From Quality Management to Knowledge Management In Research Organisations

1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 1 3 5 00143 International Journal of Innovation Management Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 2006) pp. 1–19 © Imperial College Press FROM QUALITY MANAGEMENT TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN RESEARCH ORGANISATIONS ASTRID JAIME∗ , MICKAËL GARDONI† and JOËL MOSCA‡ 7 9 11 Laboratoire GILCO, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble 46 Ave. Félix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France ∗jaime@gilco.inpg.fr †gardoni@gilco.ing.fr ‡Joel.Mosca@ensgi.inpg.fr DOMINIQUE VINCK 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 Laboratoire CRISTO, Université Pierre Mendès France BP 47, F- 38040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France Dominique.Vinck@upmf-grenoble.fr Received 30 July 2004 Revised 20 July 2005 Accepted 23 July 2005 Some scholars have recognized the important role of publicly funded basic research (Salter, AJ and BR Martin (2001). Research Policy, 30(3), 509–532; Szulanski, G (2000). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 9–27) for the production of knowledge. Among the identified benefits is an increase in “the stock of useful knowledge” available to society, which could be used for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth (Szulanski, G (2000). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 9–27). Thus, it is important to support scientific activities. We claim that a way to support them is to use quality management complemented by knowledge management as a way of improving the process followed when carrying out research activities. Consequently, we studied the methods used while implementing a quality management system within various research organisations. This lead us to propose an approach which integrates quality management and knowledge management as a way to support the scientific activity. Keywords: Quality management; knowledge management; research laboratories; capitalisation; basic research. 1 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 2 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 00143 A. Jaime et al. Introduction According to Chalmers (1991), “the goal of science is to produce knowledge about the world ”. Therefore, it is an activity that increases “the stock of useful knowledge” (OECD, 2002) available to society, which could be used for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth. However, there are multiple definitions of knowledge. It is therefore important to define our understanding of the concept. After looking into several definitions, we propose one based on the work of Frank (2003) and Simoni (2001) as follows: Knowledge is a temporally stabilized comprehension resulting from interpretations of information, human experience and reflections based on a set of beliefs, which resides as fictive objects in people’s mind and is suitable for transformation into action. Given that science produces knowledge, the reliability of such knowledge is an issue that has been reflected upon by certain groups. Among the main ones are the French Working Group “Quality in Research” and the AFNOR (French Standardization Association). They have proposed quality management (QM) as the response to this problem. According to the ISO 9000 — 2000 (AFNOR, 2000a) QM is defined as the “coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regard to quality”. The latter is defined as the “degree to which a set of inherent (existing) characteristics fulfils requirements”. It is then necessary to understand the meaning of these concepts in the scientific environment in order to be able to introduce them. However, fulfilling this requirement requires an understanding of the actor(s) whose needs research organizations are meant to fulfill. This is not clear in basic research.1 Additionally, the introduction of QM into the scientific environment is not currently backed by a well-defined methodology. In fact, QM has traditionally been used by industry. However, the general characteristics of scientific activity are different from those of industrial activity in terms of working conditions, goals, resources, tasks performed, etc. Thus, the introduction of QM requires a methodology adapted to the scientific environment. In spite of this, during the last few years, some research organisations have invested a part of their efforts into QM as a way to deal with the multiple concerns of their activity (see section “The reality observed at research organisations”). Therefore, we observe a situation where, while some groups claim that QM can be used by the scientific actors, some research organisations are indeed implementing quality systems within their organisations. For this reason, we have started a 1 According to the OECD (2002), basic research activities are the “experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view”. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 3 research process that aims to know the real problems faced by research organisations when implementing QM systems, and the role this system can play in the transmission of knowledge. In particular, our objective is to verify the hypothesis according to which QM can be used to support the knowledge production process by providing researchers some tools (which could be methodological) to assist their activity. Therefore, we find the concept of knowledge management (KM) pertinent. According to Wunram et al. (2002) it “is the systematic, goal oriented application of measures to steer and control the tangible and intangible knowledge assets of organizations, with the aim of using existing knowledge inside and outside of these organizations to enable the creation of new knowledge, and generate value, innovation and improvement out of it.” Hence, it is desirable to use it in the research context. For that reason, we will aim at showing how the implementation of QM systems has led to the introduction of some KM initiatives, in a group of seven research institutions we have observed. In the first part of this article, we describe the context of our research. In the second part, we will show our observations about seven research units trying to implement QM systems. In the third part, we will look into some KM aspects at these research units. Finally, we propose a representation of a methodology for implementing QM and KM as a way of supporting the knowledge production process. The Context Several authors have worked on joint approaches addressing both QM and KM. For that reason, we propose a typology of the different approaches we have found. It intends to facilitate the comprehension of the existing approaches and not to strictly separate them. Thus, we have found several works that could be grouped in to four types: 35 1. Those that propose approaches integrating QM and KM: Zhao and Bryar (2001), Rodríguez-Ortiz (2003). 2. Those that apply QM and show how QM supports KM: Johannsen (2000), McAdam (2004), Linderman et al. (2004), Bénézech (2001), Molina et al. (2004). 3. Those that use KM for improving the results obtained from QM: Galendere-Zile (2002). 4. Those that apply KM and claim that the use of QM can help achieve better results: Tsai (2003), Pfeifer (2000). 37 In this framework, our hypothesis is that QM, when applied to basic research activities, requires KM. Consequently, we position ourselves in the first group. To verify 27 29 31 33 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 4 00143 A. Jaime et al. 1 this hypothesis, we have performed a fieldwork as the basis for our research. The complete research methodology we have used is explained in the next section. 3 The research methodology 5 7 Given the lack of literature on QM in research organizations, we have started by using a sociological approach that is later coupled with the use of engineering analysis tools. This work has been complemented by the definition of some proposals and has two main phases: 1. Field work: Sociological work that was performed in several parts. 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 • Observation: This phase consisted of the observation of a research laboratory, the ACROE — ICA, where efforts for improving the development of the activity are carried out, but without following any of the existing Quality Standards. • Interviews: In this phase, eight interviews with the people responsible for QM at seven research organisations where formal efforts of introduction of QMS were carried out. These interviews account for approximately 16 h of voice recordings. These interviews were done in two stages: The first one, at the beginning of the year 2002, when two laboratories were interviewed. The second one, during the first semester of the year 2003, when five additional laboratories were interviewed. It is important to note that the formal character of the initiatives going on in these laboratories is shown through the establishment of a specific QM project, with a well-defined working group, a budget allocated for the development of the activities and the support of an external consultant to guide the activities of the project. These projects, with one exception, have all been started voluntarily. • Follow-up study: This consists of the follow-up of the implementation process of the quality system at a research laboratory during 18 months. This work has been done at the Astrophysics Laboratory of the Sciences of the Universe Observatory of Grenoble (France), which is one of the seven organisations where the interviews were carried out. This work corresponds to the participation, as observer, at eight meetings (of approximately 3 h each) of the piloting committee responsible for the implementation of the quality management system. This committee is headed by a senior researcher. In it, representatives of the realisation of the organisational aspects of the laboratory also participate. Concretely, the person in charge of the administration and the one in charge of the computing support. Additionally, some researchers, who have additional responsibilities in charge, also participate. These researchers are the one in charge of communications, the one in charge of the technical support, the one in charge of Safety 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 5 and Hygiene, and the one responsible for training of students. There are also other persons who participate depending on the subject of the meeting. Among them is the director of the laboratory, who only participates when a general balance of the project is done. In addition, we participated at four sessions of the working groups in charge of the realisation of the activities defined by the committee: One session of the working group in charge of the development of the procedure for the integration of newcomers, another one of the working group on administration (that works on purchasing, displacements and internal regulations), a session of the working group on the management of instrumental projects and one session of the working group on quality in research activities. The latter was the one in which we were more interested. It did not pursue its activities because the committee considered the project demanded already an important load of work and decided to wait until the other actions were already implemented. 2. Analysis of the information gathered: Here the aim was comprehension of the situation, which would allow us to propose a system for implementing QM at research organisations. The reality observed at research organisations 19 Through the field work we were able to note that there are several situations present at research organisations which complicate management: 21 — the freedom granted to researchers for the registering of or the traceability of their activities; — the diversity of activity fields, working methods and activities; — the large quantity of records (digital reports and files in particular) to be managed; — the large turn-over of researchers, — the difficulty of establishing, from the beginning of a project, the objective to be fulfilled and therefore the precise characteristics of the product of research (which could be a physical product or a conceptual product) and — the difficulty of access to the history of the realization of a project. 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 In addition, interviews with the managers of the laboratory we studied verified that the objective of research activity could be defined as the growth of knowledge. In contrast, we noted that there are certain practices, such as the freedom granted to researchers, that affect the results obtained. The disparities in the contents registered by researchers entail differences in the information transferred from one project to another, affecting the sharing and capitalisation of knowledge. Therefore, an 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 6 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 00143 A. Jaime et al. important question that arises is how to structure and instrument activity in order to manage and capitalise the knowledge produced. We think that QM could be used for this purpose, given the formalisation of practices and the constant improvement spiral it induces in the main processes of the organisations who adopt it. A project-driven mode of operation Another important aspect regarding research activities is that, according to the results of research in the sociology of sciences and our own observations, they are usually developed in the form of more or less structured research projects. Vinck (1995) writes The activities in the laboratory are structured in projects. The project is a sequential unit whose completion is the writing of a research report or of a publication. The project seems to be the unit of organization that allows the allocation of tasks to members of the laboratory, the ordering supplies, the preparation of equipment, the proposing of phenomena to be studied and the defining of the orientation of library research . . . although the various tasks of a project can be carried out by different people, work is often carried out by only one person. The reason given by researchers is the need to access the history of the procedure by which the phenomenon is made visible. These observations lead us to consider the practices regarding the management of projects in a way that allows us to take advantage of the knowledge acquired and produced in an on-going project for the development of subsequent projects. From a sociological point of view, a very important aspect seems to be the need to know the contingent history2 associated with the constitution of a phenomenon or with the establishment of a fact or a statement. Given this history and the high mobility of researchers, the issue of the documentation, as a way of elucidating the process carried out, becomes a concern for the researchers themselves when they are involved in the reconsideration of a former stage or when they have to take charge of a project started by a colleague. This aspect directs our attention towards acute problems of traceability. A basic problem is to know how to document and transmit the information relating to 2 The expression “contingent history” is used here in the sense that the realisation of research projects entails contingencies, and as a consequence may present an important variability from one project to the next. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 7 7 intermediate choices and results as a way of supporting the realisation of subsequent research phases or projects.3 In this context, we have studied the various approaches used by some research entities implementing a QM system. We paid special attention to the management of information (data, documents, etc.), since “knowledge is based on data and information” (Wunram et al., 2002). In the next section, we explain the positioning of QM and our observations regarding its introduction at research organisations. Research Organisations and Quality Management 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 The role of QM Some institutions around the world have recognised the importance of implementing QM practices into the research activities. This has led them to establish some directives indicating the implementation of this practice into scientific environments. Examples include the U.S. Department of Energy which, in 1991, established that the basic and applied research facilities sponsored by the Office of Energy Research “shall develop, implement, and maintain a written Quality Assurance Program”, NASA which, in 1996, decided “to be leaders in the world of quality” (Kasvi et al., 2003), and the AFNOR which, in 2001, published a documentation booklet (AFNOR, 2001) that proposes the application of QM to the research process. The latter is meant to be the first work of this kind at an international level. It marks a very important step forward in QM in research, given its official nature and its broad application spectrum. The considerations that preceded the publication of this document indicated that the key word in this context is “confidence”, mainly between the laboratory and the external actors (Groupe De Travail Français “Qualité en Recherche”, 1997). Therefore, QM is seen as a way of keeping scientific rigour and obtaining valid results. This would imply the establishment of procedures to maintain the quality of the research activity during all the scientific production process until the validation of results. In the AFNOR document (AFNOR, 2001), “the approach proposed consists of “Co-producing quality, the knowledge and knowhow associated, by the ensemble of the involved parts within the framework of a progressive and continuous learning process”. Nevertheless, the recommendations given are rather general.4 Consequently, it would be necessary to define and implement methods to manage this process in order to try to reach a quality level resulting from the quality of the process. 3 See Kasvi et al. (2003), Schindler and Eppler (2003) and Szulanski (2000). 4 See (AFNOR, 2004). 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 8 1 3 00143 A. Jaime et al. Given these claims, we wanted to compare them to the reasons expressed by the organisations that have actually started working on these processes. This is the subject we present in the next section. The motivations behind work on QM 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 The research projects carried out at the observed organisation (see section “The reality observed at research organisations”) is based on the works done by those who are its initial founders and current directors. Therefore, the coherence of the research results with the basic initial concepts is considered fundamental to ensure robustness in the evolution of the work. Consequently, they realised the need for establishing QM practices that allow: 1. the maintenance of respect for the basic theoretical principles, 2. the maintenance of coherence between the activities and 3. the facilitation of project development. According to one of the directors, the volatility of concepts, of “knowledge” necessitates the implementation of the means to maintain them, which means guaranteeing their conformity to the original meaning and their transmissibility. This is an essential aspect regarding the implementation of QM measures in research organisations: respect for concepts is one of its major concerns. The problems are mainly related to the maintenance of the knowledge concerning the scientific concepts that support the activity, because its respect, by all the actors who take part in the research process, is difficult to attain given the characteristics of the research organisation (see section “The reality observed at research organisations”). Nevertheless, there is a divergence between this vision of the management, and the perception of the personnel, who express a lack of structure in the activity, which is reflected in very practical situations that affect daily activity. The management has acknowledged this situation and has concluded that the absence of external directives leads to a situation where “the first customer of the organization is the team itself”. It is thus necessary to implement a system that respects the management’s vision and that, at the same time, satisfies the staff needs. This situation is verified in the organisations in which we conducted interviews. All of them, with one exception, started working on QM because of internal needs. Most of them perceived the need for improvement and found in QM concepts a possible answer to their concerns. Hence, the motivation comes from inside and not from outside the organisation. This observation is important mainly for two reasons: First, the concern stated by the AFNOR about the confidence of research actors in research results (see 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 9 previous section) was not verified by the cases we observed. If the motivation of these organisations was confidence, that would mean implementing actions to respond to a need for validation of research results. However, scientific practices already include validation methodologies, and therefore, QM is seen rather as a means to structure the activities of the organisation. Consequently, and here we arrive at the second reason, the implementation of the system should focus on the need for ensuring robustness, answering manager’s needs, structuring activities to facilitate their completion and, in this way, responding to the needs of the personnel. Therefore, we will aim at finding ways to support the research process and not for ways of assuring the quality of research results. Experience of the introduction of QM To enhance our understanding of the problems seen and to have sufficient elements for analysis, we carried out eight interviews in seven research organisations, located in Grenoble (France) and attached to the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research of France). These interviews account for approximately 16 h of voice recordings. These recordings were comprehensively transcribed. They were then analysed to define the possible existing trends in the implementation processes. The organisations where we conducted interviews are important research laboratories, with the exception of a service that works for the research laboratories as a supplier of special equipment for research projects. Most of these organisations have been engaged in QM since the year 2001. The systems observed are inspired by the principles of the standard ISO 9001 (AFNOR, 2000b) and have resulted in the establishment of information systems that aim to facilitate the completion of repetitive processes. In addition, the basic difference between the quality systems is related to the type of activity carried out: two of the organisations work in applied research (or the quality system is used only for this activity) while the others work mainly on basic research. This results in divergent ways of establishing the systems: the first group, those that work on applied research, followed a traditional process for the establishment of a quality system according to the standard ISO 9001 (AFNOR, 2000b), while the second group, those that work on basic research, has been forced to carry out an analysis on the way the directives of this standard could be applied to research in order to adapt them to their own mode of operating. This situation suggests differences in the methodologies that should be used according to the activities relevant to the QM system. We are interested in the second group, as is the one focused on basic research, where traditional methodologies for implementing QM need to be adapted. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 10 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 00143 A. Jaime et al. The link between QM and KM The observations we made lead us to understand that research organisations have two kinds of activities: scientific activities (basic and applied research), which are responsible for the production of knowledge; and support activities, which allow the development of scientific activities. However, the cases we have observed show that the implementation of QM starts with support activities. Here, the quality concepts and methods are easily applied by using a methodology based on two elements: — The formalisation of activities through the definition of procedures and other support documents that specify the way in which these activities should be carried out. — The definition of standardised practices for the management of the related documents. The introduction of quality practices to support activities allows the personnel to get familiar with the quality concepts and methods. At the very beginning of the implementation process, these concepts and methods are considered to be completely abstract and difficult to internalise, as they do not belong to the traditional practices used by research organisations. Regarding the implementation of QM in scientific activities, it has been observed that the organisations are able to implement it for technical activities and for scientific data management. However, the implementation in research is considered harder and, therefore, needs to be undertaken only at a later stage, when practices have somewhat stabilised in support activities. There seems to be two reasons for this situation: — First, a defined methodology to apply quality management to scientific activities does not exist. — Second, the results obtained by applying quality management to organisational aspects are easily perceived in the short term by the personnel. A third cause of this situation could be resistance to change. The laboratories undertake their research activities by following the practices traditionally used in research.5 However, to implement a quality system in research activity directly affects the central activity of the organisation. In addition, it should not be forgotten that the phenomenon of quality in research is rather recent. It is thus understandable that the systems initially address the aspects perceived of as accessible. Additionally, we observe that the lack of documented 5 We refer mainly to the freedom given to research teams and to project leaders to decide on the procedures used for the realization of research activity. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 11 Research organisations Support activities Scientific activities (Knowledge production) QM Organizational aspects QM & KM Fig. 1. The link between QM and KM. 1 3 5 7 9 case studies of the implementation of QM in basic research activities is a factor that affects enthusiasm for such a process. For this reason, and taking into account that the resource used and produced out of research activities is knowledge, our hypothesis is that KM should support the implementation of QM in these activities (Fig. 1). These days, some laboratories are starting to consider the role of KM in their activities. The integration of this principle is expected to be made within the framework of QM as an evolution of this methodology. We shall now present our observations related to certain major elements of the KM theory. KM in Research Organisations 11 13 15 17 As we have already mentioned, our interest is centered on QM in research organisations as establishments devoted to the production of knowledge. It is then possible to see the existing relationship with the objectives of KM which have been defined by Steels (1993) as “to promote knowledge growth, knowledge communication and knowledge preservation”. For this reason, we will now present some elements we consider important regarding knowledge management practices in the surveyed research organisations. The current KM practices in research organisations 19 The assertions in terms of capitalisation 21 Grundstein (1995) says that there is a “logic of capitalization that proceeds according to two lines of thought: 23 25 27 • One line of thought is orientated towards the management of knowledge (management of technical data, document management, management of configurations); • Another line of thought is orientated towards the formalization of know-how (acquisition/representation of the fields of knowledge and of the reasoning relating to this knowledge).” 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 12 1 3 00143 A. Jaime et al. We are going to analyse the way in which these lines of thought are present at the research organisations we have observed. We will look into the way in which the implementation of QM has contributed to the “logic of capitalization”. Observations concerning capitalisation 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 The QM systems implemented in the research organisations studied up until the time of writing are orientated towards the first line of thinking (management of knowledge). They started with the objective of improving the organisational aspects, mainly through the writing of documents (operational procedures and documents). For the management of these documents, this methodology has been translated into information systems, often an Intranet that sometimes manages other documents of the organisation. This verifies the situation described by Gandon et al. (2002) about the use of Intranets and the Web as means to manage documentation.6 However, the information systems that we have observed were only used for the management of documents directly related to the quality system. Unlike the aim of projects like CoMMA (Galandere-Zile et al., 2002), they do not seek “the management and the circulation of distributed knowledge”. At least this is not the case for knowledge that surpasses the limits of the one explicitly present in the QM system. For the laboratories that we studied, the documents resulting from the research process are, in most cases, not managed by these systems. The systems aim to facilitate the realisation of the activities by providing a tool that makes it possible to find documents or information and to organise those produced. The principle of re-utilisation is implicitly present, but not explicitly expressed. In other words, the systems are developed in order to organise more than to re-use. In any case, they give elements that make it possible to find documents for their use. Concerning the second line of thinking (the formalisation of knowhow), it could be said that, usually, implementing QM means formalising at least a part of the know-how used by the employees of an organisation. In the research organisations we studied and where we performed interviews, this has been done for the administrative activities, such as purchasing or contracting. In contrast, this line of thinking has not been yet addressed for research activities, which continue to function mainly with little formalisation of the related know-how. Within this framework, we believe that there is an important place for the utilisation of knowledge capitalisation methodologies. However, the observed cases of 6 Gandon et al. (2002) write “Organisations take advantage of internet technologies to simplify the diffusion of knowledge, leading to the setup of intranets. Web technologies are used to setup corporate webs to distribute information in a uniform way independently of the information storage (Corby and Dieng, 1997)”. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 13 implementation of QM do not take them into account in an explicit way. For that reason, we consider it important to explore the concept of corporate memory, whose construction could be considered as one of the main elements for knowledge capitalisation. In the next section, we will present this concept and examine its meaning in the scientific environment. The corporate memory of research organisations 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 When talking about knowledge capitalisation, scholars have developed the concept of corporate or organisational memory, which we consider useful for understanding certain aspects of the research activity. The reason can be expressed by quoting Stein (1995) who says that “Organizational Memory is the means by which knowledge from the past is brought to bear on present activities, thus resulting in higher or lower levels of organizational effectiveness”.7 It is then pertinent to analyse this concept in the context of research organisations wanting to better manage their knowledge production activities. In this framework, we find the definition of organisational memory proposed by Van Heijst et al. (1997) to be suitable given the elucidation tradition existing in research. He defines it as “an explicit, disembodied, persistent representation of the knowledge and information in an organization.” For starters, we have seen that the implementation of QM is used mainly for support activities. In other words, there is an effort of formalisation and capitalisation of the organisational memory for support activities, which is not accompanied by a similar effort for scientific activities. In this context, know-how corresponds to knowledge of the way of carrying out research projects and the activities that support them. This know-how forms part of the tacit competences8 of researchers and is consequently not formalised. Additionally, scientific knowledge is the main raw material of the activity, mobilised by the creativity of the researcher. Therefore, the principles that try to organise research activity, or part of it, can be perceived of as being non-applicable because they could be seen as constraining and/or opposite to imaginative creation. However, we believe that it is possible to implement practices which allow the generated knowledge to be located, preserved, shared and brought up to date (Grundstein, 2002) for the benefit of the research activity itself. According to the AFNOR, a process is a “set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs” (AFNOR, 2000a). When talking about the research process, one could say that it uses as main raw material (as input) 7 He adds that memories are “a particular type of information” and that “a memory is a persistent record not dependent on a tight coupling between sender and receiver”. 8 See Van Heijst et al. (1997). 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 14 00143 A. Jaime et al. p Fig. 2. The research process. 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 the knowledge accessible to the researchers, internally and externally, in order to produce new knowledge (the output of the process). Thus, the research process could be represented as shown in Fig. 2. For that reason, we find that the typology of corporate memory suggested by Dieng et al. (1999) appears to be pertinent in this context. This typology distinguishes between the internal memory ( “corresponding to knowledge and information internal to the company”) and the external memory (“corresponding to knowledge and information useful for the company but coming from the external world”). According to these authors, the role of corporate memory is to provide “the right knowledge or information to the right person at the right time and at the right level” (Dieng et al., 1999). Consequently, the accomplishment of the research process could be related in a very important way to the researchers’ access to both of these memories and to their capacity to mobilise them. It would then be desirable to incorporate measures to facilitate the researchers’ access to the internal and external memory. The position expressed by Groleau (2002) could be used to support this idea. She says that “the possibility of increasing the effectiveness of work within organizations greatly depends on the configuration of information sources offered to workers in that environment, the vision they offer and the competence of workers to act upon it”. Therefore, the knowledge capitalisation process should have to take into account these two kinds of memories (internal and external). Additionally, as the activity is basically organised in projects, project memory “comprising the project definition, activities, history and results” (Dieng et al., 1999) could be seen as the main constituent of the internal memory, and therefore should be also considered. As we have shown, we are confronted with a situation where QM starts to introduce some elements (formalisation, document management and the ideas which develop from the implementation process) that could support the introduction of 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 00143 From Quality Management to Knowledge Management in Research Organisations 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 15 KM in activities where both internal and external memories are important for the accomplishment of the activity. For that reason, we propose an approach for the implementation of QM in research organisations that incorporates KM. This is the subject we will develop in the next section. Proposal of Implementation of QM in Research Organisations Our proposal is to use QM to introduce the principles of KM, making it possible to capitalise the knowledge produced when undertaking research projects as a way to improve the knowledge production process. Thus, inspired by the recommendations given by the AFNOR (2001), we propose a representation of the method as shown in Fig. 3. This diagram emphasises the importance of documentation throughout the whole research process and thus of its management to support the process of knowledge creation. The subjacent idea is that there is knowledge produced throughout the research process, which is partially elucidated through documents, so it could be profitable to exploit this potential. The proposed approach is that QM methods be used together with KM methods for reinforcing a “logic of capitalization” supported by the construction and maintenance of the organisational memory related to the completion of research activities. The subjacent idea is to support the research process by improving the Fig. 3. Implementation of QM in research organisations. 1st Reading March 1, 2006 19:39 WSPC/150-IJIM 16 1 3 5 7 00143 A. Jaime et al. inputs (information and data) provided to researchers, by helping them build the organisational memory as an integral part of their activities. The challenge is to find ways for effectively implementing it without increasing the work load of researcher. For that reason, we envision the use of information technologies that could support researchers in their daily activities and, at the same time, support the construction of the organisational memory. This is the subject we will explore in the next phase of our research. Conclusions 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 Our research started with the thoughts of organisations that recommended QM as a means to support the research process. We have verified that the fundamental problems of the research organisations we studied are neither the confidence of the research players nor the reliability of the knowledge produced, but the improvement of activities carried out. Consequently, our research was aimed at finding ways to support the knowledge production process and not the quality of the research results. Accordingly, we proposed a representation of QM in research organisations that incorporates KM. The idea is to take advantage of both of these approaches in order to address not only the organisational aspects but also the ones related to the production of knowledge. The next phase of our research will be to establish the instruments that could be concretely used for incorporating KM into research activities. References AFNOR (2000a). NF EN ISO 9000 — 2000 “Système de management de la qualité — Principes essentiels et vocabulaire”. AFNOR, Paris. AFNOR (2000b). NF EN ISO 9001 — 2000 “Système de management de la qualité — Exigences”. AFNOR, Paris. AFNOR (2001). Fascicule de Documentation FD X 50 — 550 “Démarche qualité en recherche — Principes généraux et recommandations”. AFNOR, Paris. AFNOR (2004). 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