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Knowledge Management (KM) refers to a range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning across the organization. Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organizational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific business outcomes such as shared business intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation. While knowledge transfer (an aspect of Knowledge Management) has always existed in one form or another, for example through on-the-job discussions with peers, formally through apprenticeship, through the maintenance of corporate libraries, through professional training and mentoring programmes, and — since the late twentieth century — technologically through knowledge bases, expert systems, and other knowledge repositories, Knowledge Management programs attempt to explicitly evaluate and manage the process of creation or identification, accumulation, and application of knowledge or intellectual capital across an organization. Knowledge Management, therefore, attempts to bring under one set of practices various strands of thought and practice relating to: While Knowledge Management programs are closely related to Organizational Learning initiatives, Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organizational Learning by its greater focus on the management of specific knowledge assets and development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge flows. The emergence of knowledge management has generated new organizational roles and responsibilities an early example of which was the Chief Knowledge Officer. In recent years, Personal knowledge management (PKM) practice has arisen in which individuals apply KM practice to themselves, their role in the organisation and their career development. Knowledge Management is a continually evolving discipline, with a wide range of contributions and a wide range of views on what represents good practice in Knowledge Management. Approaches to knowledge management There is a broad range of thought on knowledge management with no agreed definition current or likely. The approaches vary by author and school. For example, knowledge management may be viewed from each of the following perspectives: In addition as the discipline is maturing we see an increasing presence of academic debates within epistemology emerging in both the theory and practice of knowledge management. UK and Australian Standards Bodies have both produced documents which attempt to bound and scope the field but these have received limited take up or awareness. Schools of thought in knowledge management There are a variety of different schools of thought in Knowledge Management. For example the Intellectual Capital movement with Edvinsson and Stewart, a body of work derivative of information theory associated with Prusak and Davenport. Complexity approaches associated with Snowden (see Cynefin). Narrative with Denning, Snowden, Boje and others. One school takes forward the ideas of Popper (McElroy & Firestone). They are many and various and it would be invidious for an encyclopedia to list one without covering the others. Readers are commended to the reading list. Tacit versus explicit knowledge A key distinction made by the majority of knowledge management practitioners is Nonaka's reformulation of Polanyi's distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge. The former is often subconscious, internalised, and the individual may or may not be aware of what he or she knows and how he or she accomplishes particular results. At the opposite end of the spectrum is conscious or explicit knowledge - knowledge that the individual holds explicitly and consciously in mental focus, and may communicate to others. In the popular form of the distinction tacit knowledge is what is in our heads, and explicit knowledge is what we have codified. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) argued that a successful KM program needs to, on the one hand, convert internalised tacit knowledge into explicit codified knowledge in order to share it, but also on the other hand for individuals and groups to internalise and make personally meaningful codified knowledge once it is retrieved from the KM system. The focus upon codification and management of explicit knowledge has allowed knowledge management practitioners to appropriate prior work in information management, leading to the frequent accusation that knowledge management is simply a repackaged form of information management. (Eg Wilson, T.D. (2002) "The nonsense of 'knowledge management'" Information Research, 8(1), paper no. 144 at http://InformationR.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html Critics have however argued that Nonaka and Takeuchi's distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is oversimplified, and even that the notion of explicit knowledge is self-contradictory. A third kind of knowledge is embedded knowledge. Embedded knowledge is a knowledge that is embedded in a physical object but not in an explicit way, that is, it requires other knowledge to be extracted. For example, the shape and characteristics of an unknown device contain the key elements to understand how that device can be used. Knowledge capture stages Knowledge may be accessed, or captured, at three stages: before, during, or after knowledge-related activities. For example, individuals undertaking a new project for an organization might access information resources to learn best practices and lessons learned for similar projects undertaken previously, access relevant information again during the project implementation to seek advice on issues encountered, and access relevant information afterwards for advice on after-project actions and review activities. Knowledge management practitioners offer systems, repositories, and corporate processes to encourage and formalize these activities. Similarly, knowledge may be captured and recorded before the project implementation, for example as the project team learns information and lessons during the initial project analysis. Similarly, lessons learned during the project operation may be recorded, and after-action reviews may lead to further insights and lessons being recorded for future access. Ad hoc knowledge access One alternative strategy to encoding knowledge into and retrieving knowledge from a knowledge repository such as a database is for individuals to instead access expert individuals on an ad hoc basis, as needed, with their knowledge requests. A key benefit of this strategy is that the response from the expert individual is rich in content and contextualized to the particular problem being addressed and personalised to the particular person or people addressing it. The downside is, of course, that it is tied to the availability and memories of specific individuals in the organization. It does not capture their insights and experience for future use should they leave or become unavailable, and also does not help in the case when the experts' memories of particular technical issues or problems previously faced change with time. The emergence of narrative approaches to knowledge management attempts to provide a bridge between the formal and the ad hoc, by allowing knowledge to be held in the form of stories. Drivers of knowledge management There are a number of 'drivers', or motivations, leading to organizations undertaking a knowledge management program. Perhaps first among these is to gain the competitive advantage that comes with improved or faster learning and new knowledge creation. Knowledge management programs may lead to greater innovation, better customer experiences, consistency in good practices and knowledge access across a global organization, as well as many other benefits, and knowledge management programs may be driven with these goals in mind. Considerations driving a knowledge management program might include: Knowledge management enablers Historically, there have been a number of technologies 'enabling' or facilitating knowledge management practices in the organization, including expert systems, knowledge bases, various types of Infomration Management, software help desk tools, document management systems and other IT systems supporting organizational knowledge flows. The advent of the Internet brought with it further enabling technologies, including e-learning, web conferencing, collaborative software, content management systems, corporate 'Yellow pages' directories, email lists, wikis, blogs, and other technologies. Each enabling technology can expand the level of inquiry available to an employee, while providing a platform to achieve specific goals or actions. The practice of KM will continue to evolve with the growth of collaboration applications made available by IT and through the Internet. Since its adoption by the mainstream population and business community, the Internet has led to an increase in creative collaboration, learning and research, e-commerce, and instant information. There are also a variety of organizational enablers for knowledge management programs, including Communities of Practice, before-, after- and during- action reviews (see After Action Review), peer assists, information taxonomies, coaching and mentoring, and so on. Knowledge management roles and organizational structure Knowledge management activities may be centralised in a Knowledge Management Office, or responsibility for knowledge management may be located in existing departmental functions, such as the Human Resource (to manage intellectual capital) or IT departments (for content management, social computing etc.). Different departments and functions may have a knowledge management function and those functions may not be connected other than informally. Knowledge management lexicon Knowledge management professionals may use a specific lexicon in order to articulate and discuss the various issues arising in Knowledge Management. For example, terms such as intellectual capital, metric, and tacit vs explicit knowledge typically form an indispensable part of the knowledge management professional's vocabulary. Related definitions See also Further reading Articles Disentangling an enigmatic concept, Journal of Intellectual Capital Vol 7 No 2 pp 136-159 . | |||||||
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