Knowledge management at Mcdonalds

I have decided to use McDonalds for my portfolio project. McDonald’s operates the biggest chain of fast food restaurants in the world. They serve over 500 million customers in 100 countries. The company was established in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant by two brothers. Ray Kroc purchased the organization in 1955 and oversaw its growth around the world. McDonalds has a unique system of operations. A typical McDonald restaurant is either owned by a corporation, a franchisee or an affiliate. The company has multiple streams of revenue from fees paid by franchisees, and sales generated in their restaurants. McDonald’s products consist primarily of French fries, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, soft drinks, desserts, milkshakes, etc. In 2012, the organization generated over 27 billion dollars in revenue, while profit stood over five billion dollars. McDonald has over one million employees around the world.

The revenue it generates makes it the 90th largest economy in the world. When you add the 32 billion dollars generated from franchise stores all over the world, McDonalds is the 68 biggest economies in the world. Knowledge Management became popular in the 1990s, and it has continued to grow in the new century. The basics of Knowledge management states that organizations have different types of assets (physical and knowledge). Knowledge management concerns itself with how we can manage the knowledge assets. KM helps organizations in achieving their objectives by making use of the knowledge assets at the disposal of the organization. The two types of knowledge: are; tacit and explicit knowledge.

Explicit knowledge is structures and can be found in books, repositories, etc. Tacit knowledge is abstract, and it is “rich, complex, accumulated expertise that resides in people’s head.” Organizations are established in order to achieve some organizational objectives. But there are factors that have an impact on how companies operate. For example, when an organization recognizes the importance of competitors, this allows the organization to reflect on its strength and weakness. We analyze the principle of knowledge management in relation to the operational practices of McDonalds, the biggest fast food restaurant in the world. With over one million employees and thousands of outlets around the world implementing a knowledge management strategy for McDonald is not a small task.

The barriers to implementing KM are numerous, and they may include language, culture and geography. This portfolio project will use McElroy ideology on KM. This theory divided knowledge management into two processes; knowledge production and knowledge integration. Knowledge production involves the creation of new organizational knowledge which is used in organizational learning. Knowledge production is formed by; knowledge claim, information acquisition, codified knowledge claim, individual group learning Knowledge integration is activities that help in knowledge sharing within the organization. It includes knowledge searching, knowledge broadcast, teaching, etc. There are two new concepts in McElroy model of knowledge management and they are Supply side (Enhances the flow of existing knowledge among workers in a company) and demand side (this helps satisfy the demand for new knowledge).

Reference
Retrieved: The Mcdonald’S Corporation Is The World … (n.d.). Retrieved from ald-s-corporation-is-the-world-s-largest-chain-of-hamburger-fast.html

McDonald’s. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://mcdonald11.blogspot.com/