1. Introduction
The Information Technology, Strategic Planning and Knowledge Management stand as important tools for advancing in the implementation and execution of public policies at the Federal University of Santa Maria (FUSM), Brazil. It is understood that the model establishment of the Corporative Academic Management (CAM) adapted to federal or private institutions of higher education and the concepts of corporatism will result in an evolutionary process of cooperation at search the intellectual property, royalties and high value-added for academic research.
According to Choo (2003), "knowledge organization" is an attempt to abandon a conception of knowledge as an object or thing that has to be earned and adopt a broader view of knowledge as an ongoing process of social construction and collective, embedded in tasks, relationships and instruments of the organization.
The model proposed in this paper by CAM works with research management as a process of academic research and knowledge generated in different areas of knowledge in a higher education institution with the intention of bringing enrichment in routine laboratories and research groups of universities through collaboration experiences. This approximation process and sharing of research results and increase your marketing potential is highly desired for institutions.
The process of product development has its roots in the company's knowledge about market, requirements that a product should serve and the set of technologies that should use to satisfy these requirements. Much of this knowledge comes from experiences gained in previous projects, that driven by new techniques and technologies and seek competitive advantage (NONAKA; TAKEUCHI, 1997). Krogh et. al. (2001) argue that building the right context for knowledge creation involves organizational structures that promote strong relationships and effective collaboration. For Davenport & Prusak (1998), the only competitive advantage a company has is what it collectively knows, how efficiently it uses what it knows, and the speed with which it acquires and uses new knowledge.
Inside this concept, CAM should be inserted through projects in the Institutional Development Plan (IDP), therefore, gradually connecting the results of cooperation at academic knowledge research. Each university unit is potentially a producer of academic knowledge, i.e., a partnership for production. It is absolutely necessary to bring the parties involved in the administrative management as researchers and production of knowledge. The internal policy to promote a natural process of cooperation between research laboratories and are essential to the success of CAM. This process of corporate management is more collaborative and constructive process than a true dictatorial corporatism and internal competition in the institution that can negatively impact the success of the final product of the academy. The globalization of the economy and productivity determines the university an adjustment internal administrative and technology to new market demands and opportunities of development and innovation.
Thompson & Strickland (2004) look for the questions: What is our vision of the company? What we are trying to do and to become? The answers to these questions provide a course for the organization and help to shape a strong organizational identity. The challenge of knowledge-based management is also to understand how the company operates as a collective intelligence to fully reach its goals. The intangible nature of knowledge assets complicates the choice of solutions and makes on the achievements already made by some companies (REZENDE, 2002). Porter (2004) focuses on the concept of strategy with something tightly integrated, highly consistent and clearly deliberate, which puts the company in a position to gain competitive advantage. She also says that excessive attention on operational efficiency divert the attention of the strategy. Competitive strategy means being different from its competitors. The strategic question sometimes goes beyond the explicit understanding and intuitive.
The capability of a university and its place in the market and their training of qualified professionals challenge the structures of production for cooperation and interaction of knowledge to the development of internal institutional policies that seek technological innovation that is now so necessary for economic and social development of Brazil.
The means of academic cooperation should be regulated and encouraged by the central administration (rectory) according to the model of this article based on the Federal University of Santa Maria (FUSM), Brazil. One of the main goals of the CAM is the cooperation of the research academic at areas of knowledge that enable technological innovation and the formation of a high value product at market. But it is also involved with technique administrators, teachers and students in order to make them understand the concept of quality and cooperation, adapting them to their routine activities in education, research and extension.
2. Materials and methods
Data collection was done through of the observation, analysis of organizational structure, management reports of administrative and the intellectual production at the Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil. Currently the institution has 28.216 students registered in 141 undergraduate courses, 137 courses of post-graduation, 1.822 high education teachers, 2.808 technique administrators, and a collection of bibliographic of 59.4190 exemplary (FUSM, 2013).
Discussions and reviews of the possibility of management were raised together with experts from the fields of academic knowledge and the Department of Registration and Academic Control (DRAC) aimed at harnessing the potential of the knowledge produced in the institution and its possibility of entering the market as innovation.
Thiollent (2005) says that action's research is a type of an empirically based social research that is designed and carried out in close association with an action or resolving a collective problem, in which researchers and participants representative of the situation or problem, are involved in a cooperative or participatory mode. The researchers do not want to limit their research to academic and bureaucratic aspects of most conventional surveys. They want to research where people involved have something to say and do. It is not simple survey data or reports to be filed. In the action research, the researchers intend to play an active role in the reality of the facts.
The observed data management that provided the suggestion of corporate model was analyzed by technicians and researchers seeking reference of theory and practice of knowledge production in universities and the need for institutional growth and strategic planning for obtaining administrative advances, economic and scientific.
3. Bibliographic review of CAM
The creation of model at Corporative Academic Management aims at cooperation in the process of creation and academic research, as well as the institutional control of intellectual property and corporate education of this process. The CAM model is characterized in ambitious proposal of collaboration in institutional research that can become in a strategic differentiator for institutions that achieve high levels of collaboration in their research routines. Duffy (2001) also made a distinction between technologies for knowledge management and technologies for information management. According to Duffy, information management primarily focuses on finding work-related objects and moving them around, while knowledge management concerns itself with finding and moving work objects as well as with how they are created and used. One other key distinction is that the means of creating, capturing, and communicating in knowledge management systems are very broad while the focus in information management tools tends to be on electronic and paper-based information.
The main role of IT is to support Knowledge Management (KM), enlarging the scope and accelerate the velocity of knowledge transfer. To identify, develop and deploy technologies that support business communication, sharing and management of knowledge assets. IT plays a role in infrastructure; the KM involves human and managerial aspects. This article discusses the interaction between IT and KM as tools of strategic management and organizational performance, (ROSSETTI; MORALES, 2007). To Meister (1999), Corporate Education also aims to align the organization's members to business goals, providing learning solutions for each job family. The major changes can only occur through the top management and the challenge is to implement the consensus (THOMPSON; STRICKLAND, 2004). Davenport & Prusak (1998) emphasize that the primary functions in companies are those based on knowledge. Mainly due to the fact that to add value to products and services, must rely on the intangible aspects of the organization, which are based on knowledge and present in person, for example: technical skills, know-how, new product design, creativity and innovation capacity in processes and products, among others.
The analysis of organizational performance in terms of production will also lead to learning, not only in terms of assessing the behavior of certain indices which indicate the need for maintenance of the production process or its correction, but also as a result of the need to seek indices confident and expressive performance (ALPERSTED, 2001). In the case of Japanese firms that constantly are promote the innovation, continuously, incrementally and spirally. The key to success is the creation of organizational knowledge, which is understood as the ability of a firm to create new knowledge, disseminate it in the organization as a whole and incorporate it into products, services and systems. For them, this creation is continual innovation (NONAKA; TAKEUCHI, 1997). The company has a XXI century economy generated by intellectual capital; it, work and learning are primarily related, with emphasis on developing the individual's ability to learn (MEISTER, 1999). Although Knowledge Management (KM) function is common in organizations, many have no clear vision of how to incorporate it and turn it into competitive advantage. The shortage of studies proving that the KM makes a difference in organizational performance culture, are perhaps, the most influential factors in the promotion or inhibition of KM practices. Some companies use tools of Information Technology (IT) as a competitive factor, confusing with the KM. Others believe that IT alone can be used to manage knowledge; it is a misconception (ROSSETTI; MORALES, 2007).
3.1 Corporative Academic Management (CAM)
The higher education institutions, through their research, laboratories, studies, experiments, concepts, processes, technologies, produce the academic knowledge. The CAM is an alternative policy of institutional cooperation. It aims at developing methods, partnerships, concepts and procedures to the producers of tacit and explicit knowledge. It is not only limited to the specific knowledge of a laboratory or research area, but it is a continuous process of development and cooperation, seeking to capture the existing knowledge and promote cooperative research.
The formation of the potential for cooperative research should be directed for the "Institutional Corporative Product" in order to turn its knowledge to the tasks of the vision of "Enterprise Academic" for obtaining "income relating" to their goals and mission. The action of the CAM is given as Academic Policy Management is developed in the Institutional Development Plan.
Major changes can only occur through the top management, and the challenge is the consensus for the implementation (THOMPSON; STRICKLAND, 2004). In the organization of the CAM, the Academic Units are treated as subsidiaries, with the intellectual capital of teachers and technicians as facilitators and managers of production and processes of scientific expertise. This product is obtained with the production of knowledge shared with the corporate research, search also for partnerships in other Academic Units to add value to products, processes or services.
The Organization Management System of the Academic Corporate is implemented by the Central Administration (FUSM), in the rector's office, with the senior management of the Units (Directors) being the managers of production. The Authority of the Consulting, Facilitation, Development and Information is the Pro-Rector of Graduate Studies and Research. The executors of the Academic Production are the Heads of Academic Departments and laboratories.
The responsible for the Analysis of Intellectual Property and Patent Control is the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer, which is directly linked to the rector's office. So the directors of these units are considered the senior management being responsible for the involvement of the whole body in the process.
Today is indispensable in the Central Administration that the profile of leaders and managers are aligned with the Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for the development of policies and aggregation and commitment of the leaders. In the current trend, the specific profile of the academic researcher in the institution is to have local focus in his laboratory experiment or research area.
The Institutional Vision for the integration in the areas seeks new forms of cooperation and obtaining intellectual property by facilitating the development of interdisciplinary research, with the intention to develop products such as, drugs, software, among others.
The CAM works with the Academic Knowledge: Developed (Research), Shared (Cooperative), Aggregated (Corporate) and Applied, Published or Patented (Knowledge as a Product).
3.1.1- Diagram of Corporative Academic Management- CAM
For better understanding of the process of the CAM model below is a diagram of the functions involved until arrival at the final product as well as their possible interactions during the research on his way investigative academic.
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Diagram FUSM – CAM (Model)
Source: Author's own
3.1.2 Process elements
The entry of corporate FUSM process begins with identification of potential research and intellectual property of the administrative staff, teachers and students in the areas of scientific research. Scientific research can lead to specific knowledge of an area directly, eliminating the contribution of processes and services.
(Steps of Algorithm: Input → FUSM → Teachers, Administrative Technicians and Students (Intellectual Capital) → Research Areas (Knowledge as a Product Potential) → Specific Knowledge or Knowledge Sharing (Corporate Process – Phase 1) → Related Areas of Research (Corporate Process - Phase 2) → New Areas of Shared Knowledge (Corporate Process - Phase 3) → Publications of Scientific Research or Intellectual Property (Result of Corporate Process – Final Phase) → Output.
The sharing of knowledge related areas of collaborative research, addition value to institutional product (knowledge) and this complexity may seek intellectual property, corporate management in this process of collaborative scientific research.
The output of this product may be institutional for Intellectual Property, companies, new technologies, processes, among many other knowledge products.
4. Discussion
Tacit knowledge floating in organizations should be transferred to the university and its administrative, research and technical routines in laboratories. The CAM model is also a process of corporate education.
The key to knowledge creation lies in the mobilization and conversion of tacit knowledge. The creation of organizational knowledge, as opposed to the creation of individual knowledge, is concerned about levels of knowledge creation entities (individual, group, organizational and inter-organizational). The theory of knowledge creation occurs through the spiral of knowledge. The emergence of knowledge takes place from the interaction between tacit and explicit. The four modes for this conversion - socialization, externalization, combination and internalization - is the engine of knowledge creation as a whole. The creation of human knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit and explicit, termed this interaction as "knowledge conversion" (NONAKA; TAKEUCHI, 1997).
Table 1 – Espiral Nonake e Takuechi (1997, p. 82)
In the table below we can see that Brazil reached 2.0% (two percent) of the publications of scientific articles over the world. This number represents the 13th place in the world ranking scientific publications. The indicators also show that the country has 2.8% (two point eight percent) of the world population, 1.9% (one point nine percent) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 1.3% (one point three percent) of the International Trade and 0.2 (zero point two per cent) in patenting (PNPG, 2010).
Table 2 - Indicators of Brazil in relation to the world
Source: CAPES - National Postgraduate Plan 2011-2020 (PNPG, 2010).
The performance of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for scientific publishing is a very approximate value ratio. At the same time the ratio of patents is very low reporting this serious problem of Brazilian research. The administrators of federal institutions or private higher education that promote research can observe this discrepancy in their universities and promote a management process for large structures to target not only the academic research that is important and necessary for the maintenance of status before the regulation and control organs but also to obtain patents and royalties.
4.1 Corporate education and management of academic knowledge
For the effective result of the Corporative Academic Management, with the alignment of the current Institutional profile, one should take into account the time taken for the involvement and training of "The Institutional Body". For Rezende (2002), one of the questions that arise is how firms can reconcile the knowledge that lies at the head of officials with the existing information in their databases, papers, spreadsheets and reports generated by it, transforming them into tool for generating strategic advantage for business. Another issue concerns how to retain that knowledge so that it becomes property of the company, i.e. structural capital.
Research projects should be corporate results of CAM and the establishment of a policy of cooperation policies academic research. This policy should be suggested as an institutional development project for the University Council for the purpose of inclusion in the Institutional Development Plan (IDP). The meetings sector cooperation, alignment, discussions, planning and cooperation by creating the organizational culture will be an outcome of the initial CAM and its approximation process. In this case, the participation of teachers, students and administrators technique are essential for the construction of academic cooperation in the pursuit of innovation, new technologies, research increasingly interdisciplinary and alternatives to economic problems, social and the institution itself.
Rossetti & Morales (2007), claim that tacit knowledge does not appear to be so credited by the organizations, as explicit, what seems to be difficult to manage it in the context of socialization among people. Meister (1998) says that a training department of the company tends to be reactive decentralized and serves a wide audience, while the corporate university has centralized and proactive guidance for the delivery of learning solutions for every business within the company, i.e. training departments usually offer training programs, as they become necessary and are often identified their need within a specific department, whose topics are in most cases, generic. Already in corporate universities, the education and training are permanent and oriented forward thinking, anticipating and creating the need for improvement, focusing on organizational goals, yet targeted for each business within the company.
Systems (public or private) should seek to upgrade its administrative routines and consolidation processes in a continuous process of adaptation to new market realities. Like of developments in information technology and communication, increases exponentially the number of calls "tools of knowledge management" as: APIs - Applications Standardized Interfaces; BI - Business Intelligence; COINS - Topics of Interests Networks ( Interests of Communities), CRM - Customer Relationship Management; CSCW - Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Work supported by collaborative computer), EIPs - Enterprise Information Portals; EISS - Executive Information System, ERP - Enterprise Resources Planning; ETD - Engagement Team Database (Database involvement of groups); EDM - Document Management; PdCCs - corporate knowledge portals, GSC Systems - Content Management, Technology Forecasting and Assessment, among many others (ROSSETTI; MORALES, 2007). In the current scenario, the efficiency depends on the interaction with their environment by attending to their ideal "client" and proper positioning in your "market" in the face of their reality. For this, it is necessary that organizations are always looking for innovation, whether in its products, its processes or its services (RABECHINI et al., 2002). Thompson & Strickland (2004) in the development of strategic management, to want and be able to realize the strategy and strategic planning within the tumult of daily activities, build and maintain structures and systems that make the strategic factors of the current activity object.
In the Corporative Academic Management (CAM), the Academic Centers are potentially treated as subsidiaries, and its potential intellectual capital of teachers and administrative staff, as facilitators and managers of production and processes of scientific expertise (technical), obtaining with this product the production of knowledge shared and multiplied by absorbing existing knowledge and developing students' research and the skilled labor, looking for partnerships in other Academic Units correlated to add value to product, process (knowledge) or services.
In CAM the academic centers are potentially production partner of central government and its intellectual capital of teachers and administrative technician are facilitators and managers of production processes of scientific (technical), obtaining with this product the production of knowledge. This may be shared and multiplied by absorbing existing knowledge and development of other research where they can count on the collaboration of students and skilled labor, seeking partnerships in other academic units related to adding value to the product, process (knowledge) or services.
According to the analysis of the organizational structure of FUSM leads to the realization that this is compatible with this type of management corporate in scientific production. The institution will require an adjustment in the organizational culture (functional) and a systematization of organizational stakeholders, seeking cooperation and cooperative university system optimization.
4.2 Corporate Objectives
Corporate objectives initially for the process are:
Creation of the Center for Innovation and Technology as developers of organizational culture of sharing technology and equipment among university units subordinate to the dean's office.
Establishment of policies and procedures among the academic units to support research processes that lead to obtaining intellectual property research into new technologies, information management and knowledge.
Facilitating the development of research in related fields, in order to develop products such as vaccines, medicines, electronics, software and others.
Formation of partnerships between research units and departments.
Creation of a system of shared information on academic knowledge of corporate research at the institution.
Encourage periodic evaluation meetings between central government and academic units together with the process managers' corporate.
According to Davenport & Prusak (1998), knowledge technologies deal most frequently with text rather than numbers, and text in relatively unstructured forms, such as clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, and even stories. Knowledge technologies, however, are more likely to be employed in an interactive and iterative manner by their users. Therefore, the roles of people in knowledge technologies are integral to their success. For Alperstedt (2001), in terms of traditional higher education institutions also the establishment of partnerships is representative of a number of advantages: proximity to the organizational reality of companies, development of opportunities for research, increased collection of funds, increased the potential for attracting students.
4.3 Corporate organization
The final integration of Corporate Academic Management (CAM) system is given by the Central Administration, the Office of the Provost in direct contact with the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer and units of the University.
In this context the directors of university centers are considered the executive managers of the processes for the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer. Currently, it is imperative within the administration that the profile of leaders and managers are aligned with IDP for planning and policy development and the vital power of aggregation and commitment of party leaders.
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knower. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices and norms (DAVENPORT; PRUSAK, 1998). Drucker (1988) predicted that the organization of the future will be based on knowledge and would consist largely of specialists who direct and discipline their own performance through organized feedback from colleagues, customers and headquarters.
5. Conclusion
From the point of view of potential growth, Federal University of Santa Maria in academic research and his quest for "excellence" in teaching, research and extension, becomes evident and indispensable the need for planning and management in accordance with the scope this institution. The University should develop public or private organizational change necessary to facilitate organizational learning their roles and understanding of corporatism and thus enable internal collaboration to achieve the training objectives of a strong institutional body to gain royalties, incentives for research and training resources highly qualified personnel for the growing and competitive globalized labor market.
The word "corporate" may be replaced by "cooperative or collaborative" without loss of significance required for an intention of the model CAM.
The corporate policy of academic management (CAM) when included in the Institutional Development Plan (IDP) may seek the institutionalization of "high quality" and bring partnerships, technological development and innovation (patents). The CAM model also provides new ways for scientific and administrative resources as used today by companies in their business management, and therefore alternativs for scientific research, technology transfer, intellectual property, collaboration, where the goal main is the "Institutionalization of Knowledge Management and Cooperation" for better use of tacit knowledge and possibly aggregate universities.
Knowledge Management, Information Technology, Strategic Planning and Corporate Education are indispensable tools of corporate management. The results of this policy have potential characteristics of the concepts of collaborative system and enable better management of knowledge in relation to their production and productivity to market. The public or private institutions may develop internal policies cooperative academic knowledge as a standard procedure in routine research under the guidance of an administrative developer, responsible for coordinating and approach areas and multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research aiming at publishing and intellectual property is still low in Brazil. This work aims at the suggestion of a corporate management model applied to academia as an alternative institutional policy for production management in institutional research.
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Federal University of Santa Maria - FUSM. Available at: http://www.ufsm.br/