Mentoring as a knowledge management tool in organisations

[摘要] Mentoring programmes have been implemented in organisations to manage successionplanning and talent management; to make sure that there are enough resources (people) totake over some tasks when employees in those positions retire or leave the organisation forgreener pastures. Mentoring programmes have also been implemented to minimize the callback of retired employees to the organisation at an exorbitant salary to transfer the knowledgethat should have been transferred while they where still employees of the organisation.The number one problem facing organisations these days is talent management and globalbrain drain. Organisations are continuously faced with challenges of how they are going tomake sure that their intellectual capital and knowledge remain in their organisationalstructures and not lost to competitors outside. Organisations have tried many tools to enhanceknowledge sharing and transfer, however very little research has been done to look atmentoring as another form to share and transfer knowledge within the structures oforganisations.This study aims to look at mentoring and the role it plays in knowledge management as a toolto share and transfer knowledge. It will also pursue to understand the term mentoring, how itdiffers or is similar to coaching and other related terms. It will also look at how organisationscan go about implementing and running mentoring programmes.The research will follow a methodology of literature review from various primary andsecondary sources, to ascertain what has been written on mentoring in general, as well asmore specifically literature on the relationship between mentoring and knowledgemanagement and its use in organisations. It will also look at local and international firmswhich have implemented mentoring programmes and how they have succeeded in managingand transferring knowledge between experienced and less experienced employees. It will alsolook at types of mentoring that the organisation may consider implementing in respectivestructures. Roles and responsibilities of various parties in the mentoring programme will alsobe discussed briefly.It has been proven in this research that little has been written and researched on mentoringand knowledge management. Even companies mentioned in this research, their mentoringprogrammes didn't have a knowledge management flavour in it; they looked more atsuccession planning and the human resource factor of mentoring. South Africa as a country aswell is still lagging behind with regard to mentoring; it is only in 2006 that an association ofmentoring and coaching was introduced, which hopes to look at implementing country-widestandards and ethics. United States of America and United Kingdom are well developed andfar ahead with mentoring in general as well as within organisations.Seeing that little has been written on the concept of mentoring and knowledge management,this research concludes that more research need to be conducted to understand and look at therelationship and value of mentoring in knowledge management. It also recommends furtherresearch on e-mentoring. The research also recommends that mentoring should be included inperformance agreements of experienced employees.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University