Hamel & Prahalad (Stacey 1993) further explain that unconventional strategies for successful organizations focus on leveraging resources innovatively, and "use their resources in challenging and stretching ways to build up a number of core competencies"(pg.1 01).
The hierarchical view of levels of management discussed here aim at providing a general management model for most organizations. Top management's conceptual philosophies and ideologies such as the ones discussed by Stacey (1993) are expected to filter through such a typical structure. On the contrary, front-line staff-customer interaction experience is not usually communicated to senior management, except if an organization follows Mintzberg's consensus strategy.
Practically, there is less implementation of consensus approach, however modem organizations may seem, and as a result, management and employees are usually on two opposite extremes in terms of their paradigms - which generates a whole lot of interconnected loops of problem situations, or complexities that reinforce one another, and when symptoms surface, people naturally address these symptoms, instead of the underlying causes of problems. The research conducted for this study looked at the congruency in thinking and understanding of the university strategy as seen by management and front line staff. The findings are reported and discussed in Chapter Four ofthis dissertation.
information and disseminating it to managers organization-wide"(Alavi & Leidner, 2002:
15). The management information system (MIS) provides a support system for decision- making. This is a very important feature of employee-customer interaction.
This discussion began by considering information, because this is the commonly used term, and in its use, there is usually no distinction between data, information, and knowledge. In knowledge management, information is, however, seen from a different perspective. The knowledge management doctrine suggests a hierarchical process, starting from data, to information, to knowledge, and decision-making. Maglitta 1995 (Alavi& Leidner, 2002: 17) describe data as raw numbers and facts. Vance 1997 (Alavi
& Leidner, 2002: 17) defines information as data interpreted into a meaningful frame-
work. Based on the work of Nonaka and Huber (Alavi & Leidner, 2002) knowledge is described as justified personal belief that increases an individual's capacity to take effective action.
Ina service organization, customers supply data to service employees. The data supplied by customers is usually raw - because customers' are usually not sure of the problem, such as when a customer (patient) is visiting a doctor, or is unsure of the solution to their problem or need, or is not sure if the solutions suggested will meet his/her expectations - such as when a student enrolls at the university for the first time. Inthese circumstances, customers have a tendency to provide fragmented input (data) into the system. This is one ofthe challenges for service managers and employees. Lovelock& Wirtz (2004: 35) explain that, if services are of a relatively low risk nature, the interaction (transformation) becomes easier and quicker. Another challenge, however, is to make services risk-free, or mitigate the risk factor, because for as long as customers are paying for the services, and while services are consumed by a customer, while being produced simultaneously, there is always a risk, i.e. the risk of loss of money paid, the risk of wrong service, the risk of defective service, the risk of physical injury, etc.
Customers provide pieces of information they gather from different sources about the service(see figure 6). Lovelock & Wirtz (2003) call this process (stage) a pre-purchase stage. For instance, a student wanting to enroll at the University ofKwaZulu-Natal could complain about the service given by the service employee, and argue that Witwatersrand University(Wits) or University of Cape Town(UCT) provide this and that (referring to
things that the University of Kwazulu-Natal may not be providing). A customer weights the risk involved in consuming service, as well as the benefits.
Lovelock& Wirtz developed a generic list of types of risks, namely: functional risk (fear of unsatisfactory performance outcomes), financial risk (fear and possibility of unexpected monetary loss), temporal risk (possibility of wasted time), physical risk (fear of possible personal injury or damage), social risk (fear of how others will think and react), sensory risk (unwanted impact on any of the five senses). The influence diagram in figure 6 demonstrates a systemic influence of customer needs. A customer brings an array of dimensions, such as fear of risk, uncertainty about the problem and or solution, and fragmented data. Virtually all customers go through the pre-purchase stage, and obliviously bring with them these dimensions. This poses a challenge for service employees, and it is not easy to anticipate all the dimensions because "no two services will be precisely alike"(Zeithaml& Bitner, 2000: 13).
Research conducted in this study looked at service delivery challenges and a variety of capabilities necessary for staff (service employees) to possess, in order to equip themselves for various types of students needs. The service employee takes data (input) from a customer, processes the data, and provides actionable information (advice), in the form of a range of service alternatives for solutions to customer problems. The customer would then make decisions with the assistance of a service employee. The transformation process takes place, sometimes with the customer involved (i.e. m a student registration, students complete forms, and in public bus transport, a passenger has to press a bell to indicate that s/he wants to descend), and sometimes without the customer involved (e.g. motor repair), and sometimes on the customer (e.g. dentistry or hairdressing).
More often than not, because of service and customer heterogeneity, employees gather information from colleagues and from computer-based sources. Furthermore, some information may be required from supervisors and managers, and for big, bureaucratic and centralized organizations, information may be sought from organizational senior management. This is one of the challenges of service management especially for service employees and customers, that information may not be readily available. For instance, a service employee in one city might have to wait for information from a head office in
another city, or a customer might be told to 'contact the head office', which might be located in another city. This is a huge challenge with regard to delivering service efficiently and satisfactorily.
Some organizations put in place Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) in order to empower employees, facilitate and expedite the service process and decision-making.
Alavi & Leidner (2002: 15) explain that KMS is a management system focusing on creating, gathering, organizing, and disseminating organizational knowledge. As discussed earlier in this section, knowledge increases an individual's capacity to take effective action; thus a KMS is very relevant to service management. Knowledge is an indispensable tool for service employees and their managers. Knowledge is made up of data and information, and once information, explain Polanyi 1966& Nonaka 1994 (Alavi
& Leidner 2002: 17) is processed in the mind of an individual, it becomes tacit
knowledge, and once it is articulated or communicated to others in the form of text, computer output, spoken or written, it becomes explicit knowledge.
Argyris (1999: 54) advises that tacit knowledge is the primary basis for effective management, and the basis for its deterioration. The latter implication for management poses a threat to organizations which do not manage tacit knowledge. Van der Heijden (1996: 62) emphasized the challenge existing in untapped or uncodified tacit knowledge.
He argued that such tacit uncodified institutional knowledge must also emerge to the surface and be part of an organizational knowledge asset. The one way of managing such (tacit) knowledge would be to externalize that knowledge. Nonaka & Takenchi 1995 (Sternmark, 2002: 37) suggested this concept of externalizing tacit knowledge.
Externalisation means making tacit knowledge explicit, and this can be applied in different ways, such as through knowledge sharing, knowledge management IT systems, and communities of practice. Knowledge serves as a basis for decision-making and is at the heart of an organisation's services.