Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Management
A Practical Perspectives
Rofi Rofaida, Tjutju Yuniarsih and Disman Disman
Postgraduate School of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Leadership, knowledge management, information and communication technology.
Abstract: Knowledge management becomes the competitive advantage of an organization especially for organizations
that have core competence and core business on knowledge services, especially universities. The university
should continously respond to the development of science, technology, art, culture, and demands of society
by improving the quality of university obligation in teaching, research, and community service. This study
objective is to gain an overview of knowledge management practices at university. The results show that the
practice of knowledge management at university is supported by information and communication technology
(ICT) in the form of university’s web service facility which enables all knowledge management practices to
be implemented. Trying to implement a knowledge management system without technology support is very
difficult. Technology facilitates and enables connection and communication. Leadership plays an essential
role in the practice of knowledge management at universities. The essential role of leadership in knowledge
management is in the form of commitment and the leader's mind set of knowledge management so that
leadership will determine the form of knowledge management policy within the university.
1 INTRODUCTION
Knowledge, which is useful for human life, is a
collection of information resulted from a number of
data processed to form meaning by connecting one
information with another information. In order to
make this knowledge to be efficient and effective, it
needs to be managed professionally through
knowledge management.
In the last 8-10 years, knowledge management has
been becoming very essential and growing rapidly
especially for organizations, which core business is in
the field of knowledge, such as university. The
development is driven by the network economy,
increased competition, mergers and acquisitions, and
the rapid development of the Internet. The
development of economic activities is very dynamic.
People have enormous access to sources of
information and a tremendous opportunity to gain
learning and win the competition in business.
The development of knowledge management is
influenced by several business factors such as
increasingly fierce business competition and rapid
development of innovation levels. In addition,
organizational competition is based on the acquired
knowledge along with the speed to gain new
knowledge and the need for long-term learning to
improve organizational capacity. Knowledge
management is strategic in nature. Knowledge
management practices should be integrated with the
vision, mission, and organizational strategy
determined by the leadership within the organization.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Transformational Leadership
Some concepts of leadership have been raised from
several references, namely: Leadership as the ability
to influence a group toward the achievement of goals.
The source of this influence may be formal such as
that provided by the possession of managerial rank in
an organization. (Robbins, 2015). Leadership is a
process whereby an individual influences a group of
individuals to achieve a common goals (Northouse,
2013).
Leadership is the ability of individuals to
influence, motivate and enable other individuals
within the organization to contribute to the
achievement of organizational goals. Northouse
(2013) identifies that there are four components in
Rofaida, R., Yuniarsih, T. and Disman, D.
Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Management - A Practical Perspectives.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business, and Philanthropy (ICIEBP 2017) - Transforming Islamic Economy and Societies, pages 549-554
ISBN: 978-989-758-315-5
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
549

leadership: leadership is a process, leadership
involves influencing processes, leadership takes place
within a group, leadership is accomplished to achieve
goals, and a leader exerts all his energies along with
other members to achieve the goals collectively.
Transformational leadership has the power to
influence the subordinates with a particular method to
yield their trust, admiration, and respect which make
the subordinates to be motivated to be able to carry
out the task well. With transformational leadership,
the followers give their trust, admiration, loyalty, and
respect toward the leader, and they are motivated to
do more than they are originally expected to do.
Dimension of transformational leadership was
initially described by: (1) idealized influence; (2).
inspirational motivation, (3). intellectual stimulation,
and (4). individual consideration.
Transformational leadership includes two
elements: relational and change (transformation).
Leading change is one of the most essential and
difficult responsibilities of a leader (Yukl, 2010).
Effective leadership is needed to revitalize and
facilitate organizations to adapt to these changes
while changing the environment. The leader's job is
to inspire people to do things differently, endure
uncertainty, and strive to achieve goals (Schafer,
2010). Transformational leadership is necessary
because a transformational leader also teaches his
followers to become leaders and encourages them to
play an active role in the movement of change
(Antonakis, 2012).
2.2 Knowledge Management
Knowledge can be categorized into two namely tacit
knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge
is intellectual capital inherent in its growth and
development in the form of ideas, thoughts, beliefs,
as a result of learning, experience and study of human
life. It is the intellectual asset of a person in the form
of words, printed documents, books, journals, papers,
patents, which are real assets that are useful for
human life. Explicit knowledge is a useful application
of tacit knowledge in many aspects of human life.
According to Liss (1999) Knowledge management is
a formal, directed process of determining what
information a company has that could benefit others
and then devising ways to making it easily available
to all concerned (Singh, 2008).
Knowledge management manages knowledge.
Managing means to design, organize, coordinate
knowledge to be utilized within the organization
(Huang Lin, 2012). Through knowledge
management, some types of knowledge can be
codified and stored formally. In this case, technology
has an essential role to store knowledge and facilitate
communication, culture, and value that make
knowledge management essential. Sveiby (1997)
categorizes four forms of knowledge conversion that
provide essential value to knowledge as a competitive
advantage:
 Embodied to embodied knowledge
It is the process of sharing experiences and
expertise through the socialization process. The
method utilized is observation, imitation and
practice.
 Embodied to represented knowledge
This is the process of translating embodied
knowledge into represented concept through
spoken words.
 Represented to represented knowledge
Represented to represented knowledge produces
many combinations. Different embodied
knowledge will be combined through analysis,
categorization and other processes, with the help
of various forms of media so that knowledge
becomes rich in both form and usability. This
form of conversion occurs in educational
institutions, including universities.
 Represented to embodied knowledge
This is the highest form of knowledge
conversion. A person accepts knowledge, then
trusts and uses that knowledge.
Another theory of knowledge conversion is
proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) which
states that there are four types of conversion
processes: Socialization, Externalization,
Combination, and Internalization. The process of
activity and resource development in an organization
is the embodiment of SECI (Socialization,
externalization, combination, internalization).
The process of knowledge creation is an iterative
process of interaction of tacit knowledge and explicit
knowledge such interaction will lead to new
knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995), knowledge cycle has four components:
 Socialization is a face-to-face activity between
individuals in sharing knowledge. There is a
process of tacit knowledge and explicit
knowledge.
 Externalization is the process of creating tacit
knowledge an explicit knowledge. Present
knowledge into easy-to-understand form for
example form of writing.
 Combination is a blend of explicit with another
explicit to make knowledge easier to
understand, such as reports.
ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy
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 Internalization is the process of applying
explicit knowledge to generate new knowledge
or application to action / real practice.
The form of knowledge conversion that occurs in
university is represented to represented knowledge.
Universities are organizations where knowledge is
created and utilized continuously and sustainably.
Creation of knowledge within an organization is
achieved through an understanding of the process of
transforming existing tacit knowledge into easily
communicated and easily documented knowledge,
and through the design of social processes by
transferring the tacit knowledge into explicit
knowledge. One of the knowledge that university
needs to have is how to manage the existing academic
information system. Trying to implement a
knowledge management system without technology
support is very difficult. However, the technology
itself will not make the knowledge management
system work properly. Technology facilitates and
allows for connection and communication but the
technology itself does not make knowledge
management happen. In conclusion, ICT or
technology facilitates knowledge management.
Technology support can be divided into two,
namely:
 Transfer and exchange system related to
technology support in database, document
exchange and video storage
 Data analysis and performance support related
to technological support in converting from data
to knowledge, decision creating, and data
analysis for corporate intelligence
To succeed, it is imperative for a company to
create an environment where knowledge sharing is
conducted well. Technology can support this habit
but can’t replace it.
3 METHODOLOGY
The research was conducted at Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia, which is one of the universities
owned by the Indonesian government. The method
utilized in this research was survey method with "one
shoot" / cross sectional observation. The data
collection method were interviews, questionnaires,
literature study, and Focus Group Discussion. The
data were analyzed using descriptive analysis.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the Act No. 12 of 2012 on higher education, it is
mentioned that higher education functions: (a)
developing the ability and forming the character and
civilization of dignified nation in order to educate the
life of the nation, (b). develop an innovative,
responsive, creative, skilled, competitive, and
cooperative academic community through the
implementation of University’s missions (c). develop
science and technology by taking into account and
applying the humanities value. Law number 12 of
2012 on higher education defines quality assurance of
higher education as a systemic activity to improve the
quality of higher education on a planned and
sustainable basis.
Quality assurance is conducted through the
establishment, implementation, evaluation, control,
and improvement of higher education standards.
There is an internal quality assurance conducted by
each university and external guarantee conducted by
accreditation. Within the internal quality assurance
system, there is a knowledge management practice
that tacit knowledge process is written in, so that it
becomes explicit. Academic activities at the
university are written clearly, neatly and structured so
that all relevant parties can understand and operate it.
To undertake quality assurance of education
implementation, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
has implemented knowledge management.
Leadership is the ability of individuals to
influence, motivate and enable other individuals
within the organization to contribute to the
achievement of organizational goals. An essential
role of leadership in knowledge management is in the
form of a leader's commitment and mind set towards
knowledge management so that leadership will
determine the form of knowledge management policy
within the organization. On the other hand, the form
of knowledge management within the organization
should consider the type of leadership that the
organization wants in the future. In this context,
knowledge management has an essential influence
towards the type of leadership that the organization
develops in the future. If the system is effective, a
number of future leaders will be created.
The importance of leadership style to knowledge
management activities found in the study of Analoui
et al. (2013), that if the leadership of the knowledge
management activities increases among subordinates,
then going to use passive avoidant leadership
(characterised by the behaviour of reactive) should
definitely lose knowledge management activities. But
this will only happen if the leadership is seen as a
Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Management - A Practical Perspectives
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necessary and sufficient to affect the activity of
knowledge management.
The core value is an expression of the identity of
the university. The task of a leader within the
university is to transform the core values in the form
of vision, mission, program and policy to provide
high-profile identity and credibility. A study of the
University of Twente in the Netherlands by Clarks
(1999) illustrated the leadership evolution at the
university for over 35 years to become a successful
and innovative technology university using core
values that were expressed into the university's
identity. The core values are as follows:
 The two-core university: offers a combination of
unusual courses in applied science and applied
social sciences
 The university: creating a comfortable
environment for learning
 The responsible university: having a strong
commitment to regional development both
economically and culturally
 The universities without frontier: academic
activities apply international character in
learning and research
 The focutilized university: providing in-depth
study
 The flexible university: utilizing a variety of
effective learning methods
The essential roles of transformational leaders
within the university are as follows:
 Knowing well the value and culture of the
organization
 Bringing all elements of the PT in formulating
the vision and mission.
 Becoming example for core constituents (such
as faculty, majors)
 Having the ability to increase the value of the
institution, determine the strengths and
weaknesses and establish a strategy without
losing the value and positive organizational
culture
In line with the direction of development, identity,
and challenges in the future, the vision of the
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia vision is Leading
and Outstanding. In the period of 2016-2020, this
vision will be gradually focutilized to achieve
pioneering and excellence in the field of education in
the ASEAN region. The mission of Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia is as follows:
 Conducting education by fostering and
developing the discipline of education and
education of disciplines, as well as the
disciplines of religion, social sciences, natural
sciences, formal science, and applied sciences
proportionally to strengthen the disciplines of
education and education disciplines;
 Conducting research to create and develop
innovative educational theories and practices
and other scholarship rooted in local wisdom;
 Developing an integrated Teacher Professional
Education in academic and professional
education for all levels of education; and
 Disseminating experiences and innovative
findings in the disciplines of education,
disciplinary education, religious science,
humanities, social sciences, natural sciences,
formal science, and applied sciences for the
betterment of society. (www.upi.edu)
Transformational leadership prioritizes
commitment to focus of the Universitas Pendidikan
Indonesia, the identity of education. Commitment to
Focus identifies the strengths and weaknesses of
defining the right strategy. Strategies undertaken
include improving coordination among university
faculties and departments and focusing on quality
rather than number of students. This strategy also
invites pros and cons but ultimately can improve the
university's image and public confidence. Leadership
becomes a key factor in creating major changes to the
organization. These changes include changes in the
university's image. The vision builds on the history
and core values of the university. Effective leaders
must be able to synergize the traditions, values and
organizational culture with the vision of the
organization. Good vision indicators are: clear, focus,
aspirational, motivational, shared, authentic,
worthwhile, and measurable. The problem
encountered in establishing a university mission is
that the Mission is only made as a fulfillment of the
accreditation requirements and not based on the
analysis of the external and internal environment. In
addition, strategies and work programs are not
utilized as a means to achieve goals and missions.
Mission must be written in the form of policy or
regulation and implied in the form of the university’s
life and culture
The vision of the Universitas Pendidikan
Indonesia to become a leading and outstanding
university requires the university to continuously
respond to the development of science, technology,
art, culture, and the demands of society by improving
the system of education. This is an absolute necessity
because of the many challenges faced by all
universities in Indonesia, including UPI is the impact
of the globalization of the education and employment
sectors, especially the ASEAN Economic
Community, which began in 2015. The practice of
knowledge management in Universitas Pendidikan
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Indonesia is conducted to improve the quality of
process in universities such as teaching, research, and
community service. From the various information
mentioned above it can be concluded that universities
will be able to implement process in university well
and smoothly if supported by information system.
Socialization must be conducted well so that all
parties will perform their duties in a timely manner.
Training through meetings, seminars, workshops,
evaluations and other forms is conducted routinely.
System enhancements must be refined continuously.
Realizing Knowledge Management with the use of
information technology with internet-based
information system / online.
Creating website for academic service system will
be very helpful because:
 The related parties are numerous and scattered
in various places (in various rooms / buildings
or university).
 The developments are so fast that they require
quick work. System in support of information
technology will accelerate performance.
 Facilitate all stakeholders to communicate.
Sharing knowledge can run quickly using email,
Yahoo Messenger, G Talk or other applications.
 Large amount of data in one place can be
accessed quickly by the parties concerned.
 Effective and efficient because many things can
be done using information technology. A variety
of complex calculation processes can be left on
the computer.
 Cost efficiency
There is a UPI Web service facility that contains
all ICT services in cyberspace. Publicly owned
facilities include information on institutional profiles,
academic facilities, new admissions information and
Student Affairs and Alumni. In general, this facility
serves to support the administrative sector
(administration improvement) and the learning sector
(instructional improvement).
Some examples of ICT-based knowledge
management practices at Universitas Pendidikan
Indonesia are:
4.1 On-Line Study Contract
The on-line study contract system for students is
accessible via the https://siak.upi.edu/contract web
address. This system is web-based so it can be
accessed anywhere and anytime as long as the
computer or smartphone utilized is connected to the
internet. Online study contract / FKKB is a two-way
interaction between students and academic advisors.
The study program informs the online lecture
schedule (knowledge transfer and sharing). Students
gain knowledge of courses and university schedules
(knowledge acquisition). UPI stores knowledge in the
form of secure software with the help of ICT
(knowledge storage). Students can only enter into
contracts and enter their username and password as
protection. Through online study plan students and
lecturers can communicate about the study plan
(knowledge transfer and sharing). Through ICT, on-
line study contracts allow students to consult on a
study plan and ultimately undertake a course contract
(knowledge application).
4.2 Integrated Online Learning System
(SPOT)
The Integrated Online Learning System (SPOT) is an
e-learning application designed to facilitate distance
learning. This system can serve as a support tool
(supplement) of (direct learning) which is generally
utilized in faculty lectures at UPI. This app is
accessed via http://spot.upi.edu.
Through SPOT, students get lecture material
(knowledge acquisition). Through the ICT system
UPI stores knowledge securely. Only students who
have NIM as username and password and Dosen who
have NIP as username and password can access the
system (knowledge documentation and storage).
Students take lecture materials and online tasks
(knowledge retrieval). Lecturers send and distribute
lecture materials (knowledge transfer and sharing).
ICT systems provide the ease of doing face-to-face
lectures (knowledge application).
4.3 Digital Library
The web address for digital library is:
http://digilib.upi.edu/ which contains all the digital
content owned by the UPI library that can be accessed
by all UPI academicians. UPI digital library site
presents research information that has been done by
UPI students, whether thesis, or dissertation. Website
Digilib developed by the Directorate of Library.
The improvement of library services is conducted
through updating the collection and increasing the
ease of access to the sources of knowledge so as to
facilitate the process of knowledge acquisition and
knowledge retrieval. The UPI library also uses
software to avoid plagiarism for students and
lecturers. The process of socialization and training
which is a form of knowledge transfer and knowledge
Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Management - A Practical Perspectives
553

sharing has been implemented to all study programs
within the Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia.
5 CONCLUSIONS
To undertake quality assurance of education
implementation, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
has implemented transformational leadership and
knowledge management. The results show that the
practice of knowledge management at Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia is supported by information
and communication technology (ICT) in the form of
the UPI Web service facility which enables all
knowledge management practices to be implemented.
An essential role of leadership in knowledge
management is in the form of a leader's commitment
and mind set towards knowledge management so that
leadership will determine the form of knowledge
management policy within the organization.
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