Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices A Best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is called with a German word Aha-Erlebnis. The term was coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler. It is also known as an epiphany and experiences Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organisational processes A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities or practice.

An established discipline An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge which is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong since 1991 (see Nonaka 1991 Knowledge Management comprises a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organisational processes or practice), KM includes courses taught in the fields of business administration In business, administration consists of the performance or management of business operations and thus the making or implementing of major decisions. Administration can be defined as the universal process of organizing people and resources efficiently so as to direct activities toward common goals and objectives, information systems In a general sense, the term Information System refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization's manual and automated processes. In a narrow sense, the term information system (or computer-based information system) refers to the specific, management Management in all business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and, and library and information sciences Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information. Practitioners within the field study the application and usage of knowledge in organizations, along with the interaction between people, organizations and any existing (Alavi & Leidner 1999). More recently, other fields have started contributing to KM research; these include information and media, computer science Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information; the fundamental question underlying computer, public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." [citation needed] It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health, and public policy The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While law can compel or prohibit behaviors policy merely guides actions toward those that are most.

Many large companies In the United States, a company is a corporation—or, less commonly, an association, partnership, or union—that carries on an industrial enterprise." Generally, a company may be a "corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, trust, fund, or organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, and any receiver, and non-profit organisations A nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals. Examples of NPOs include charities (i.e. charitable organizations) , trade unions, and public arts organizations. Most governments and government agencies meet this definition, but in have resources dedicated to internal KM efforts, often as a part of their 'Business Strategy Strategic or institutional management is the conduct of drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives. It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs,', 'Information Technology Information technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to', or 'Human Resource Management Human resource management is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human resource management" and "human resources" (HR) have largely' departments (Addicott, McGivern & Ferlie 2006). Several consulting companies also exist that provide strategy and advice regarding KM to these organisations.

KM efforts typically focus on organisational objectives A goal or objective is a projected state of affairs that a person or a system plans or intends to achieve—a personal or organizational desired end-point in some sort of assumed development. Many people endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines such as improved performance A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which one group of people behave in a particular way for another group of people (the audience). Sometimes the dividing line between performer and the audience may become blurred, as in the example of "participatory theatre" where audience members might get involved in, competitive advantage 2. Differentiation - Differentiation advantage occurs when a firm delivers greater services for the same price of its competitors. They are collectively known as positional advantages because they denote the firm's position in its industry as a leader in either superior services or cost; , innovation The term innovation means a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. A distinction is typically made between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully. In many fields, something new must be substantially, the sharing of lessons learned, and continuous improvement Some see it as a meta process for most management systems . Deming saw it as part of the 'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer were evaluated against organisational goals. The fact that it can be called a management process does not mean that it needs to be executed by 'management' merely that it makes decisions about the of the organisation An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word itself is derived from the Greek word ὄργανον (organon [itself derived from the better-known word ἔργον ergon - work; deed - > ergonomics, etc]) meaning. KM efforts overlap with Organisational Learning In Organizational development , learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. (see adaptive system). OD specialists endeavor to assist their clients to learn from experience and incorporate the, and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management Management in all business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge. KM efforts can help individuals and groups to share valuable organisational insights, to reduce redundant work, to avoid reinventing the wheel The inspiration for this idiomatic metaphor lies in the fact that the wheel is the archetype of human ingenuity, both by virtue of the added power and flexibility it affords its users, and also in the ancient origins which allow it to underlie much, if not all, of modern technology. As it is not considered to have any operational flaws, an attempt per se, to reduce training time for new employees Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how, to retain intellectual capital The term Intellectual capital collectively refers to all resources that determine the value and the competitiveness of an enterprise. As such, it includes as subsets the attributes that concur to building all financial statements as well as the balance sheet. as employees turnover In a human resources context, turnover or labor turnover is the rate at which an employer gains and loses employees. Simple ways to describe it are "how long employees tend to stay" or "the rate of traffic through the revolving door." Turnover is measured for individual companies and for their industry as a whole. If an in an organisation, and to adapt to changing environments and markets A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade or do transactions, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is a transaction mechanism that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things. Markets vary in size, range, geographic (McAdam & McCreedy 2000)(Thompson & Walsham 2004).

Contents

History

KM efforts have a long history, to include on-the-job discussions Debate or debating is a formal method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is technique of persuasion. Though logical consistency, factual accuracy, formal apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships. Most of their training is done on the job while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade, in exchange for their continuing labour for an agreed period after they become, discussion forums Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of a newsgroup or electronic mailing list ; allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic, corporate libraries A library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. The term can mean the collection, the building that houses such a collection, or, professional training The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology . In addition to the basic training and mentoring Mentorship refers to a developmental relationship in which a more experienced person helps a less experienced person, referred to as a protégé, apprentice, mentoree, or being mentored, develop in a specified capacity programs. More recently, with increased use of computers in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations Adaptation is one of the basic phenomena of biology. It is the process whereby an organism becomes better suited to its habitat. Also, the term adaptation may refer to a characteristic which is especially important for an organism's survival. For example, the adaptation of horses' teeth to the grinding of grass, or their ability to run fast and of technologies such as knowledge bases A knowledge base is a special kind of database for knowledge management, providing the means for the computerized collection, organization, and retrieval of knowledge, expert systems An expert system is software that attempts to reproduce the performance of one or more human experts, most commonly in a specific problem domain, and is a traditional application and/or subfield of artificial intelligence. A wide variety of methods can be used to simulate the performance of the expert however common to most or all are 1) the, knowledge repositories From Latin repositorium, place or thing for storages; from reposit- + -torium,, suffix indicating the place or thing appropriate for the verb to which it is affixed, group decision support systems Group Decision Support Systems are a class of electronic meeting systems, a collaboration technology designed to support meetings and group work . GDSS are distinct from computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) technologies as GDSS are more focused on task support, whereas CSCW tools provide general communication support, intranets and computer supported cooperative work The term computer supported cooperative work was first coined by Irene Greif and Paul M. Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using technology to support people in their work. At about this same time, in 1987 Dr. Charles Findley presented the concept of collaborative learning-work. According to, CSCW addresses " have been introduced to further enhance such efforts[1].

In 1999, the term personal knowledge management Personal knowledge management refers to a collection of processes that an individual needs to carry out in order to gather, classify, store, search, and retrieve knowledge in his/her daily activities (Grundspenkis 2007). One of its focus is about how individual workers apply knowledge processes to support their day-to-day work activities (Wright 20 was introduced which refers to the management of knowledge at the individual level (Wright 2005).

More recently with the advent of the Web 2.0 "Web 2.0" refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and, the concept of knowledge management has evolved towards a vision more based on people participation and emergence In philosophy, systems theory and science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. This line of evolution is termed Enterprise 2.0 Enterprise social software, also known as Enterprise 2.0, is a term describing social software used in "enterprise" contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, (McAfee 2006). However, there is still a debate (and discussions even in Wikipedia (Lakhani & McAfee 2007)) whether Enterprise 2.0 Enterprise social software, also known as Enterprise 2.0, is a term describing social software used in "enterprise" contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, is just a fad, or if it brings something new, is the future of knowledge management (Davenport 2008) and is here to stay.

Research

A broad range of thoughts on the KM discipline exists with no unanimous agreement; approaches vary by author and school. As the discipline matures, academic debates have increased regarding both the theory The term theory has two broad sets of meanings, one used in the empirical sciences and the other used in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and across other fields in the humanities. There is considerable difference and even dispute across academic disciplines as to the proper usages of the term. What follows is an attempt to describe how the term is and practice of KM, to include the following perspectives:

Regardless of the school of thought, core components of KM include People, Processes, Technology (or) Culture, Structure, Technology, depending on the specific perspective (Spender & Scherer 2007). Different KM schools of thought include various lenses through which KM can be viewed and explained, to include:

Dimensions

Different frameworks for distinguishing between knowledge exist. One proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge represents internalised knowledge that an individual may not be consciously aware of how he or she accomplishes particular tasks. At the opposite end of the spectrum, explicit knowledge represents knowledge that the individual holds consciously in mental focus, in a form that can easily be communicated to others.[8] (Alavi & Leidner 2001).

Early research suggested that a successful KM effort needs to convert internalised tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in order to share it, but the same effort must also permit individuals to internalise and make personally meaningful any codified knowledge retrieved from the KM effort. Subsequent research into KM suggested that a distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge represented an oversimplification and that the notion of explicit knowledge is self-contradictory. Specifically, for knowledge to be made explicit, it must be translated into information (i.e., symbols outside of our heads) (Serenko & Bontis 2004).

A second proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between embedded knowledge of a system outside of a human individual (e.g., an information system may have knowledge embedded into its design) and embodied knowledge representing a learned capability of a human body’s nervous and endocrine systems (Sensky 2002).

A third proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between the exploratory creation of "new knowledge" (i.e., innovation) vs. the transfer or exploitation of "established knowledge" within a group, organisation, or community. Collaborative environments such as communities of practice or the use of social computing tools can be used for both knowledge creation and transfer [9].

Strategies

Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after KM-related activities. Different organisations have tried various knowledge capture incentives, including making content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no consensus has emerged.

One strategy to KM involves actively managing knowledge (push strategy). In such an instance, individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the repository [10].

Another strategy to KM involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis (pull strategy). In such an instance, expert individual(s) can provide their insights to the particular person or people needing this (Snowden 2002).

Other knowledge management strategies for companies include:

Motivations

A number of claims exist as to the motivations leading organisations to undertake a KM effort [11]. Typical considerations driving a KM effort include:

Debate exists whether KM is more than a passing fad, though increasing amount of research in this field may hopefully help to answer this question, as well as create consensus on what elements of KM help determine the success or failure of such efforts (Wilson 2002) [12].

Technologies

Early KM technologies included online corporate yellow pages as expertise locators and document management systems. Combined with the early development of collaborative technologies (in particular Lotus Notes), KM technologies expanded in the mid-1990s. Subsequent KM efforts leveraged semantic technologies for search and retrieval and the development of e-learning tools for communities of practice [13] (Capozzi 2007).

More recently, development of social computing tools (such as blogs and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks, or matrixed organisations. However such tools for the most part are still based on text and code, and thus represent explicit knowledge transfer. These tools face challenges in distilling meaningful re-usable knowledge and ensuring that their content is transmissible through diverse channels [14](Andrus 2005).

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.unc.edu/~sunnyliu/inls258/Introduction_to_Knowledge_Management.html
  2. ^ http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/HOIT/HOIT%20Papers/TeacherBridge.pdf
  3. ^ http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/ecscw03/papers/groth-ecscw03-ws.pdf
  4. ^ http://www.ndu.edu/sdcfp/reports/2007Reports/IBM07%20.doc
  5. ^ http://iakm.kent.edu/programs/information-use/iu-curriculum.html
  6. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984600
  7. ^ http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/wyssusek02sociopragmatic.html
  8. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=991169
  9. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=961043
  10. ^ http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~chens/PDF/IRI00_Rathau.pdf
  11. ^ http://tecom.cox.smu.edu/abasu/itom6032/kmlect.pdf
  12. ^ http://myweb.whitman.syr.edu/yogesh/papers/WhyKMSFail.pdf
  13. ^ http://elvis.slis.indiana.edu/irpub/HT/2001/pdf53.pdf
  14. ^ "Knowledge Management". www.systems-thinking.org. http://www.systems-thinking.org/kmgmt/kmgmt.htm. Retrieved on 2009-02-26.

External links

Categories: Knowledge management | Knowledge | Information systems | Management science | Cognitive science | Groupware | Business terms

 

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