Knowledge Management - Through the Technology Glass

TULSSAA Journal, 2007

Knowledge management is a new concept in Library and Information science. Knowledge is considered as a rich asset these days. The dictionary defines knowledge as the facts, feelings or experiences known by a person or a group of people. Knowledge Management as a new branch of management for achieving breakthrough in business performance through the synergy of people, processes, and technology, its focus is on the management of change, uncertainty, and complexity. K. Navalani said "Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival, and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change.... Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings." Information can be considered as a message. It typically has a sender and a receiver. Information is the sort of stuff that can, at least potentially, be saved onto a computer. Data is a type of information that is structured, but has not been interpreted. Knowledge might be described as information that has a use or purpose. Whereas information can be placed onto a computer, knowledge exists in the heads of people. Knowledge is information to which an intent has been attached. In the eighteenth century Dr.Samuel Johnson (1709-84) wrote 'Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it'. In the new millennium, however, it is apparent knowledge management is emerging as a dominant force in the overall strategy of organizational management. In July 1999 Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister said, "The knowledge economy is the economy of the future". In knowledge economies, knowledge, expertise and innovation rather than land and machinery are the primary assets of an organization. Such assets must be effectively managed. Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival, and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change. Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings. Clearly the goal of knowledge management has sustained individual and business performance through ongoing learning, unlearning, and adaptation. Technologies of computing have inherent limitations. They have difficulty in generating meaningful insights from data as they can't question or re-interpret their programmed logic and assumptions. Given inherent limitations of the technologies of computing, human users of such systems have at least an equally important role in knowledge management. Knowledge management is a part of the continuous business improvement process. It relates to the way an organization works and develops. It recognizes corporate capability and enables skills, knowledge and processes of the organization to be used effectively and creatively to improve business performance. It is more useful to consider

Knowledge Horizons, 2000

The business direction we call Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged over the last decades as a result of many intellectual, societal, and business forces. Some of its roots extend back for millennia, both in the West and the East, while others, particularly those associated with Cognitive and Information sciences, are quite recent. Globalization of business also plays an important role. Whereas KM has become a valuable business tool, its complexity is often vexing, and as a field, will still be under development for a long time to come. Significant changes in the workplace have already taken place, but changes to come are expected to be greater. As for other management directions, it is expected that KM will be integrated into the basket of effective management tools, and hence disappear as a separate effort.

2011

The business direction we call Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged over the last decades as a result of many intellectual, societal, and business forces. Some of its roots extend back for millennia, both in the West and the East, while others, particularly those associated with Cognitive and Information sciences, are quite recent. Globalization of business also plays an important role. Whereas KM has become a valuable business tool, its complexity is often vexing, and as a field, will still be under development for a long time to come. Significant changes in the workplace have already taken place, but changes to come are expected to be greater. As for other management directions, it is expected that KM will be integrated into the basket of effective management tools, and hence disappear as a separate effort.

2005

This article gives a brief introduction about Knowledge Management (KM), its need, definition, components, KM assets, challenges and processes of KM initiative at any organisation. It also provides a narration on how the KM initiative has been adopted at ICICI OneSource, to support the achievement of its Business Process Outsourcing objectives. Both knowledge sharing as well as reuse need to be encouraged and recognized at the individual employee level as well as the company level. This is best done by measuring and rewarding knowledgeperformance. Sustained strategic commitment and a corporate culture that is conducive to knowledge-performance are vital for success in Knowledge Management. The paper concludes with suggestions for the implication for policy and future practices.

2006

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues on knowledge management that effect organizations embarking on a Knowledge Management journey(KM).KM is defined as the "conceptualization of an organization as an integrated knowledge system and the management of the organization for effective use of that "knowledge". "Knowledge" here refers to the "human cognitive and innovative processes and artifacts that support them.In an information society today, daily additional information and raw data are made available for employees.Organization converts knowledge and other resources into goods and services. The human mind stores data, generates information and forms fantastic ideas. Information once translated and transformed can mean revenue.Knowledge sharing can bring synergistic effect on organizations.Managers today realize that their own organization possess untapped resources-the human capital.A business entity has a tremendous capacity to create the r...

2015

The activity that we now call knowledge management has been practised for thousands of yearsprobably ever since the first "organizers" in tribes or villages tried to think of ways to stop repeating the same mistakes. Coming up with new knowledge, sharing it with others, making sure it is retained for the future, refining it (learning from experience), understanding how to apply it and deciding when to discard it are all important parts of the human experience. Nevertheless it was only in 1986 that the explicit attempt to direct and combine these activities was given the name knowledge management, by Karl Wiig. Most of the work on knowledge management in the generation or so since then has been set in an organizational context, and that is the emphasis we take in this book. It is nevertheless worth bearing in mind that many of the principles of knowledge management apply at levels all the way from the individual (personal knowledge management) to nations or even (say) science itself. Knowledge management sits at the intersection of several disciplines, including organizational learning, computer science, human resource management, economics, psychology and strategic management. As a result, it is not very surprising that there is no single agreed view of what knowledge management is. 2 Indeed, some would go so far as to say that managing knowledge is not possible, and that the best that can be achieved is managing human "knowers." Perhaps the only aspects that everyone agrees on are that knowledge management is (at best) difficult, and that any knowledge management initiative in an organization has to be tailored to the particular context of that organization at that time. Knowledge management as a field acquired the status of a management "fad" in the mid-to late-1990s, with an explosion in the number of books and articles published about it, and it is fair to say that it has both benefited and suffered from this status. Nevertheless, unlike some other management fads, it has demonstrated its staying power, and is widely practised and studied worldwide today, even if not always under the precise name knowledge management. The aim of this book is to review the field of knowledge management with an operational research/management science mindset, encompassing both "soft" and "hard" aspects. This implies a holistic approach that gives a broader perspective than one based on any single viewpoint such as that of computer science or organizational learning. The various chapters represent the best knowledge management articles published in the 21st century in the journals Knowledge Management Research & Practice and the European Journal of Information Systems. All have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process, and the contributing authors include Ikujiro Nonaka, perhaps the biggest name in the knowledge management field, as well as others with equal reputations in associated fields such as George Huber (decision support) and Richard Baskerville (information systems). The contributing authors are based in nine different countries on four continents, showing the global nature of knowledge management.

International Journal of Research in Economics & Social Sciences, 2012

In the industry era, organizations improved their efficiency, effectiveness through automating manual labour and reducing redundancy. In this Information era, success depends critically on the quality and effective management of knowledge which becomes the life blood of an organization. Knowledge has been described as information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection. Given the importance of such an asset, it is not surprising that organizations everywhere are paying attention to knowledge exploring what it is and how to create, transfer and use it more effectively. Knowledge Management (KM) has blossomed into a strategically important area for most organizations to gain competitive advantage. The knowledge-based perspective of the firm (Cole,1998) postulate that knowledge assets produce long-term benefits such as competitive advantage and sustainability in the face of a fluctuating economic climate. According to Gartner report, from 2006 to 2010 organizations will continue to invest in KM as one of the critical competencies in high-performance workplace (HPW) initiatives. A survey by Reuters found that 90 per cent of companies that deploy a Knowledge Management (KM) solution benefit from better decision-making, while 81 per cent say they notice increased productivity. It is found that, while 26 per cent of knowledge in the average organization is stored on paper and 20 per cent digitally, an astonishing 42 per cent is stored in employees' heads.This paper discusses how to manage knowledge effectively. In its introduction part, it gives light on the difference between data, information and knowledge. The paper gives light on 4 C’s framework of knowledge management. It concludes with suggesting road map for managing the knowledge effectively by identifying key success factors for knowledge Management.

http://mmm-gi.blogspot.com/p/no3year-2013.html, 2014

Abstract:It is an undisputed fact that this is the age of knowledge and a time of constant changes which are unpredictable. The globalisation trends and ever increasing networking of economy, information, technology, management (…) give rise to intellectual and group knowledge, namely to intellectual capital as the nonmaterial part of an organisation’s capital. Formal education is not sufficient, and further training is required in line with contemporary requirements which the market imposes, in addition to it not providing development of personal skills which are necessary in everyday management, and which in synergy with professional knowledge provide for the proper results. Today, knowledge represents the most important capital of an enterprise, and it is necessary to develop an efficient and effective system of managing this resource, as it is that in particular which provides greater productivity, innovation, more qualitative performance of business activities, and provides competitive advantage. In previous periods the emphasis within organisations was on technology and technological changes, while today, in the age of knowledge technology continues to be important, but only as a product of internal engagement of intellectual capacities. Therefore, this imposes the fact that only through successful knowledge management enterprises are able to successfully manage their business.

Although much has been written on knowledge management (KM), the learning organisation and intellectual capital (IC), little, if any has been written about the relationship and correlation between KM and intellectual capital management. The challenge seems to be to provide integrated guidelines on how organisations can use both KM and IC for the formulating of a comprehensive intellectual capital management approach (CICM). The exceptional growth of information in the knowledge economy focuses attention on the importance of managing knowledge in organisations. These organisations are referred to as the so-called learning organisations. These are organisations that recognise the value of knowledge within the organisations Although there is a general consensus that the knowledge society and the knowledge economy has arrived, and that knowledge is a key business asset, organisations are still in the early stages of understanding the implications of knowledge management and intellectual capital. The rise of the “new economy” that is principally driven by information and knowledge, can be attributed to the increased prominence of intellectual capital (IC) in organisations. Intellectual capital features prominently in recent economic, managerial, technological and sociological developments in a manner previously unknown and largely unforseen. Although there are many similarities between KM and intellectual capital (IC), these concepts are not the same. KM relates to the creation of value, the gathering of ideas, the measuring of employee brainpower, and the conversion of taught knowledge into explicit knowledge that the organisation can codify and transfer. IC relates to the maximization of value. This achieved through the licensing of knowhow, patents, trademarks, and the use of intellectual capital to gain a competitive advantage. Further uses are to enter new markets, establish strategic alliances, and generate revenue. The proponents of the KM and IC approaches identify the benefits of each of these management approaches, but fail to see the connection or the interaction between KM and IC. It is possible in some industries that one approach may seem more important than the other. Nonetheless, for any organisation to succeed in the knowledge economy, it is essential to adopt both KM and IC approaches to some extent, as each deals with complementary strategic needs. What some organisations fail to see is that KM and IC are essential components for the total management of an organisation’s intellectual asset management. The question can now be asked: What can be done to ensure a successful relationship and effective correlation between knowledge management and intellectual capital in the organisation? This question will be answered with this paper.

Knowledge and Process …, 2002