Research Topics: Islamic Banking

Islamic Bank in Knowledge

Hello Vic, As discussed before I need a good discussion based on my findings and literature review. The discussion should touch following points given below: – A critical analysis of Islamic bank in Knowledge management practices according to my literature review. Also i need to discuss the following research questions given below: Questions about Islamic bank approach to knowledge management How important is knowledge management to the success of Islamic bank? What is banks understanding of knowledge management? Questions about managing knowledge at Islamic bank How important is the process of managing knowledge to Islamic bank? How effectively Islamic bank is using its knowledge in practice? How does Knowledge Management fit to the organizational strategy? what are the benefits can be achieved from a good knowledge management system? Questions about the organization environment: How is Banka culture helping or hindering the management of knowledge? Has bank got the right infrastructure to support Knowledge Management (in the terms of IT and structure)? Has banks got the most appropriate corporate behavior to support a Knowledge Management system? Which system would be the most appropriate to the banking sector? I am sending you the literature review, methodology and findings. if u need anything else you can contact me. Hope you will accept my kind request. Please let me know when you can send me this. If I like this I need conclusion as well as recomendations. Awaiting your reply kind regards Busman Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Islamic Bank in Knowledge

Hello Vic, As discussed before I need a good discussion based on my findings and literature review. The discussion should touch following ...

Sample Essay Islamic Bank Approach to Knowledge Management

Islamic Bank Approach to Knowledge Management               Knowledge management is important to a certain extent to Islamic Bank because of the wide array of benefits that the bank stands to experience in maintaining and further developing its knowledge management system. Existing literature provides that the proper implementation of knowledge management improve the competency of employees to come up with good and effective decisions (2002;2002) and the capability of the bank to develop strategies (2006) targeting the needs of consumers especially in a rapidly changing market. With heightened competition, knowledge management allows Islamic Bank to provide a greater quality of service. By knowing the bank’s capabilities and the exact needs of the market, the bank can improve its existing services and provide new services, by developing on its limitations and weaknesses, based on its in-depth knowledge of its target market (Davenport and 2001).             Responses of managers and employees show that Islamic Bank approached knowledge management with moderate importance. Although headquarters realised the importance of knowledge management to the bank, this was only to the extent of learning about new happenings in the industry and the market for purposes of top-down decision and policy-making without really considering the bigger role of knowledge management in the quality and efficiency of the performance of front line employees in the different bank branches. Moreover, the bank also approached knowledge management as comprised of hard aspects (2000) because the bank’s plans for developing knowledge management is the establishment of an Intranet system to link headquarters with the London and regional branches. During the data collection process, the managers and employees have not been apprised of any pending plans to develop the soft aspects of knowledge management.               Results of the data collected on Islamic Bank shows that even if Islamic Bank realised the need to establish a formal and organised system akin to knowledge management, it failed to provide solutions to a number of actual problems. First problem is determining the information needed by front line employees in dealing with customer needs and updating information to prepare front line employees to deal with new issues presented by customers. Second problem is establishing an efficient system of continuous information collection, analysis, sharing and updating of front line employees since there is no officer specifically taking charge of knowledge management. Third problem is opening and developing a two-way channel of communication, with one channel connecting front line employees with managers and the other line linking the bank through the front line employees with consumers.             Due to the need to address these problems to raise the quality of service and competitiveness, Islamic Bank recognised the importance of knowledge management only to the extent of the problem areas it recognised, the need for an information communication system addressed by the Intranet project. Islamic Bank understands knowledge management as the process of collecting, analysing and sharing information to support front line decision-making. The context-based conceptualisation of knowledge management is consistent with the lack of a commonly accepted definition of knowledge management in existing literature so that the studies focusing on this system primarily relied primarily on empirical data documenting the actual experiences of business firms that effectively applied knowledge management. This is perhaps the reason for the low uptake of knowledge management in many industries including the banking and finance industry even if this offers important benefits to any industry.             The extent of knowledge management applied by Islamic Bank showed that it was consistent with existing conceptualisation of this area of management. Islamic Bank recognises two aspects of knowledge management differentiated by(2000) as hard and soft systems. Islamic Bank considers hard systems as computers with Intranet and Internet linkages and soft systems as the environment, channels and attitudes geared towards open communications to make it easier to share information. However, Islamic Bank has yet to achieve the systematic and explicit management of knowledge that extends to the corporate culture of the company covering its policies, activities and practices mentioned by (2000). Islamic Bank has not establishes a team in charge of knowledge management or informed employees of this policy change.             The experiences of Islamic Bank with knowledge management implies the need to develop in-depth and organised learning on knowledge management on a general level through practice-based theories to provide ample support to business firms in applying these theories according to their specific contexts. In the finance services industry, there is need to look into the experiences of a number of banks in order to develop best practices on the means or effective processes of integrating knowledge management into the corporate culture and operations of the banks to achieve the goals of enhancing productivity, quality of service, and competitiveness. Managing Knowledge at Islamic Bank             If the determinant of the importance of managing knowledge management to a business firm is the commitment to the establishment of the hard and soft systems necessary in knowledge management, then Islamic Bank accrues limited importance to knowledge management. Responses offered by employees of Islamic Bank showed that they perceive the bank as not applying knowledge management. This is because of the lack of a team or an officer specifically playing the role of knowledge manager as well as the lack of channels and tools for knowledge management. Due to the lack of observable expressions of knowledge management in Islamic Bank, the employees especially those engaged in front line services who greatly benefit from the information sharing perceive nil knowledge management in the Bank. Moreover, even if information sharing occurs across the different branches and from management to front line employees, the information shared and the channels of sharing information were considered by more respondents as inadequate. This means that Islamic Bank needs to develop a more organised and explicit knowledge management system.             Apart from the limited information shared and channels for information sharing, Islamic Bank does not optimise information. The company has implemented no incentives for information sharing so that employees take greater responsibility in generating knowledge that need to accomplish their work. Access to information by different branches is limited and not uniform and even with sufficient technological tools, these were not maximised in knowledge management. This means that even if the bank has sufficient relevant and updated information, it is not able to effective use the information to support decision-making for front line services in the difference branches. Islamic Bank needs to optimise the use of available information and communication technology for knowledge creation and sharing, shift organisational culture towards knowledge valuation, and provide greater support to employees in accepting and utilising knowledge management channels and systems.                 Islamic Bank applies a knowledge management system intended to support the strategy of the organisation to improve the competency of its employees to support front line decision-making that in turn increases the quality of service. With a higher service quality, Islamic Bank expects to enhance its market competitiveness. Although the bank has achieved this goal, it has not achieved maximum results because of the limited use of information in creating and sharing knowledge that reaches the front employees and extends across the different branches. This means that even if Islamic Bank recognises knowledge management as an important factor in achieving high levels of competitiveness from quality service linked to optimum employee performance and productivity, it has not taken advantage of available tools and information to manage organisation-wide knowledge. This coincides with the failures of banks to achieve optimum benefits from managing knowledge because of the application of strategies not appropriate or not exactly meeting the specific context of the bank (Cross, 2001). Islamic Bank could have enhanced the performance and productivity of its front line employees by learning new market demands together with developing best practices on service provision techniques. It could have achieved greater customer satisfaction necessary to create a client base that could have supported the competitiveness of the bank relative to its closest competitors and other industry players.             Based on the four processes of knowledge conversion (Sarabia, 2007), the extent of application of knowledge management in Islamic Bank only extended to knowledge conversion on a branch and not an organisational level. Respondents provide that at the branch level, they are encouraged to share innovative ideas and learning but this is not the case at headquarters. On the organisational level, socialisation does not happen because headquarters is not strongly linked with the branches in terms of knowledge sharing, Due to this weakness in a core process of knowledge conversion, the other processes of externalisation, combination and internalisation do not materialise as a firm value.             In considering the generic model of knowledge management (Collison and Parcell, 2001) consisting of three aspects of people, technology and processes, Islamic Bank primary focused on technology and secondarily on people and processes. The secondary consideration of people as an element of knowledge management is expressed in the activity of headquarters of commissioning information from external sources without conducting internal information gathering based on the feedback of front line employees. The secondary priority for processes as a core aspect of knowledge management is expressed in the non-inclusion of change in corporate culture to enhance open communication channels for top-down and bottom-up feedback exchanges. The aspects of people and processes constitute areas for improvement in Islamic Bank.             Due to the moderately effective use of knowledge in the operation of Islamic Bank, it has not been able to experience the benefits of knowledge management. Storey and (1999) provide that knowledge management allow firms to create, share, source, map and measure various aspects of its operations as well as relative competitive position for purposes of strategy formulation ( 2006) and effective application of strategies by employees through knowledge conversion (2007). Technology cannot singly support knowledge management because of the need to focus on people applying technology in processes to achieve productivity and competitive goals. Organization Environment of Islamic Bank             Islamic Bank’s organisational culture is in a way helping the application of knowledge management of the bank and in another way hinders effective knowledge management. On the branch level, communications is open since employees replied that they could discuss results of failed projects with their managers and with team members. Moreover, employees of London and regional branches also reported that they receive encouragement to derive innovative ideas that are important in knowledge management. However, at headquarters, lower number employees agree that the company encourages employees to become innovative. This means that even with open communications and incentives for innovativeness at the London and regional branches, headquarters is not so keen in developing open communications and innovativeness of the organisation. Without sufficient support from headquarters, Islamic Bank cannot develop an effective and comprehensive knowledge management system. Through a bottom-up initiative, top management at headquarters should change their perspectives and prioritisation of knowledge management by realising the importance of this system at the branch level.             Based on the responses of Islamic Bank employees, the bank has the basic technological infrastructures to support knowledge management except only for the need to network or link branches, which the bank is addressing through its Intranet project. However, Islamic Bank has a weak organisational infrastructure to support knowledge management because of the poor linkages or channels of communication between headquarters and branches.             Scarbrough (1999) provides that the commitment of senior or top management is important in the process of implementing knowledge management and change management to facilitate changes in corporate culture and structure to support the achievement of goals. Although Islamic Bank’s corporate behaviour shows its realisation of the importance of managing knowledge in competitive business firms because it commissions information gathering, it has not been aggressive or committed enough to implement knowledge management across the organisation. Even if headquarters is planning the establishment of an Intranet system, this only constitutes one hard aspect of knowledge management. Without greater effort from the top management to facilitate the application of knowledge management, the span of benefits would not be realised.             The banking sector, including Islamic Bank, should recognise knowledge management as an important tool for competitiveness. In line with this recognition is the need to develop competencies to support knowledge management. First competency is in organisational communication that covers open and trusting communication attitudes together with multi-media communication channels. Second competency covers change management to facilitate the systematic integration of the value of knowledge and knowledge creation and sharing roles among the members of the organisation. Third competency involves leadership and people management for the leaders to commit to their roles in knowledge management and for the employees to become motivated to engage in innovative activities to support continues information gathering and learning of the organisation. Continuous learning from the experiences of banks, such as Islamic Bank, with knowledge management then becomes the basis of best practices for the sector, a research gap based on existing literature that needs to be filled.         Conclusion             Based on the consideration of the experiences of Islamic Bank of Britain with knowledge management relative to existing theoretical and empirical knowledge, a number of themes constituting the areas for improvement of Islamic Bank and areas of best practices of the financial services sector emerge.             First theme is the conceptualisation of knowledge management to support a commonly accepted definition or understanding of the concept for purposes of application. Existing literature do not provide a commonly accepted understanding of knowledge management especially in the financial services sector. This resulted to the differentiated perception of banks towards knowledge management such as the technological perspective of Islamic Bank of knowledge management different from the fusion of people, technology and processes or the complementary linkage of hard and soft systems. A common understanding of knowledge management in the financial services sector would clearly set out what this concept means to the firm. As an area of best practices, this means the need to develop an encompassing definition and general principles of knowledge management for the financial services sector that banks can use as guide in managing knowledge. One principle is the holistic approach of knowledge management that involves the fusion of hard and soft systems or people, technology and processes. Another principle is the competency and resource-based approaches that look into the effective development and utilisation of competencies and resources to support the creation, sharing and conversion of information into practical knowledge helpful in improving employee performance in providing quality service that enhances the competitiveness of the firm.              Second theme covers the role of knowledge management to industries such as the financial services sector. Previous studies on knowledge management in banks have identified the lack of uniformity in the perception of the importance of knowledge management by individual firms. Islamic bank accrues moderate importance to knowledge management expressed through its minimal use of information derived primarily from external sources. A similar degree of importance has been accorded to knowledge management by other banks by not considering the value of information when converted into practical knowledge. Due to the varying perceptions of the importance of knowledge management in the financial services sector, this area of management has not been considered for inclusion in industry efforts to develop standards based on best practices. Apart from the basic international standards on information and communication technology in the financial services sector, limited standards exist covering knowledge conversion in banks. As an area of best practices, this means that need for the financial services sector to develop a common recognition of the importance of knowledge management based on the failures and issues faced by banks, such as Islamic Bank of Britain, in their application of knowledge management in order to ensure that banks incorporate knowledge management in their strategies in order to ensure quality service for consumers but also to improve operational efficiency.             Third theme covers the benefits of knowledge management. Although existing literature cited the various benefits of knowledge management to business firm in general and to banks in particular, there are limited comprehensive or encompassing models linking various elements of knowledge management with particular benefits. Knowledge management is linked to the benefit of efficiency through feedback exchanges among employees so that this covers group dynamics. Knowledge management is also linked to the benefit of enhanced performance through innovativeness implying benefits on the individual level. Knowledge management is also linked to the benefits of productivity and quality service through decision and policy-making indicating benefits at the organisational level. The issue is the consideration of these benefits separately in existing literature. As an area of best practices, these benefits should be considered as simultaneously occurring with the application of knowledge management in the organisation. Recognition of simultaneous occurrence of benefits is important in enabling the bank to focus on this various levels of knowledge management and look at the management of knowledge on the individual, group and organisational levels to achieve results more efficiently and optimise results. There is need to develop a holistic model highlighting the multi-level benefits of knowledge management coinciding with the various parties and interests as well as competencies and resources involved in effectively managing knowledge to derive the intended outcomes.             Fourth theme covers the complexity and scope of knowledge management. Existing literature recognise knowledge as complex. However, there are limitations in the discussions of the nature and extent of the complexity and scope of knowledge management. This is expressed in the variances of the scope of knowledge management of different banks. In the case of Islamic Bank, it considers knowledge management as complex but recognise the limit of this management area as the technological aspects expected to facilitate the other aspects of knowledge management. As an area of best practices, there is need to recognise the scope of knowledge management as cutting across the different areas of management and operation including people management, change management, strategic management, and other relevant areas of management; multi-levels of the organisations including individuals, departments and the organisation as a whole as well as employees and management; and various competencies and resources including skills and experiences of employees, leadership capabilities of employees, and technological tools to support information collection and sharing as well as knowledge conversion.             Fifth theme involves the organisation of practice-based learning so that lessons from the experiences of banks should be translated into principles and general theories of knowledge management should also be translated into practical knowledge. Existing literature on knowledge management can be categorised into philosophical or theoretical and empirical studies. Theoretical studies looked into the concept of knowledge management and its relation to various business concepts while empirical studies focused on the specific experiences of particular business firms or sectors in implementing knowledge management. Although, these are able to provide important insights into the understanding of knowledge management, information is limited only to either theoretical or practical results. As an area of best practices, there is need to focus on the application of theories in actual business settings and the derivation of principles from the successes and failures of the business firms. The study on the experiences of knowledge management in Islamic Bank of Britain involves the application of theories and the determination of generalised best practices revolving around the need to develop a uniform and comprehensive understanding of knowledge management applicable in the financial services sector. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Sample Essay Islamic Bank Approach to Knowledge Management

Islamic Bank Approach to Knowledge Management Knowledge management is important to a certain extent to Islamic Bank becaus...

A Critical Analysis of Islamic Bank in Knowledge Management Practices

What is the Islamic Bank of Britain’s approach towards managing knowledge?             Responses of managers and employees show that Islamic Bank of Britain approaches knowledge management with moderate importance by considering this merely as a technological issue. This means that Islamic Bank applies a segmented approach, as opposed to a holistic approach, in applying knowledge management. Headquarters has expressed recognition of the importance of knowledge management to the bank. However, this was only to the extent of obtaining information about developments in the industry and its market as basis for top-down decision-making (2004). A top-down decision-making means that the employees at headquarters or employees at the branches are not consulted prior to decision-making so that decisions are handed down only for implementation. This means that headquarters failed to recognise the bigger role of knowledge management in improving the quality and efficiency of the performances ( 2001;  2003) of frontline employees in the different bank branches through the exchange of information or feedback.             Moreover, the bank also applied the technological approach to knowledge management by considering this as involving hard aspects (2000). This is expressed through the bank’s plans to enhance its knowledge management by establishing an Intranet system to link headquarters with the London and regional branches. During the data collection process, the managers and employees have not been apprised of any pending plans to develop the soft aspects of knowledge management.             The extent of knowledge management applied by Islamic Bank is consistent with existing concepts. Islamic Bank recognises two aspects of knowledge management differentiated by  (2000) as hard and soft systems. Islamic Bank considers hard systems as computers with Intranet and Internet linkages; and soft systems as the environment, channels and attitudes geared towards open communications to make it easier to share information. However, Islamic Bank has yet to achieve the systematic and explicit management of knowledge that extends to the soft systems, such as corporate culture as well as policies, activities and practices mentioned by  (2000). Islamic Bank has yet to establish a team in charge of knowledge management or informed employees of this policy change and the extent of changes involved. How important is knowledge to the success of Islamic Bank of Britain?              Knowledge is important to the success of Islamic Bank of Britain in raising its quality of service and competitiveness. Knowledge is needed by the bank in making decisions and policies that provide guidance to frontline employees in servicing bank customers and guidance to managers in assessing the performance of frontline employees. Knowledge is also important to Islamic Bank because of the wide array of benefits that the bank stands to experience in maintaining and further developing its knowledge management system. Existing literature provides that knowledge improves the competency of employees because this constitutes the basis of good and effective decisions (2002;  2002) especially in the frontline level; and the capability of the bank to develop strategies (2006) that target the needs of consumers especially in a rapidly changing market. With heightened competition, knowledge and its management allows Islamic Bank to determine the demands of customers and provide quality service addressing these needs.             Moreover, knowledge also provides the bank with its capabilities. The bank can improve its existing services and provide new services by developing on its limitations and weaknesses, based on its in-depth knowledge of changing market demands (2001). How does Islamic Bank understand knowledge management?             Islamic Bank understands knowledge management as the process of collecting and analysing information to develop top-down policies for frontline employees. Although available literature has yet to provide a commonly accepted definition of knowledge management, some of the conceptualisations in literature are consistent with the definition of Islamic Bank that knowledge management involves the collection and analysis of information. However, the definition of Islamic Banks lacks the aspect of information sharing ( 1999) mentioned in literature. This is because of the lack of open communications in Islamic Bank at the organisational level. The limited definition of Islamic Bank of knowledge management is the reason for its slow uptake of knowledge management even if this offers important benefits to the bank. What are the main problems and barriers to Islamic Bank of Britain and its staff towards managing knowledge?               Results of the data collected on Islamic Bank shows that even if Islamic Bank realised the need to establish a formal and organised system akin to knowledge management, it failed to provide solutions to a number of actual problems. First problem is collating the information needed by frontline employees in dealing with customer needs and updating the information base to prepare frontline employees to deal with new issues presented by customers. Second problem is establishing an efficient system of continuous information collection, analysis, sharing and updating ( 1999) from frontline employees since there is no officer specifically taking charge of knowledge management. Third problem is opening and developing a two-way channel of communication, with one channel connecting frontline employees with managers and the other line linking the bank through the frontline employees with consumers.             These problems occurred because of a number of barriers to effective knowledge management in Islamic Bank. One barrier is the lack of open communications (1995) between frontline employees and top management as well as the bank branches and headquarters. Without open venues or channels for communication, it is difficult to organise, analyse and share information coming from the frontline employees who provide accurate information on changing customer needs. As such, decisions made by top management may not necessarily reflect changing customer demands. Another barrier is the limited implementation of knowledge management, with headquarters insufficiently looking at hard systems without considering that soft systems are also necessary to effective knowledge management. How is Knowledge Managed at Islamic Bank?             If the determinant of the importance of managing knowledge management to a business firm is the commitment to the establishment of hard and soft systems (2000), then Islamic Bank manages knowledge as a minor process. Responses offered by employees of Islamic Bank showed that they perceive the bank as not applying knowledge management. This is because of the lack of a team or an officer specifically playing the role of knowledge manager as well as the lack of channels and tools for knowledge management (2004). Due to the lack of observable expressions of knowledge management in Islamic Bank, the employees especially those engaged in frontline services, who greatly benefit from information sharing, perceive nil knowledge management in the Bank.       Moreover, even if information sharing occurs across the different branches and from management to frontline employees, more respondents considered the shared information and channels of information sharing as inadequate. This means that Islamic Bank needs to develop a more organised and explicit knowledge management system.             Apart from the limited sharing of information and channels for information sharing, Islamic Bank does not optimise information. The company has implemented no incentives for information sharing so that employees take greater responsibility in generating knowledge that they need to accomplish their work. Access to information by different branches is limited and not uniform and even with sufficient technological tools, these were not maximised in knowledge management. This means that even if the bank has sufficient relevant and updated information, it is not able to use the information effectively to support decision-making for frontline services in the difference branches. Islamic Bank needs to optimise the use of available information and communication technology for knowledge creation and sharing (1998), shift organisational culture towards knowledge valuation (1999), and provide greater support to employees in accepting and utilising knowledge management channels and systems.                 Islamic Bank applies a knowledge management system intended to support the strategy of the organisation to improve the competency of its employees to support frontline decision-making that in turn increases the quality of service. With a higher service quality, Islamic Bank expects to enhance its market competitiveness. Although the bank has achieved this goal, it has not achieved maximum results because of the limited use of information in creating and sharing knowledge, which should reach the front employees and extend across the different branches. This means that even if Islamic Bank recognises knowledge management as an important factor in achieving high levels of competitiveness, from quality service that is linked to optimum employee performance and productivity, it has not taken advantage of available tools and information to manage organisation-wide knowledge. This coincides with the failure of the bank to achieve optimum benefits from managing knowledge because of the application of strategies not appropriate or not exactly meeting the specific context of the bank (2001). Islamic Bank could have enhanced the performance and productivity of its frontline employees by learning new market demands together with developing best practices on service provision techniques. It could have achieved greater customer satisfaction necessary to create a client base that could have supported the competitiveness of the bank relative to its closest competitors and other industry players.             Based on the four processes of knowledge conversion ( 2007), the extent of application of knowledge management of Islamic Bank only extended to knowledge conversion on a branch and not on an organisational level. Respondents provide that at the branch level, they are encouraged to share innovative ideas and learning but this is not the case at headquarters. On the organisational level, socialisation does not happen because headquarters is not strongly linked with the branches to facilitate knowledge sharing, Due to this weakness in the core process of knowledge conversion, the other processes of externalisation, combination and internalisation did not materialise as firm values.             In considering the generic model of knowledge management (2001) consisting of the three aspects of people, technology and processes, Islamic Bank primarily focused on technology and secondarily on people and processes. The secondary consideration of people as an element of knowledge management is expressed in the activity of headquarters of commissioning information from external sources without conducting internal information gathering based on the feedback of frontline employees. The secondary priority for processes, that actually constitute the core aspect of knowledge management, is expressed in the non-inclusion of change in corporate culture to enhance open communication channels for top-down and bottom-up feedback exchanges. The aspects of people and processes constitute areas for improvement in Islamic Bank.             Due to the moderately effective use of knowledge in the operation of Islamic Bank, it has not been able to experience all the benefits of knowledge management.  (1999) provide that knowledge management allows firms to create, share, source, map and measure various aspects of its operations as well as its relative competitive position for purposes of strategy formulation (2006) and effective application of strategies by employees through knowledge conversion ( 2007). Technology cannot singly support knowledge management because of the need to focus on the people applying the technology to achieve productivity and competitive goals. How is bank’s culture helping frontline customer service staff in developing their knowledge?               Islamic Bank’s organisational culture is in a way helping the application of knowledge management of the bank but in another way hinders effective knowledge management. On the branch level, communications is open since employees replied that they could discuss results of failed projects with their managers and with team members. Moreover, employees of London and regional branches also reported that they receive encouragement to derive innovative ideas that are important in knowledge management. With open communications at the branch level, the frontline customer service employees are able to have a venue for sharing information and deriving learning that they can apply in servicing customers.             However, at headquarters, a limited number of employees agree that the company encourages employees to become innovative. This means that even with open communications and incentives for innovativeness at the London and regional branches, headquarters is not so keen in developing open communications and innovativeness.  Without sufficient support from headquarters, Islamic Bank cannot develop an effective and comprehensive knowledge management system that facilitates the development of knowledge of frontline employees. Through a bottom-up initiative, top management at headquarters should change their prioritisation of knowledge management by realising the importance of open communications as an organisation-wide practice (1988; 1990). Does Islamic Bank have the right infrastructure to support knowledge management?               Based on the responses of Islamic Bank employees, the bank has the basic technological infrastructure to support the first stages of knowledge management.  However, by having only the basic infrastructure, this cannot effectively support the further development of knowledge management because of the poor linkages or channels of communication between headquarters and branches. This is sought to be addressed through the Intranet system but a concurrent change in the organisational structure, especially the development of a cyclical system of top-down and bottom-up linkages (1990), is needed to facilitate open communications. In order to support the use of the wide-ranging modes of multi-media communications, the bank has to develop employee acceptance and appreciation for these tools through a change in corporate culture.             (1999) provides that the commitment of senior or top management is important in the process of implementing knowledge management and change management to facilitate changes in corporate culture and structure to support the achievement of goals. Although Islamic Bank’s corporate behaviour shows its realisation of the importance of managing knowledge in competitive business firms, because it commissions information gathering, it has not been aggressive or committed enough to implement knowledge management across the organisation. Even if headquarters is planning the establishment of an Intranet system, this only constitutes one hard aspect of knowledge management. Without greater effort from the top management to facilitate the application of knowledge management, the span of benefits would not be realised. Does Islamic Bank have the most appropriate staff development tools to support knowledge management practices?               Islamic Bank needs to improve its staff development tools to support knowledge management practices. Most of the respondents provided that they are not even aware of any staff development activities being implemented by the bank. This means that the bank should recognise knowledge management as an important tool for competitiveness (2006). In line with this recognition, it needs to develop competencies to support knowledge management ( 2004). First competency is organisational communication that covers open and trusting communication attitudes together with multi-media communication channels. Second competency covers change management to facilitate the systematic integration of the values of knowledge and knowledge creation and sharing roles among the members of the organisation. Third competency involves leadership and people management for the leaders to commit to their roles in knowledge management and for the employees to become motivated to engage in innovative activities to support continues information gathering and learning of the organisation. These competencies support continuous learning from the experiences Islamic Bank, with knowledge management then becoming the basis of best practices for the firm. Conclusion             The case shows that knowledge management is a complex process involving multi-faceted aspects, such as hard and soft systems, encompassing the entire organisation. As such, the impact of applying knowledge management is far-reaching or long-term. Knowledge management concepts offer the benefits of creating, analysing and using information to derive knowledge useful in supporting policy-making at the top level as well as innovative decision-making of front-line employees. Overall, knowledge management constitutes a tool to allow organisations to achieve their competitive goals.             However, the complexity of knowledge management results to difficulties in application. This is caused or worsened by the lack of a common conceptualisation of knowledge management. This means that even if knowledge management offers valuable benefits to organisations, this may be difficult to achieve because of the lack of standards, which finds basis on a clear definition of knowledge management, to support the practice of knowledge management. There are also scant best practices available to guide application in different business settings such as in the financial sector. The themes that emerged from the case highlight the limitations of knowledge management. Based on the consideration of the experiences of Islamic Bank of Britain with knowledge management, relative to existing theoretical and empirical knowledge, a number of themes constituting the areas for improvement of Islamic Bank emerge.              First theme involves defining knowledge management. Islamic Bank has to expand its definition of knowledge management to support its needs and objectives. Existing literature do not provide a commonly accepted understanding of knowledge management. This resulted to the differentiated perception of knowledge management such as the technological perspective of Islamic Bank of knowledge management, which is different from the fusion of people, technology and processes or the complementary linkage of hard and soft systems. An expanded or holistic understanding of the bank of knowledge management would clearly set out the management of knowledge according to its needs and objectives. As an area of best practices, this means the need to develop a definition that encompasses the general principles of knowledge management together with organisational goals.  One principle is the holistic approach of knowledge management that involves the fusion of hard and soft systems; or people, technology and processes. Another principle is the competency and resource-based approaches that look into the effective development and utilisation of competencies and resources to support the creation, sharing and conversion of information into practical knowledge helpful in improving employee performance in providing quality service that enhances the competitiveness of the firm.              Second theme covers the role of knowledge management in facilitating the bank’s goal achievement. Previous studies on knowledge management of banks have identified the lack of uniformity in the perception of the importance of knowledge management by individual firms. Islamic bank accrues moderate importance to knowledge management expressed through its minimal use of information derived primarily from external sources. Due to this perception of knowledge management, this area has not been considered for inclusion in firm efforts to develop firm standards based on best practices. As an area of best practices, this means that need for the bank to develop a common or organisation-wide recognition of the importance of knowledge management to service delivery. The importance of knowledge management to the bank would be based on the failures and issues it faced in applying knowledge management. Learning from its failures ensures that the bank incorporates knowledge management in its core strategies in order to ensure quality service for consumers and improve operational efficiency.             Third theme covers the benefits of knowledge management. Although existing literature cited the various benefits of knowledge management to business firms in general and to banks in particular, there are limited comprehensive or encompassing models linking various elements of knowledge management with particular benefits. These linkages have not also been clarified by Islamic Bank. Knowledge management should be recognised as influencing efficiency through feedback exchanges among employees, so that this covers group dynamics. Knowledge management should also be recognised as enhancing performance through innovativeness, implying benefits on the individual level. Knowledge management should further be recognised as ushering productivity and quality service through decision and policy-making, indicating benefits at the organisational level.             As an area of best practices, these benefits should be considered as experienced simultaneously with the application of knowledge management across the organisation. Recognition of simultaneous experience of benefits is important to enable the bank to focus on not only one or more areas of knowledge management but also the management of knowledge on the individual, group and organisational levels to achieve results more efficiently and optimally. By looking at knowledge management occurring in various levels, the bank would also adopt a comprehensive approach that targets efficiency on the individual, group, branch and organisational levels. There is need to develop a holistic model highlighting the multi-level benefits of knowledge management coinciding with the various parties and interests as well as competencies and resources involved in effectively managing knowledge to derive the intended outcomes.             Fourth theme involves recognising the complexity and scope of knowledge management. Existing literature recognise knowledge as complex. However, there are limitations in the discussions of the nature and extent of the complexity and scope of knowledge management. In the case of Islamic Bank, it considers knowledge management as a complex system but limits the scope of knowledge management to technological processes only. Without identifying the extent of complexity and scope of knowledge management in the context of the bank’s experiences, it cannot be able to develop effective ways of addressing these complexities and working within or around the scope to achieve effective knowledge management.             As an area of best practices, the bank needs to recognise the scope of knowledge management as cutting across the different areas of management and operation to include people management, change management, strategic management, and other relevant areas of management. Knowledge management also involves different levels of the organisations including individuals, departments, branches, headquarters and the organisation as a whole. Knowledge management also affect both employees and management and require various competencies and resources including skills and experiences of employees, leadership capabilities of managers, and technological tools to support information collection and sharing as well as knowledge conversion.             Fifth theme involves the development of practice-based learning so that lessons from the experiences of Islamic bank are translated into practical knowledge. Existing literature on knowledge management can be categorised into philosophical or theoretical and empirical studies. Theoretical studies look into the concept of knowledge management and its relation to various business concepts while empirical studies focus on the specific experiences of particular business firms in implementing knowledge management. Although, these are able to provide important insights into the understanding of knowledge management, information is limited only to either theoretical or practical results. As an area of best practices, the bank needs to focus on the application of appropriate theories in its actual business context to derive learning from its successes and failures. The study on the knowledge management of Islamic Bank of Britain involves the application of theories and the development of best practices from its actual experiences to derive ways of enhancing the bank’s application of knowledge management.             Gaps or inconsistencies between the case and theories or models of knowledge management exist. Key to knowledge management is the culture of communication, which was not given sufficient attention by the bank. This was because its priority was on developing the technical aspects. Ideally, communication could have fostered information sharing to spur the creation of practical knowledge, especially among the frontline employees. Knowledge management also intends to encompass organisational operations, processes and relations, such as organisational culture, human resource management, and marketing, in order to achieve the goal of competitiveness. The bank failed to recognise the scope of knowledge management by focusing only on certain aspects. This may be due to the lack of a clear conceptualisation of knowledge management for the financial sector. These are the reasons for the fair achievement of the benefits of knowledge management by the bank. Nevertheless, knowledge management remains an important business tool that involves further clarification and development of best practices.             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

A Critical Analysis of Islamic Bank in Knowledge Management Practices

What is the Islamic Bank of Britain’s approach towards managing knowledge? Responses of managers and employees show that Isl...

Essay Instructions_A Critical Analysis of Islamic Bank in Knowledge Management Practices

Discussion    A critical analysis of Islamic bank in Knowledge management practices according to my literature review.   Also i need to discuss the following research questions given below:   Questions about Islamic bank approach to knowledge management:   1. How important is knowledge management to the success of islamic bank?   2. What is banks understanding of knowledge management?   Questions about managing knowledge at Islamic bank:   1. How important is the process of managing knowledge to Islamic bank? 2. How effectively islamic bank is using its knowledge in practice? 3. How does Knowledge Management fit to the organizationâ€™s strategy? 4. What are the benefits can be achieved from a good knowledge management system?   Questions about the organization environment:   1. How is bank’s culture helping or hindering the management of knowledge? 2. Has bank got the right infrastructure to support Knowledge Management (in the terms of IT and structure)? 3. Has banks got the most appropriate corporate behavior to support a Knowledge Management system? 4. Which system would be the most appropriate to the banking sector?   I am sending you the literature review, methodolgy and findings. if u need anything else you can contact me. Hope you will accept my kind request. Please let me know when you can send me this. If I like this I need conclusion as well as recomendations. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Essay Instructions_A Critical Analysis of Islamic Bank in Knowledge Management Practices

Discussion A critical analysis of Islamic bank in Knowledge management practices according to my literature review. Also i ...

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