The second theme in the interview was covering knowledge integration. We could get knowledge from education, experience, training provided by organization and self learnt from various sources. In this prospective, based on the literature presented in the earlier section, knowledge grafting process contributes on the knowledge integration Hang (2009) highlights that knowledge capabilities consists of three section, they are technical, structural and cultural. In the same
39 prospective, Mahadavram and McDoland (2010) refers that knowledge integration is important in developing knowledge capabilities. In general, the knowledge integration refers to implementing individual’s existing knowledge together with the team into work.
“My background is combination of culture, literature and business side of thing. I currently do social media marketing, print media marketing, website content stuff like that, so I use my own educational knowledge way back from first degree and marketing knowledge I gained here at UEF into my work”. (R1)
In general, all interviewee did not understand knowledge integration at first. But they somehow linked their saying with knowledge integration one after another.
One of the interviewees said, she gained academic knowledge from different faculties and implemented in her profession. That made her easy to understand from the basic. One of the most experienced participants mentioned that not only the personal education, but also organizational supports are important to build up knowledge integration, as can be seen from the following quotes.
“I would say both experience and organizational supports are important, but mainly more stuff comes from own experience, so we have like specific method for working, we call it CHILD METHOD in our organization, and we got a training for that, there is specific structure for how we work. But then the end of the day, it is basically how I kind of develop my own, I must develop my ideas. I have used my own experience to do my job”. (R2)
“Yes of course, my own knowledge and educational knowledge were source of my work.
They helped me to build up my career. It is not easy to say what affects the things, but results are comprised from many components like schooling, military life, university and banking experience”. (R3)
We have a great, personalized system in place in the organization that makes sure we get training on new products, systems and compliance issues. Our skills are kept up to date. (R4)
40 In addition, participant mentioned that there are other factors too, which could impact on knowledge creation. It is not easy for us to predict what is needed or what could be needed to enhance organizational goal, however they mentioned that it can be associated with various factors such as experience, education, skill, motivation etc.
“My previous educational knowledge are the factor of my dynamic capabilities, actually that is why I decided to continue my studies and realized it is necessary to have not only experience in real work but also theory and I told my banker friends and colleagues to study as well. I could say and explain So, I can compete on same base of education. That is the reason why I came for doctoral studies for building better managerial capabilities.
I could use my experience there; I have already rehearsal same thing for 20 years. But after all I found myself, without making appropriate plan it’s impossible to climb up to top of the tree without plan from the first step. I have never learnt such knowledge from any other courses”.
(R3)
As marketing can be considered a rather traditional field of business, these days marketing became virtual and digital, therefore marketers are giving most emphasis on (SEO) search engine optimization, it can be assumed that without digital marketing knowledge sales is almost impossible to practice. However, marketing knowledge could be enhanced from education and experience, therefore one of the participants utilized academic knowledge successfully for marketing and sales. The following quotes shows the same as mentioned before:
“I guess, mostly marketing helped me a lot from my previous education, there, I knew how to use all this Search Engine Optimization. And Sales helped me from my previous knowledge gained while working in Russia. Started working from early school age, specially B2C. I guess that helped me a lot to combine my sales experience and marketing educational knowledge gained from University of Applied Sciences”. (R4)
I have previous exp, working abroad, have that cultural language, skill, knowledge and then this education, is here in the middle and combine those, the previous experience and present education I think that would be really good like combination where I am
41 heading. And I want to help company and push as many as possible to foreign market sell their product. (R5)
The comments were practical, all interviewees presented their knowledge capabilities strongly, and equally provided supporting examples on their consistent knowledge integration for new knowledge development, they did not provide any uncertainty concerning knowledge integration. However, they presented their best way to support their task.
Leach & Liu (2013) highlights idea to support the theme that sales training brings evolution in the acquisition and retention of knowledge, while training objectives focus on providing information to salespeople e.g product knowledge, market knowledge and competitors, such information brings organizational outcomes via integration of mentioned knowledges. Therefore, same authors claim that salesperson with high level of knowledge integration capability, could have higher likely to transfer learned knowledge to workplace. Therefore, I have concluded the second theme as “The integration of knowledges from education, training and experiences improves individual knowledge capabilities”.