Earl's 7 Schools

Earl’s Seven Schools:

Earl after a five year study on strategies of knowledge management categorised knowledge management into seven types which are called as Earl’s Seven Schools. These schools are inturn put into three groups. Now we will see each of these groups and the types that come under these groups as categorised by Earl.

Technocratic:
Earl termed this group technocratic as the schools that come under this group rely on Information Technology to help the knowledge workers. And a total of three schools come under this group:
Systems;
Cartographic; and
Engineering.

Systems: According to the Systems school, we have to store the knowledge of an expert which can inturn be accessed by other experts or qualified individuals who understand that stored knowledge. This is because it saves time and resources for everyone. When a problem arises, the staff instead of searching for the possible solution and wasting huge amount of time and resources can access the stored knowledge in which the solutions of many problems has been stored by the experts or by individuals through experience and assist their customers who have faced a similar problem and assist them (customers) very quickly without wasting much time and this inturn leads to customer satisfaction.

In the organisation I was working, when ever a customer calls up with a problem first we search our data base to find any possible solution stored before hand by the experts or individuals who have successfully solved such kind of issues before and assist our customers in the same way. This saves us a lot of time in thinking what has to be done to solve that customers issue as that issue has already been faced by someone and they have stored the solution of that problem in the database.

Cartographic: The main aim of this school is to be sure that an expert is always available for the staff when required. When a member of staff is unable to find a possible solution in the database an expert should be readily available in order to give advice on how that problem can be solved.

In our organisation there is a supervisor assigned for every 20 people and incase we were unable to find the solution for a customer’s query we would ask the customer to stay online and then consult our supervisor for a possible solution for that problem.
The main advantage of this school is that making an expert available is always helpful incase an individual looses his track in solving an issue.
This school is best explained by Snowden, 2002 who said “we can always know more than we can tell, and we will always tell more than what we can write down” (Snowden, 2002, p.3).

Engineering: This school has two sub categories’ on which the attention has been drawn which are, “more knowledge is present in management than that exists in business process” and “a way to enhance a business process is to provide the staff with knowledge that is suitable to their work”.

In our dealership when a person comes to buy an automobile each of our staff is advised to take each and every document correctly without any mistake to ensure hassle free delivery of the automobile. Such as, when an automobile is to be purchased by a customer under finance we have to take a copy of his driving license, address proof, bank statement for the past six months, etc., One time or the other our staff forgets to take any one of these and after the delivery of the automobile we will be in problems when we apply for the permanent registration of the vehicle as one or the other document is missing. So we printed a checklist of the document to be collected from the customer and check mark what has to be filed in that customers file which was very useful to us and when a customer takes an appointment, our staff used to tell them what all documents they are supposed to bring with them.

Economic: This is the second group classified by Earl which consists of only one school, which is the
Commercial School: This school states that an organisation must concentrate on increasing the revenue by protecting an organisation’s knowledge and also exploiting it incase. The main aim as stated by this school is to increase the revenue of the organisation in what ever way possible and useful for the organisation in simple terms.

Behavioral:
Earl termed this group as Behavioral as according to him technology is not the only force that drives an organisation but also KM.

Organisational School: This school supports the idea of sharing the knowledge when one is unable to find a straight possible solution to a problem. According to a research done by Xerox, much of the knowledge exists in the minds of the employees than in the database that is available for access with the solution to certain problems (Xerox, 2001a).

In our dealership when a problem arises on repairing any automobile and no solution has been given in the servicing book or any other handbook on how to handle such situations, an informal group discussion is held between al the mechanics, so that any one can come up with a possible solution for the problem and this thing yielded fruitful results many times.

Spatial School: This school states that space should not be a problem for workers who want to share knowledge i.e., restricting the staff to meet in only one room or in only one building.

In our organisation, as told before when a solution for a problem is not found and we were supposed to discuss with each other and find a possible solution we were not confined to a discussion room or any other room for discussion. We can even hold the discussion in the smoking area or even by having a stroll in the garden.
Strategic School: According to this school, knowledge should be considered the bigger picture after achieving success.

The Image of the Earl's schools of knowledge management ("Taming enterprise dementia in public sector organizations”, International Journal of Public Sector Management).

References:

• Blackman, D., Henderson, S.(2005), "Know ways in knowledge management", The Learning Organization, Vol.2 No.2, pp.152-168.


• John P.G; 2005, “Taming enterprise dementia in public sector organizations”, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol.18 No.6, pp. 534-545.


• John P.G; 2005, “Taming enterprise dementia in public sector organizations”, International Journal of Public Sector Management,.[Image] Vol.18 No.6, pp. 534-545, Retrived on 19 February 2009 from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0420180604.html.