MANAGING IN MORTGAGE EQUITY INVESTMENT FIRM: FOCUS ON MANAGING KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN RESOURCES WITHIN THE FIRM
Every firm and every manager must juggle a myriad of resources and outcomes simultaneously, giving one factor a little extra attention on one time, while providing some special care to another factor at a later time. The mortgage equity investment firm that is the focus organization in this paper and the managers of that organization are no different - the organization's needs and the managers' responsibilities are complex and dynamic. Thus, while this paper focuses on only two of the organization's resources - knowledge and human resources - the reader should not be led to an assumption by the emphasis in this paper that these two factors are either the only or the most important resources within the firm that receive the continual attention of the managers in the organization. Bateman and Snell (2003) pointed out that the most successful managers are those people who (a) pay attention to all aspects of the organization and (b) adapt to the dynamic character of each facet of the organization and its environments.
Although knowledge and technology are two separate resources within the mortgage equity investment firm, the effective management of knowledge within the organization is heavily dependent upon the effective application of technology - information technology (IT) specifically - to the management of the firm's knowledge resource. The firm is increasingly dependent on the effective and efficient application of technology to (a) maintain and improve productivity through the effective use of knowledge, (b) satisfy market demands through efficient access to knowledge, and (c) assure the continued viability of the organization through insights gained from the knowledge resource.
Knowledge management is an increasingly important element of organizational strategy at the mortgage equity investment firm. In manag...