- Email: [email protected]
Human aspects of the management of drug discovery knowledge
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies Editors-in-Chief Kelvin Lam – Pfizer, Inc., USA Henk Timmerman – Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands DRUG DISCOVERY
TODAY
TECHNOLOGIES
Knowledge management
Human aspects of the management of drug discovery knowledge Thomas H. Davenport1,*, Manuel C. Peitsch2 1 2
Babson College, Wellesly, MA, USA Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
A well-defined strategy for knowledge management is
Section Editor: Manuel Peitsch – Novartis, Switzerland
a key success factor of any knowledge-intensive industry. This applies particularly well to pharmaceutical drug discovery, which is one of the most knowledgeintensive processes. The subject has only rarely been studied in the context of pharmaceutical firms and we can only extrapolate a limited number of findings from other industries. Here, we look at five key human aspects of knowledge management (social networks and communities of practice, the roles of professional knowledge managers, the behaviors and processes of knowledge workers, management strategies and tactics and the role of the external work environment) and how they apply to the drug discovery process.
Introduction Despite all the attention given to IT tools (repositories, document sharing, electronic lab notebooks, among others) in managing knowledge for drug discovery, those who have attempted to implement knowledge management in the process generally agree that human issues are more difficult to address. Knowledge is an intangible and invisible asset and whether it is created, shared or used effectively is largely a function of human will and skill. If a scientist does not want to share his or her knowledge, it is difficult to command its sharing. In this article, then, we review the key human issues in knowledge management for drug discovery and the per*Corresponding author: T.H. Davenport ([email protected]) 1740-6749/$ ß 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ddtec.2005.08.008
spectives and findings in the literature on the topic. The field is both nascent and subjective; only a few of the studies are rigorous. Very few studies are specifically about drug discovery processes or scientists; we must generalize from knowledge workers in general. Yet, there is sufficient consensus among researchers and writers on these issues to provide practitioners with a useful set of guidelines. There are at least five key domains of human factors that drive success in knowledge management for drug discovery. They include:
social networks and communities of practice; the roles of professional knowledge managers; the behaviors and processes of knowledge workers; management strategies and tactics; and the role of the external work environment.
Each of these factors interacts and intersects with information technology as an enabler (or occasionally as a disabler) of knowledge management, and where relevant we will briefly describe the technologies that organizations use to support each factor.
Social networks and communities of practice Knowledge flows through networks – not only technological but also social. It is widely agreed in the literature that if there are no social ties between two researchers – if they do not know, trust, see or even like each other, there will be little www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
205
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
likelihood of knowledge flowing between them. The popular image is that success in drug discovery results from the individual genius of the lone scientist but almost everything within that process today happens in teams and groups. The groups might not even be formal; one key component of managing knowledge is the ‘community of practice,’ or ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’ [1]. Hargadon [2] has argued persuasively in a recent book that virtually all corporate innovation is a function of social networks and communities of practice. One seemingly obvious, but important, advance in social networks is the recognition that there are different degrees of network connectedness between individuals. The sociologist Mark Granovetter [3] described the difference between strong and weak network ties. Strong ties are close, personal relationships involving frequent face-to-face interactions; weak ties are those we share with acquaintances rather than friends or close colleagues. Granovetter showed that some forms of simple knowledge – such as the existence of an open job – are most likely to be obtained through weak ties, in part, because we all have more weak ties than strong ties. Electronic communications such as electronic mail are likely to provide sufficient support for weak ties but not for strong ties. Further research by Cole [4], however, suggests that knowledge around complex issues requiring considerable organizational change to adopt (e.g. the migration of Total Quality Management ideas from one part of a large multinational to another) requires strong ties. Research in a semiconductor company [5] found that the best predictor of the transfer of manufacturing technologies was the amount of time that donating engineers spent at the plant of receiving engineers. Thomas Allen [6], a researcher of networking and communications behaviors of scientists and engineers, has done considerable work relating to physical proximity and frequency of communication. His research has established, for example, that two engineers whose desks are more than 30 m apart (i.e. beyond casual interaction distance) will have an average frequency of communication near zero. Thus social networks are difficult to establish over a distance, at least if there have not been considerable face-to-face ties beforehand. This finding has not been tested since the advent of widespread electronic communications but it is still probable that people establish strong ties with people whom they have spent time with face to face. There are many different purposes to which one can put social network analysis. These might include, for example, network analyses before and after an organizational change (a merger of two departments, for example) to understand the impact of the change on network ties or help identify the people who act as key knowledge hubs in an organiza206
www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
tion. Regular analysis of these social networks will help managers understand the progress they are making with their teams and allow them to redraft knowledge sharing objectives in line with their strategy. Until recently, there was no guide to how such analyses might fit the different objectives of knowledge management. A recent book, however, provides such a guide [7]. A typical social network diagram can be analyzed, for example, in terms of the relationships necessary for knowledge to flow easily across an organization. There are a variety of technologies that support social networks, ranging from basic collaboration tools such as email, ‘discussion databases’ (team spaces and Internet-based discussion groups) to videoconferencing and ‘presence’ technologies (a simple example is the instant messaging ‘buddy list’) that let someone know whether colleagues are available for electronic communication. Most of these technologies – including discussion databases such as Groove – are sufficiently mature to facilitate network relationships across corporate ‘firewalls’. An ever-increasing challenge in larger corporations is gaining access to internal experts in a variety of fields. In this context, ‘Expert Location Systems’ containing information about people’s expertise – actively supplied by the user community or computationally inferred from sources such as email or literature databases – are proving useful and allow for more rapid access to members of a particular network of experts.
The roles of professional knowledge managers Although the behavior of knowledge management ‘amateurs’ – that is professional scientists – is the ultimate target for knowledge initiatives, those behaviors might not be elicited without the diligent efforts of professional knowledge managers. They play a variety of important roles in making knowledge management successful. Most obviously, they manage knowledge-oriented technologies and IT infrastructure. The knowledge repositories, discussion databases, collaboration systems and other technologies for knowledge management hardly manage themselves and their management benefits from the attention of professionals who understand how knowledge is structured, stored and used. Building systems in which knowledge is embedded in work processes is particularly difficult. The roles of knowledge management professionals with regard to technology have been described by Davenport and Prusak [8] and Tiwana [9]. There are also the ‘librarian’ roles for knowledge management. Some key functions of knowledge managers involve creating firm-specific taxonomies (such as compounds, products, acronyms), maintaining both acquired and homegrown nomenclatures and ontologies, evaluating new contributions for classification and uniqueness and pruning outdated knowledge objects from repositories. Many of the
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
library-oriented roles for knowledge professionals have been described by Choo [10]. Once an organization realizes that social networks and communities of practice are important to knowledge creation and transfer, it soon discovers that such networks need facilitation. A recent book on how to create and manage communities of practice [11] suggests that many such groups perform better with a support team that encourages contributions, makes introductions across the network and builds social cohesion through events and face-to-face meetings.
Behaviors and processes of knowledge workers Although the activities of knowledge management professionals are important, most organizations ultimately desire to have the primary work done by ‘amateurs,’ that is, knowledge workers. In the case of drug discovery, the goal is to change the behaviors and work processes of scientists and technicians in such a way that they create, share and use knowledge more efficiently and effectively. Every firm or organization comprises a particular ‘knowledge market’ in which knowledge is exchanged for other knowledge or for other goods and services [8]. If the knowledge market in a firm is working well, a scientist will share his or her knowledge freely with others in the expectation that their knowledge will be shared equally freely. Of course, there are many barriers to such free exchange. Most firms reward scientists on the basis of their individual yearly (semi-)quantitative goals (identifying new drug targets, synthesizing new compounds, among others) rather than on the body of knowledge that they share. It can, hence, be rational behavior to hoard knowledge. Executives overseeing drug discovery processes must understand the knowledge behaviors that make knowledge markets work and create work environments and incentive structures that encourage those behaviors. A good overview of the conditions in which people search for information is found in Choo et al. [12]. As organizations and jobs become more pressed for time and productivity, both the need for timely and contextual information and the productivity of information creation and dissemination have increased. This has a profound impact on knowledge behaviors and calls for a better understanding of the preferences regarding how (and how much) information or knowledge is shared. This should lead to better knowledge-sharing practices. While for a long time, managers preferred receiving their information from fellow colleagues and associates rather than via computer-based means [13], most scientists and technical staff are increasingly comfortable with e-libraries. Consequently, physical libraries are less used, leading to their consolidation. The impact of easy-to-use technology – such as email – on information sharing has contributed to an ever-increasing feeling of information overload, which adds to the time pressures under which associates work. Because people have a limited
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
capacity for information and knowledge uptake, they will simply not be able to cope with every additional database and the daily onslaught of emails. Furthermore, some recent research suggests that individuals are more likely to access and read knowledge when it arrives in small chunks at predictable intervals than when the flow is irregular [14]. Therefore, every worker increasingly faces the challenge to access the right information and knowledge at the right time. The consequence is that instead of knowledge repositories being ‘browsed’ at leisure, they will have to be embedded into work processes and presented to scientists and technicians through technology without their requesting it and at the time of need. This approach is increasingly found in health care, where physicians need much more knowledge than they can keep in their heads and where there is little time for browsing or searching knowledge bases. One leading example is at Partners Health Care in Boston, where an intelligent physician order entry system has led to a 55% reduction in adverse drug events. [15]. We are only beginning to observe knowledge sharing behaviors and much more research is needed to understand knowledge workers as they go about their work. At Xerox, for example, this type of ‘ethnographic’ analysis uncovered the fact that copier repair technicians do a great deal of knowledge sharing over breaks and lunches with their colleagues [16]. The company had originally intended to reduce these breaks but then, realized their value in a knowledge context.
Line management strategies and tactics There is little direct research on the role of line management because it relates to knowledge creation, transfer or use – in the pharmaceutical industry or elsewhere. However, it stands to reason that how a manager manages has a great deal to do with how knowledge flows within an organization. One obvious factor is the role of the line manager in encouraging networking, sharing and trusting within the organization he or she manages. A rare study of biotechnology firms [17] found that creativity and innovation – as measured by the median age of cited patents in a company’s new patent applications – was correlated with workplace cultures that focused on developing community, as opposed to a bureaucratic hierarchy. This is consistent with other research in other industries (e.g. Silicon Valley firms) suggesting that researchers want community as well as autonomy. A common way to improve work performance is to impose a process orientation, with process goals, measures and standard procedures. Process improvement and management have been widely applied across industries, although these approaches have been less often applied to research and development processes in pharmaceutical firms and even less frequently to knowledge-sharing activities. It has www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
207
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
been suggested that a less-structured ‘practice’ approach – one involving autonomy and observation, rather than a specified set of tasks – is better suited to information and knowledge sharing among knowledge workers [18]. Managers of researchers can also set expectations – which are typically consistent with academic cultures – that drug development processes should build on past knowledge and that all previous knowledge should be brought to bear on a new project. This topic is known in other industries as ‘intellectual asset reuse,’ and there is some research on it [19,20]. Managers who support the principle must be willing to invest in the creation of reusable assets, that is, those that are well-documented, made available in a repository and protected over time. Managers can also facilitate knowledge behaviors by serving as role models. By their own example, they can illustrate the virtues of communal and knowledge-sharing behaviors. At one firm, for example, the head of drug development appeared at many research seminars and forums, which indicated to those in his organization that such attendance was desirable. Managers can also stimulate research cultures by hiring or providing research opportunities for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows. Managers of global drug development organizations also need to consider cross-cultural management differences and their relationship to knowledge. Although Holden’s [21] research on this issue is primarily about the transfer of culture across organizations, many of his lessons and case studies can also be applied to the transfer of other forms of knowledge, including that in drug discovery.
External contextual factors There is little doubt that several external contextual factors can impact knowledge management in drug discovery through their impacts on people and human relationships. One of the most prominent factors is the physical work environment. Several pharmaceutical firms are beginning to create new facilities with the implicit or explicit objective of improving collaboration and ultimately productivity. Some firms and researchers argue, for example, that more open offices create more open communication and collaboration [22]. Other pharmaceutical firms have put ‘conversation plazas’ or ‘community hearths’ in place to stimulate informal collaboration. However, there is typically little measurement of the impact of these new facilities; in essence, these constitute experiments with no measurement or experimental rigor [23]. Many of the mobile workplace environments that other industries have experimented with, including ‘virtual offices’ and ‘hotelling,’ do not appear frequently in drug discovery environments because of the importance of fixed laboratory facilities. Even if they were common, they do not lead to the communal work cultures that seem to stimulate innovation and drug development productivity [24]. 208
www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
Organizational structures also have an impact on knowledge sharing. It has been suggested, for example, that crossfunctional ‘platform teams’ in the automobile industry contributed to knowledge sharing in the new car development process [5]. One might suggest that similar team structures in drug development processes also bring about a higher degree of knowledge sharing although we know of no specific studies of that issue.
Conclusion There is much more that we do not know about knowledge management in drug discovery than what we do know. The subject has only rarely been studied in the context of pharmaceutical firms and we can only extrapolate a limited number of findings from other industries. Yet, drug discovery is one of the most knowledge-intensive processes, and the ability to create, share and apply knowledge is crucial to its success. There are many attributes of the organizational and work environment that affect these knowledge behaviors. Each intervention that organizations make into this process is itself an opportunity to test and learn. If organizations apply the same discipline to studying knowledge management that they do to chemistry and biology, we will rapidly acquire knowledge about this important topic.
References 1 Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice. Cambridge University Press 2 Hargadon, A.B. (2003) How Breakthroughs Happen. Harvard Business School Press 3 Granovetter, M.S. (1973) The strength of weak ties. Am. J. Sociol. 78, 1360– 1380 4 Cole, R.E. (1999) Managing Quality Fads: How American Business Learned to Play the Quality Game. Oxford University Press 5 Davenport, T.H. (1997) Information Ecology. Oxford University Press 6 Allen, T. (1986) Managing the Flow of Technology. MIT Press 7 Cross, R. and Parker, A. (2004) The Hidden Power of Social Networks. Harvard Business School Press 8 Davenport, T.H. and Prusak, L. (1998) Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Harvard Business School Press 9 Tiwana, A. (1999) The Knowledge Management Toolkit. Pearson 10 Choo, C.W. (2002) Information Management for the Intelligent Organization. ASIS Monograph series (3rd ed.). Information Today 11 Wenger, E. et al. (2002) Cultivating Communities of Practice. Harvard Business School Press 12 Choo, C.W. et al. (2000) Web Work: Information Seeking and Knowledge Work on the World Wide Web. Kluwer Academic 13 McKinnon, S.M. and Bruns, W.J. (1992) The Information Mosaic. Harvard Business School Press 14 Hansen, M.T. and Haas, M.R. (2001) Competing for attention in knowledge markets: electronic document dissemination in a management consulting company. Admin. Sci. Q. 46, 1–29 15 Davenport, T.H. and Glaser, J. (2002) Just in time delivery comes to knowledge management. Harvard Business Rev. 107–111 ( http:// harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/hbr/hbr_home.jhtml) 16 Orr, J.E. (1996) Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job. Institute for Research on Learning Press 17 Judge, W.Q. et al. (1997) The new task of R&D management: creating goal directed communities of innovation. Calif. Manage. Rev. 39, 72– 84
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18 19 20 21
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2000) The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press Davenport, T.H. et al. (2003) Reusing intellectual assets. Ind. Manage. 45, 12–17 Markus, M.L. (2001) Towards a theory of knowledge reuse. J. Manage. Inform. Syst. 18, 57–94 Holden, N. (2002) Cross-Cultural Management: A Knowledge Management Perspective. Financial Times/Prentice Hall
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
22
23 24
Becker, F. and Sims, W. (2001) Offices that work: balancing cost, flexibility, and communication. Cornell University International Workplace Studies Program Davenport, T.H. et al. (2003) The mysterious art and science of knowledgeworker performance. Sloan Manage. Rev. 44, 23–30 Prusak, L. and Cohen, D. (2001) In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Harvard Business School Press
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Drug Discovery Today: Technologies Editors-in-Chief Kelvin Lam – Pfizer, Inc., USA Henk Timmerman – Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands DRUG DISCOVERY
TODAY
TECHNOLOGIES
Knowledge management
Human aspects of the management of drug discovery knowledge Thomas H. Davenport1,*, Manuel C. Peitsch2 1 2
Babson College, Wellesly, MA, USA Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
A well-defined strategy for knowledge management is
Section Editor: Manuel Peitsch – Novartis, Switzerland
a key success factor of any knowledge-intensive industry. This applies particularly well to pharmaceutical drug discovery, which is one of the most knowledgeintensive processes. The subject has only rarely been studied in the context of pharmaceutical firms and we can only extrapolate a limited number of findings from other industries. Here, we look at five key human aspects of knowledge management (social networks and communities of practice, the roles of professional knowledge managers, the behaviors and processes of knowledge workers, management strategies and tactics and the role of the external work environment) and how they apply to the drug discovery process.
Introduction Despite all the attention given to IT tools (repositories, document sharing, electronic lab notebooks, among others) in managing knowledge for drug discovery, those who have attempted to implement knowledge management in the process generally agree that human issues are more difficult to address. Knowledge is an intangible and invisible asset and whether it is created, shared or used effectively is largely a function of human will and skill. If a scientist does not want to share his or her knowledge, it is difficult to command its sharing. In this article, then, we review the key human issues in knowledge management for drug discovery and the per*Corresponding author: T.H. Davenport ([email protected]) 1740-6749/$ ß 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ddtec.2005.08.008
spectives and findings in the literature on the topic. The field is both nascent and subjective; only a few of the studies are rigorous. Very few studies are specifically about drug discovery processes or scientists; we must generalize from knowledge workers in general. Yet, there is sufficient consensus among researchers and writers on these issues to provide practitioners with a useful set of guidelines. There are at least five key domains of human factors that drive success in knowledge management for drug discovery. They include:
social networks and communities of practice; the roles of professional knowledge managers; the behaviors and processes of knowledge workers; management strategies and tactics; and the role of the external work environment.
Each of these factors interacts and intersects with information technology as an enabler (or occasionally as a disabler) of knowledge management, and where relevant we will briefly describe the technologies that organizations use to support each factor.
Social networks and communities of practice Knowledge flows through networks – not only technological but also social. It is widely agreed in the literature that if there are no social ties between two researchers – if they do not know, trust, see or even like each other, there will be little www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
205
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
likelihood of knowledge flowing between them. The popular image is that success in drug discovery results from the individual genius of the lone scientist but almost everything within that process today happens in teams and groups. The groups might not even be formal; one key component of managing knowledge is the ‘community of practice,’ or ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’ [1]. Hargadon [2] has argued persuasively in a recent book that virtually all corporate innovation is a function of social networks and communities of practice. One seemingly obvious, but important, advance in social networks is the recognition that there are different degrees of network connectedness between individuals. The sociologist Mark Granovetter [3] described the difference between strong and weak network ties. Strong ties are close, personal relationships involving frequent face-to-face interactions; weak ties are those we share with acquaintances rather than friends or close colleagues. Granovetter showed that some forms of simple knowledge – such as the existence of an open job – are most likely to be obtained through weak ties, in part, because we all have more weak ties than strong ties. Electronic communications such as electronic mail are likely to provide sufficient support for weak ties but not for strong ties. Further research by Cole [4], however, suggests that knowledge around complex issues requiring considerable organizational change to adopt (e.g. the migration of Total Quality Management ideas from one part of a large multinational to another) requires strong ties. Research in a semiconductor company [5] found that the best predictor of the transfer of manufacturing technologies was the amount of time that donating engineers spent at the plant of receiving engineers. Thomas Allen [6], a researcher of networking and communications behaviors of scientists and engineers, has done considerable work relating to physical proximity and frequency of communication. His research has established, for example, that two engineers whose desks are more than 30 m apart (i.e. beyond casual interaction distance) will have an average frequency of communication near zero. Thus social networks are difficult to establish over a distance, at least if there have not been considerable face-to-face ties beforehand. This finding has not been tested since the advent of widespread electronic communications but it is still probable that people establish strong ties with people whom they have spent time with face to face. There are many different purposes to which one can put social network analysis. These might include, for example, network analyses before and after an organizational change (a merger of two departments, for example) to understand the impact of the change on network ties or help identify the people who act as key knowledge hubs in an organiza206
www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
tion. Regular analysis of these social networks will help managers understand the progress they are making with their teams and allow them to redraft knowledge sharing objectives in line with their strategy. Until recently, there was no guide to how such analyses might fit the different objectives of knowledge management. A recent book, however, provides such a guide [7]. A typical social network diagram can be analyzed, for example, in terms of the relationships necessary for knowledge to flow easily across an organization. There are a variety of technologies that support social networks, ranging from basic collaboration tools such as email, ‘discussion databases’ (team spaces and Internet-based discussion groups) to videoconferencing and ‘presence’ technologies (a simple example is the instant messaging ‘buddy list’) that let someone know whether colleagues are available for electronic communication. Most of these technologies – including discussion databases such as Groove – are sufficiently mature to facilitate network relationships across corporate ‘firewalls’. An ever-increasing challenge in larger corporations is gaining access to internal experts in a variety of fields. In this context, ‘Expert Location Systems’ containing information about people’s expertise – actively supplied by the user community or computationally inferred from sources such as email or literature databases – are proving useful and allow for more rapid access to members of a particular network of experts.
The roles of professional knowledge managers Although the behavior of knowledge management ‘amateurs’ – that is professional scientists – is the ultimate target for knowledge initiatives, those behaviors might not be elicited without the diligent efforts of professional knowledge managers. They play a variety of important roles in making knowledge management successful. Most obviously, they manage knowledge-oriented technologies and IT infrastructure. The knowledge repositories, discussion databases, collaboration systems and other technologies for knowledge management hardly manage themselves and their management benefits from the attention of professionals who understand how knowledge is structured, stored and used. Building systems in which knowledge is embedded in work processes is particularly difficult. The roles of knowledge management professionals with regard to technology have been described by Davenport and Prusak [8] and Tiwana [9]. There are also the ‘librarian’ roles for knowledge management. Some key functions of knowledge managers involve creating firm-specific taxonomies (such as compounds, products, acronyms), maintaining both acquired and homegrown nomenclatures and ontologies, evaluating new contributions for classification and uniqueness and pruning outdated knowledge objects from repositories. Many of the
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
library-oriented roles for knowledge professionals have been described by Choo [10]. Once an organization realizes that social networks and communities of practice are important to knowledge creation and transfer, it soon discovers that such networks need facilitation. A recent book on how to create and manage communities of practice [11] suggests that many such groups perform better with a support team that encourages contributions, makes introductions across the network and builds social cohesion through events and face-to-face meetings.
Behaviors and processes of knowledge workers Although the activities of knowledge management professionals are important, most organizations ultimately desire to have the primary work done by ‘amateurs,’ that is, knowledge workers. In the case of drug discovery, the goal is to change the behaviors and work processes of scientists and technicians in such a way that they create, share and use knowledge more efficiently and effectively. Every firm or organization comprises a particular ‘knowledge market’ in which knowledge is exchanged for other knowledge or for other goods and services [8]. If the knowledge market in a firm is working well, a scientist will share his or her knowledge freely with others in the expectation that their knowledge will be shared equally freely. Of course, there are many barriers to such free exchange. Most firms reward scientists on the basis of their individual yearly (semi-)quantitative goals (identifying new drug targets, synthesizing new compounds, among others) rather than on the body of knowledge that they share. It can, hence, be rational behavior to hoard knowledge. Executives overseeing drug discovery processes must understand the knowledge behaviors that make knowledge markets work and create work environments and incentive structures that encourage those behaviors. A good overview of the conditions in which people search for information is found in Choo et al. [12]. As organizations and jobs become more pressed for time and productivity, both the need for timely and contextual information and the productivity of information creation and dissemination have increased. This has a profound impact on knowledge behaviors and calls for a better understanding of the preferences regarding how (and how much) information or knowledge is shared. This should lead to better knowledge-sharing practices. While for a long time, managers preferred receiving their information from fellow colleagues and associates rather than via computer-based means [13], most scientists and technical staff are increasingly comfortable with e-libraries. Consequently, physical libraries are less used, leading to their consolidation. The impact of easy-to-use technology – such as email – on information sharing has contributed to an ever-increasing feeling of information overload, which adds to the time pressures under which associates work. Because people have a limited
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
capacity for information and knowledge uptake, they will simply not be able to cope with every additional database and the daily onslaught of emails. Furthermore, some recent research suggests that individuals are more likely to access and read knowledge when it arrives in small chunks at predictable intervals than when the flow is irregular [14]. Therefore, every worker increasingly faces the challenge to access the right information and knowledge at the right time. The consequence is that instead of knowledge repositories being ‘browsed’ at leisure, they will have to be embedded into work processes and presented to scientists and technicians through technology without their requesting it and at the time of need. This approach is increasingly found in health care, where physicians need much more knowledge than they can keep in their heads and where there is little time for browsing or searching knowledge bases. One leading example is at Partners Health Care in Boston, where an intelligent physician order entry system has led to a 55% reduction in adverse drug events. [15]. We are only beginning to observe knowledge sharing behaviors and much more research is needed to understand knowledge workers as they go about their work. At Xerox, for example, this type of ‘ethnographic’ analysis uncovered the fact that copier repair technicians do a great deal of knowledge sharing over breaks and lunches with their colleagues [16]. The company had originally intended to reduce these breaks but then, realized their value in a knowledge context.
Line management strategies and tactics There is little direct research on the role of line management because it relates to knowledge creation, transfer or use – in the pharmaceutical industry or elsewhere. However, it stands to reason that how a manager manages has a great deal to do with how knowledge flows within an organization. One obvious factor is the role of the line manager in encouraging networking, sharing and trusting within the organization he or she manages. A rare study of biotechnology firms [17] found that creativity and innovation – as measured by the median age of cited patents in a company’s new patent applications – was correlated with workplace cultures that focused on developing community, as opposed to a bureaucratic hierarchy. This is consistent with other research in other industries (e.g. Silicon Valley firms) suggesting that researchers want community as well as autonomy. A common way to improve work performance is to impose a process orientation, with process goals, measures and standard procedures. Process improvement and management have been widely applied across industries, although these approaches have been less often applied to research and development processes in pharmaceutical firms and even less frequently to knowledge-sharing activities. It has www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
207
Drug Discovery Today: Technologies | Knowledge management
been suggested that a less-structured ‘practice’ approach – one involving autonomy and observation, rather than a specified set of tasks – is better suited to information and knowledge sharing among knowledge workers [18]. Managers of researchers can also set expectations – which are typically consistent with academic cultures – that drug development processes should build on past knowledge and that all previous knowledge should be brought to bear on a new project. This topic is known in other industries as ‘intellectual asset reuse,’ and there is some research on it [19,20]. Managers who support the principle must be willing to invest in the creation of reusable assets, that is, those that are well-documented, made available in a repository and protected over time. Managers can also facilitate knowledge behaviors by serving as role models. By their own example, they can illustrate the virtues of communal and knowledge-sharing behaviors. At one firm, for example, the head of drug development appeared at many research seminars and forums, which indicated to those in his organization that such attendance was desirable. Managers can also stimulate research cultures by hiring or providing research opportunities for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows. Managers of global drug development organizations also need to consider cross-cultural management differences and their relationship to knowledge. Although Holden’s [21] research on this issue is primarily about the transfer of culture across organizations, many of his lessons and case studies can also be applied to the transfer of other forms of knowledge, including that in drug discovery.
External contextual factors There is little doubt that several external contextual factors can impact knowledge management in drug discovery through their impacts on people and human relationships. One of the most prominent factors is the physical work environment. Several pharmaceutical firms are beginning to create new facilities with the implicit or explicit objective of improving collaboration and ultimately productivity. Some firms and researchers argue, for example, that more open offices create more open communication and collaboration [22]. Other pharmaceutical firms have put ‘conversation plazas’ or ‘community hearths’ in place to stimulate informal collaboration. However, there is typically little measurement of the impact of these new facilities; in essence, these constitute experiments with no measurement or experimental rigor [23]. Many of the mobile workplace environments that other industries have experimented with, including ‘virtual offices’ and ‘hotelling,’ do not appear frequently in drug discovery environments because of the importance of fixed laboratory facilities. Even if they were common, they do not lead to the communal work cultures that seem to stimulate innovation and drug development productivity [24]. 208
www.drugdiscoverytoday.com
Vol. 2, No. 3 2005
Organizational structures also have an impact on knowledge sharing. It has been suggested, for example, that crossfunctional ‘platform teams’ in the automobile industry contributed to knowledge sharing in the new car development process [5]. One might suggest that similar team structures in drug development processes also bring about a higher degree of knowledge sharing although we know of no specific studies of that issue.
Conclusion There is much more that we do not know about knowledge management in drug discovery than what we do know. The subject has only rarely been studied in the context of pharmaceutical firms and we can only extrapolate a limited number of findings from other industries. Yet, drug discovery is one of the most knowledge-intensive processes, and the ability to create, share and apply knowledge is crucial to its success. There are many attributes of the organizational and work environment that affect these knowledge behaviors. Each intervention that organizations make into this process is itself an opportunity to test and learn. If organizations apply the same discipline to studying knowledge management that they do to chemistry and biology, we will rapidly acquire knowledge about this important topic.
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