Knowledge management in the lockdown of Shanghai
Introduction
In March 2022, Shanghai was locked down due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19. At the beginning, people were optimistic and thought everything would be back to normal soon. The virus made it unlikely to end in a short time. The lockdown means residents can’t leave their apartments. This led to food and living material shortages. I experienced the Shanghai lockdown for nearly three months. I would like to explore how the SECI model can help people solve problems during this period.
Nonaka’s SECI model1 consists of four stages: socialisation, externalisation, integration, and internalisation. These stages allow knowledge to flow and transform dynamically among individuals, groups, and organisations. The model explains the dynamic transformation process between tacit knowledge, such as personal experience and intuition, and explicit knowledge, which can be articulated verbally and in documents.
Socialisation: Communication and shared tacit knowledge during the lockdown
Tacit knowledge is personal experience, intuition, and skills that are hard to put into words. It is usually learned through practice, observation, and interaction. Socialisation is how tacit knowledge is shared between people. Teamwork, sharing experiences and informal communication help people to socialise. During the Shanghai epidemic lockdown, many residents had trouble getting food and living materials because of the lockdown and the suspension of express deliveries. In many communities, residents who had experience in supply chain management started group buying activities2. They acted as brokers and set up WeChat groups to organise group buying that met government requirements. They shared the process of buying products in the group, information about grocery suppliers, as well as experience in bargaining with supplies and logistics tracking. In addition, they organised volunteers to distribute the food and living materials3. All of these come with practice and experience. As more and more people joined the group buying, more people knew how it worked. Community group buying solved the problem of shortage of supplies during the lockdown.
Externalisation: The Lockdown Survival Guide transforms tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge
Externalisation refers to the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, recorded in text, diagrams and other forms, so that it can be disseminated and shared with more people. During the epidemic lockdown in Shanghai, it was very difficult for people to go out to seek medical treatment and obtain living materials. Some residents recorded the solutions to all aspects of the problems encountered during the lockdown. And then they used online shared documents such as Tencent documents to form a systematic text of the lockdown survival guide. The online document included how to purchase food and living materials and keep vegetables fresh for longer. In terms of medical care, some had compiled first aid guidelines and health advice during the lockdown, such as providing medical services to sick residents who need kidney dialysis every week. There was also knowledge about pets in the documents, for example, knowledge about how to let dogs defecate if they were not able to walk their dogs, etc., The guide provided solutions to all kinds of problems that could arise during epidemic containment. Through the online documents, residents summarised solutions to various problems encountered during epidemic containment and shared their experiences, facilitating the formation of a wider dissemination of this explicit knowledge.
Combination: Integrating and optimising of survival guides
Combination refers to the integration of explicit knowledge from different sources to create new explicit knowledge and make information more systematic and complete. During the epidemic lockdown in Shanghai, the residents with experience in media communication integrated the mutual assistance guidelines from different sources into one article and then posted it on the WeChat public platform to make it easier for residents to browse and share. When the residents with different mutual assistance links read this article, they commented at the bottom of the summarised articles and added the knowledge and links not included in the articles, making the articles more comprehensive. In this way, they formed a broader knowledge sharing and created a good atmosphere for knowledge co-creation, so that more people would engage in this kind of activity and more people would get help from the articles. The integration of these online survival documents enabled the residents who had to stay at home to deal with the problems associated with covid and the lockdown more efficiently.
Internalisation: The application and internalisation of survival guides during lockdown
Internalisation refers to the transformation of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge through continuous practice. During the lockdown, residents had mastered knowledge and skills associated with the covid through practice. After many practices, they were so familiar with the survival knowledge and skills that they could operate on their own without any help from others and had transformed them into their own skills and experiences. During the lockdown of Shanghai in 2022, residents continued to practice and operate the knowledge learned in the epidemic survival guide documents, transforming the knowledge in the documents into practical operational skills. For example, residents were not familiar with the purchase process and rules of community group buying at the beginning. They had to follow the steps of participating in group buying published in the WeChat group announcement. However, because had participated in group buying for so many times, they had memorised all the processes and rules of group buying and internalised them into their own skilled tacit knowledge. As more and more people became familiar with the process of group purchasing, the communities became more efficient and were able to cope with problems more easily.
Conclusion
From the SECI perspective, the process of knowledge sharing among Shanghai residents during the lockdown period – through socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation, illustrated the importance of knowledge management in dealing with crises like epidemic lockdown. I also noticed that technological tools such as the Internet and social platforms can facilitate the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and vice versa, enhancing the overall knowledge transfer process. Although the Shanghai lockdown is a very special crisis event, the knowledge sharing experience and mechanism spontaneously formed by the community residents will continue to be useful in similar crises that the community may face in the future.
Building on this understanding, our lecturer Rajesh Dhillon suggests communities must take a proactive approach by maintaining and enhancing the knowledge sharing mechanisms emerged during the crisis. The effectiveness of digital platforms like WeChat groups and shared documents in facilitating knowledge transfer highlights the importance of preserving these systems for future emergencies. Besides, the success of community-driven initiatives, from group buying coordination to comprehensive survival guides, provides valuable templates for future crisis response. Overall, the lockdown experience underscores the essential need for sustainable knowledge management systems that can be readily activated to support community resilience in future crises.
Article source: Adapted from Knowledge management in the lockdown of Shanghai, prepared as part of the requirements for completion of course KM6304 Knowledge Management Strategies and Policies in the Nanyang Technological University Singapore Master of Science in Knowledge Management (KM).
Header image source: TheDigitalArtist on Pixabay.
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