-67. Sanchez, Ron (2001). â€Å"Managing knowledge into competences: The five learning cycles of the competent organization,† 3-37 in Knowledge Management and Organizational Competence, Ron Sanchez, editor, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Sanchez, Ron (1997). â€Å"Managing articulated knowledge in competence-based competition,† 163-187 in Strategic Learning and Knowledge Management, Ron Sanchez and Aime Heene, editors, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Spear, Steven, and H. Kent Bowen (1999). â€Å"Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,† Harvard Business Review, September-October 1999, 97-106. Stein, Johan, and Jonas Ridderstrale (2001). â€Å"Managing the dissemination of competences,† 63-76 in Knowled ge Management and Organizational Competence, Ron Sanchez, editor, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 19 Table 1Basic Beliefs in Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Management Approaches Tacit Knowledge Approach Explicit Knowledge Approach Knowledge is personal in nature and very difficult to extract from people. Knowledge can be articulated and codified to create explicit knowledge assets. Knowledge must be transferred by moving people within or between organizations. Knowledge can be disseminated (using information technologies) in the form of documents, drawings, best practices, etc. Learning must be encouraged by bringing the right people together under the right circumstances.Learning can be designed to remedy knowledge deficiencies through structured, managed, scientific processes. 20 Table 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Management Approaches Tacit Knowledge Approach Explicit Knowledge Approach Advantages: Advantages: Relatively easy and inexpensive to begin. Articulated knowledge (explicit knowledge assets) may be moved instantaneously anytime anywhere by information technologies. Employees may respond well to recognition of the (claimed) knowledge. Likely to create interest in further knowledge anagement processes. Important knowledge kept in tacit form may be less likely to â€Å"leak† to competitors. Codified knowledge may be proactively disseminated to people who can use specific forms of knowledge. Knowledge that has been made explicit can be discussed, debated, and improved. Making knowledge explicit makes it possible to discover knowledge deficiencies in the organization. Disadvantages: Disadvantages: Individuals may not have the knowledge they claim to have. Considerable time and effort may be required to help people articulate their knowledge.Knowledge profiles of individuals need frequent updating. Ability to transfer knowledge constrained to moving people, which is costly and limits the reach and speed of kn owledge dissemination within the organization. Organization may lose key knowledge if key people leave the organization. Employment relationship with key knowledge workers may have to be redefined to motivate knowledge articulation. Expert committees must be formed to evaluate explicit knowledge assets. Application of explicit knowledge throughout organization must be assured by adoption of best practices. 21 22

Essay on Comparitive Analyis Jefferson versus Hamilton

Though both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson served as members of President Washington’s cabinet, the two held very different views on the newly founded U.S. government, interpretation of its constitution, and the role of the â€Å"masses† in that government. These conflicting views would develop in two political parties, the Federalists led by Hamilton and the Democratic-Republicans led by Jefferson. Although both political parties presented enticing aspects, Hamilton’s views were much more reasonable and fruitful when compared Jefferson’s views; idealistic and too strict in reference to the constitution. Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, strongly opposed America becoming a land of cities, mines, mills,†¦show more content†¦Without the development of cities and industries there would not be a trade industry which would allow the farmers to trade and prosper. With no trade, farmers would not be able to market their sur plus and the surplus in the American economy would cause prices to fall. This situation would produce little profit for farmers and eventually a severe recession economy. One of Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s first disagreements began with the idea of a National Bank. Hamilton suggested that the government should create the Bank of the United States Jefferson protested because this was not allowed by the Constitution. Hamilton opposed the view of Jefferson and stated that the Constitution’s writers could not have predicted the need of a bank for the United States. Hamilton said that the right to create the Bank of the United States was stated in the â€Å"elastic† or the â€Å"necessary and proper† clause in which the Constitution gave the government the power to pass laws that were necessary for the welfare of the nation. â€Å"This dilemma revisits the ever lasting dispute between the â€Å"strict constructionists† (Jefferson) who believed in the strict interpretation of the Constitution by not going an inch beyond its clearly expressed provisions, and the â€Å"loose constructionists† (Hamilton) wh o wished to reason out all sorts of implications from what it said†. Just a few years later, under President Jefferson, the federal government of the United States