Knowledge Management

Course Name: Management and Organisational Behaviour

Course Code: MGT 7301
Submitted by:
Seekers
Name ID
Armana Hakim Nadi 2223032026
Md. Masudur Rahman 2223032016
Lamia Jalal 2223032038
Arshea-Ara Nazneen 2223032042
Md. Anamul Hasan 2223032017

Batch: 30
Section: A
Trimester: May-August 2022

Instructor: Mohammad Ali

Assistant Professor

MBA (Professional)
Faculty of Business Studies
Bangladesh University of Professionals
Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka 1216

Date of Submission: 12th August, 2022

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Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Objective ............................................................................................................................................ 4
3. Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 4
4. Types of Knowledge Management................................................................................................... 4
Figure 4.1 : Types of Knowledge Management ................................................................................ 5
4.1 Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems ................................................................ 5
4.2 Knowledge Work Systems .......................................................................................................... 6
4.3 Intelligent Techniques................................................................................................................. 7
4.3.1 Expert systems ....................................................................................................................... 7
4.3.2 Fuzzy logic ............................................................................................................................. 7
4.3.3 Neural networks .................................................................................................................... 7
4.3.4 Genetic algorithms ................................................................................................................ 7
4.3.5 Intelligent agents ................................................................................................................... 7
5. A Key Process of Knowledge Management .................................................................................... 8
5.1 Knowledge Acquisition ............................................................................................................... 8
Steps of knowledge acquisition process: ..................................................................................... 8
5.1.1 Data Gathering ...................................................................................................................... 8
5.1.2 Data Organizing .................................................................................................................... 8
5.1.3 Summarizing ......................................................................................................................... 8
5.1.4 Analyzing ............................................................................................................................... 9
5.1.5 Synthesizing ........................................................................................................................... 9
5.2 Knowledge Storage ..................................................................................................................... 9
5.3 Knowledge Distribution.............................................................................................................. 9
5.4 Knowledge Use ............................................................................................................................ 9
6. The Goals and Strategies of Knowledge Management ................................................................ 10
6.1 Goals of Knowledge Management in an Organisation .......................................................... 10
Figure 6.1 Knowledge Management Cycle ..................................................................................... 10
Figure 6.2 Knowledge Management Lifecycle................................................................................ 12
6.2 Strategies of Knowledge Management .................................................................................... 12
7. Relevance of Knowledge Management in Today’s Business World ........................................... 13
7.1 The Relevance of Knowledge Management for the Organization’s Performance .............. 13
8. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 16
9. Reference ......................................................................................................................................... 17

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1. Introduction
Knowledge management is the process through which an organization collects, arranges,
communicates, and analyzes its information in a way that is easily available to employees. This
information consists of people skills, training manuals, commonly asked questions, and
technological resources. Organizational goals including increased performance, competitive
advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration, and ongoing organizational
improvement are often the focus of knowledge management activities. These initiatives overlap
with organizational learning, but may be separated from it by a stronger emphasis on
knowledge management as a strategic asset and on promoting knowledge exchange.
Organizational learning is made possible through knowledge management. Knowledge
management tries to accomplish certain aspects. It tries to accomplish an extensive, rich and
extended transmission of information. Knowledge management may be effectively viewed as
the effort to install the rich, deep, and open communication and information access information
environment that is recognized to be beneficial for successful R&D across the company. The
statement that we live in the post-industrial information era and that we are all information
workers has nearly become clichéd. Furthermore, it also creates a situational awareness.
Situational awareness is the ability to perceive environmental factors and occurrences in
relation to time and location, to understand their significance, and to predict how they will
develop in the future. An alternate definition of situation awareness is an externally directed,
adaptive consciousness that produces directed behavior within a dynamic task environment as
well as information about that context.

A real-life example of a successful knowledge management is The Gerdau Group. The Gerdau
Group ranks as the thirteenth-largest steel manufacturer in the world and is the largest producer
of long steel working in the Americas. It was a struggle for many of the new factories built by
the Gerdau Group to increase their operating efficiency. Unfortunately, they were unable to
access the more advanced locations' existing process expertise. Communities of practice, which
are teams of workers that operate independently of one another and have varying degrees of
expertise, were introduced by Gerdau Group to address this issue. Through an online forum,
members of these communities of practice could exchange knowledge.

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2. Objective
To accumulate in-depth apprehension regarding knowledge management

3. Methodology
For this term paper, we have collected secondary data from published papers available in
google scholar. Deductive approach has been applied for this term paper. This approach is
applied when a researcher wishes to examine an existing theory and connects the premises with
conclusions. This is a cross-sectional research as it has been conducted only once and in a short
period of time (1 semester). Cross-sectional research is performed once in a time frame.

4. Types of Knowledge Management

With a knowledge management system, users gain access to the knowledge bases that help
them resolve their issues. Knowledge Management plays a vital role in efficiently organizing
the content, and for such cases, content management systems come into action.

These knowledge management programs are responsible for creating, managing, and
distributing the article, specifically for intranet, extranet, or website. In this advanced
technological world, there exist three main knowledge management system types and these are
enterprise wide knowledge management systems, knowledge work systems, and intelligent
techniques.

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 Types of
Knowledge
Management
Enterprise-
Wide Intelligent
Knowledge Techniques
Management
Systems
Knowledge
Work Systems

Figure 4.1 : Types of Knowledge Management

4.1 Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems

Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems are firmwide efforts to collect, store,
distribute, and apply digital content and knowledge. They use an array of technologies for
storing structured and unstructured content, locating employee expertise, searching for
information, disseminating knowledge, and using data from key corporate systems.

There are three major categories of enterprise-wide knowledge management system:

• Structured knowledge systems

• Semi-structured knowledge systems
• Knowledge networks

 Structured knowledge systems- provide databases and tools for organizing and storing
structured knowledge that exists in formal documents. KPMG International's KWorld is an
example. It provides online access to presentations, white papers, best practice guidelines,
methodologies, human resources information, professional resumes, research reports, and
external news sources. It also features a tool that permits collaboration among team
members and clients in a secure Web environment.

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 Semi-structured knowledge systems- provide databases and tools for organizing and
storing semi-structured knowledge, such as e-mail, brochures, or rich media, that is not in
a formal document or report. Such systems provide a database and technical infrastructure
that tracks, stores, and organizes semi-structured content.

 Knowledge network systems- try to turn tacit, unstructured knowledge into explicit
knowledge that can be shared in a database. To disseminate tacit knowledge, knowledge
network systems may provide directories and tools for locating firm employees with special
expertise or provide solutions to commonly found problems in a central knowledge
database or FAQ repository.

4.2 Knowledge Work Systems

Knowledge work systems (KWS) support the creation of new knowledge and its integration
into the organization. KWS require easy access to an external knowledge base; powerful
computer hardware that can support software with intensive graphics, analysis, document
management, and communications capabilities; and a user-friendly interface. These
capabilities can increase the productivity of highly paid knowledge workers. KWSs often run
on workstations that are customized for the work they must perform. Computer-aided design
(CAD) systems and virtual reality systems, which create interactive simulations that behave
like the real world, require graphics and powerful modeling capabilities. KWS for financial
professionals provide access to external databases and the ability to analyze massive amounts
of financial data very quickly.

It is a specialized management system designed for engineers, scientists, and other

knowledgeable individuals. Such effective knowledge management programs contain an online
directory to search for the company professionals that help the people and corporate workers
with the specific information they need.

With the help of standardized expert systems, this knowledge management system benefits
employees in finding accurate information from the available knowledge database using best
practices for future purposes. Although, there are certain things that people can only learn
through experience. Typically, the system involves unique knowledge management tools to
perform group collaboration, useful portal to reduce information access, knowledge in
management implementation, search engine and interactive tool to categorize information
related to the taxonomy.

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4.3 Intelligent Techniques
Artificial intelligence lacks the flexibility, breadth, and generality of human intelligence, but it
can be used to capture, codify, and extend organizational knowledge. Businesses can use
artificial intelligence to help them capture and preserve tacit knowledge; for knowledge
discovery; to generate solutions to specific problems that are too massive and complex to be
analyzed by human beings on their own; and to help firms search for and filter information.

4.3.1 Expert systems

It captures tacit knowledge from a limited domain of human expertise and express that
knowledge in the form of rules. The strategy to search through the knowledge base, called the
inference engine, can use either forward or backward chaining. Expert systems are most useful
for problems of classification or diagnosis. Case-based reasoning represents organizational
knowledge as a database of cases that can be continually expanded and refined. When the user
encounters a new case, the system searches for similar cases, finds the closest fit, and applies
the solutions of the old case to the new case. The new case is stored with successful solutions
in the case database.

4.3.2 Fuzzy logic

This is a software technology for expressing knowledge in the form of rules that use
approximate or subjective values. Fuzzy logic has been used for controlling physical devices
and is starting to be used for limited decision-making applications.

4.3.3 Neural networks

It consist of hardware and software that attempt to mimic the thought processes of the human
brain. Neural networks are notable for their ability to learn without programming and to
recognize patterns that cannot be easily described by humans. They are being used in science,
medicine, and business primarily to discriminate patterns in massive amounts of data.

4.3.4 Genetic algorithms

This develop solutions to particular problems using genetically based processes such as fitness,
crossover, and mutation. Genetic algorithms are beginning to be applied to problems involving
optimization, product design, and monitoring industrial systems where many alternatives or
variables must be evaluated to generate an optimal solution.

4.3.5 Intelligent agents

They are software programs with built-in or learned knowledge bases that carry out specific,
repetitive, and predictable tasks for an individual user, business process, or software
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application. Intelligent agents can be programmed to navigate through large amounts of data
to locate useful information and in some cases act on that information on behalf of the user.

5. A Key Process of Knowledge Management

5.1 Knowledge Acquisition
Knowledge acquisition can be defined as the situation in which the organization and individuals
obtain the required knowledge that helps them accomplish their work efficiently, easily, and at
the lowest possible cost.

Knowledge acquisition is an important and necessary process at this time because everything
has become based on knowledge. For example, from writing and reading skills to even the most
complex technology in production.

Steps of knowledge acquisition process:

1. Data gathering.
2. Data Organizing.
3. Summarizing.
4. Analyzing.
5. Synthesizing.

5.1.1 Data Gathering

Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on variables of interest,
in an established systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test
hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes.
5.1.2 Data Organizing
Data organization is a process of organizing raw data, by classifying them into different
categories. This raw data includes the observations on variables. Organizing data include
classification, frequency distribution table, picture representation, graphical representation, etc.
5.1.3 Summarizing
Summarizing is defined as taking a lot of information and creating a condensed version that
covers the main points

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5.1.4 Analyzing
Being able to think clearly is the central component of critical thinking. In order to answer a
question, need to know what the question means. In order to communicate precisely and avoid
misunderstanding, need to watch out
5.1.5 Synthesizing
Synthesis is the complement of analysis, which produces knowledge, which enables us to
describe. Synthesis produces understanding, answering the why questions, enabling us to
explain or uncertainty.

5.2 Knowledge Storage

Knowledge Storage and Organizational memory knowledge storage is the process of holding
knowledge for later retrieval. Stored knowledge, often called organizational memory, includes
knowledge that employees recall as well as knowledge embedded in the organization's systems
and structures.

1. Knowledge Storage is a phase to store explicit knowledge. Learn more in: Knowledge
Management Cycle.

2. A repository decided by the tourism firm to store knowledge, mostly an electronic database

for storing internal and external communication.

5.3 Knowledge Distribution

Knowledge distribution means as being concerned with the media for the distribution of the
knowledge; the structure, form or language that the knowledge is represented in; and processes
or procedures for its management and creation.

On the other we also said that It refers to the process of distribution and sharing of knowledge
among organizational level through various interlinked techniques, people, and technologies.

5.4 Knowledge Use

Knowledge use is the application of knowledge to business decisions or opportunities. Use is
also recursive, and continually generates feedback that affects and is integrated into the other
knowledge activities.

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6. The Goals and Strategies of Knowledge Management
6.1 Goals of Knowledge Management in an Organisation
Knowledge management (KM) is a discipline that governs capturing, storing, sharing, and use
of knowledge. Knowledge management in organizations facilitates retaining and nurturing core
competencies through collaboration between experts. Effective collaboration is essential to
employee productivity, innovation, and cost savings in a global enterprise. Knowledge
management processes include knowledge discovery & detection, organization and
assessment, reuse, sharing, creation, and acquisition.

To manage what organizations, know, the overall objectives of knowledge management are to
raise the value of intellectual capital and leverage knowledge assets to meet corporate goals.
The primary role of KM is to connect to "knowledge nodes" both the knowledge providers and
the knowledge seekers. The knowledge of the mind of one provider may thus be ultimately
transferred to the mind of someone who seeks that knowledge so that a new decision can be
made or situation handled. KM provides a means of capturing and storing knowledge and
brokering it to the appropriate individual. Based on a study of 31 KM projects in 24 companies,
Davenport, De Long and Beers [R4] identified four business objectives that fulfil this primary
role:

Figure 6.1 Knowledge Management Cycle

 To Capture Knowledge — This goal can be achieved by creating KM repositories.

Those will consist of structured documents with Knowledge embedded in them —

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 memos, reports, presentations, articles — stored in a way that they may be easily
retrieved.
 To Improve Knowledge Access — To facilitate the processes of knowledge transfer
between individuals and between organizations.
 To Enhance the Knowledge Environment — by proactively facilitating and
rewarding knowledge creation, transfer and use.
 To Manage Knowledge as an Asset — some companies are including their intellectual
capital in the balance sheet, others are leveraging their knowledge assets to generate
new income from or to reduce costs with their patent base. (Zao-Sanders, 2022)

There are also several goals of Knowledge management those are stated below:

 Improved decision-making and productivity: KM enable the workforce to spend less

time looking for knowledge and re-creating knowledge that can’t be found, freeing up
time for more important work.
 Easier sharing of relevant information: Documented processes help ensure that
everyone has access to useful knowledge, such as experiences and lessons learned, and
follows approved procedures.
 Better business knowledge reuse, cultural exchange and innovation:
Employees who have easy access to the most relevant information can drive the
business forward and meet its evolving needs.
 Cost savings: Loss of knowledge — for example, when an employee who holds
valuable knowledge leaves the company — is costly. Extracting and recording
knowledge through routine processes mitigates this risk.
 More efficient and improve quality of service: Enable the provider to be more
efficient and improve quality of service, increase satisfaction and reduce the cost of
service by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge.
 Information and data management: Gather, analyze, store, share, use and maintain
knowledge, information and data throughout the service provider organization.
(Technology, 2012)

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 Figure 6.2 Knowledge Management Lifecycle

So, these are the major goals that existed behind knowledge management.
6.2 Strategies of Knowledge Management
Communicating easy-to-understand actions that people in the organization will need to take to
achieve your KM objectives helps everyone understand what needs to be done, by whom, and
what benefits are in it for them.

Here are eight types of knowledge management strategies that can guide you in planning your
organization’s necessary actions:

1. Motivate Behavior: To motivate knowledge sharing, clearly communicate KM

strategy and goals to stakeholders and provide incentives or rewards for achieving
desired knowledge-sharing behavior.

2. Encourage Networking: Help your employees share knowledge by providing

opportunities for collaboration across organizational silos and through the use of social
software.

3. Gather SME Knowledge: Keep information from SMEs flowing through your KM
pipeline. Consistently capture, analyze, and codify this knowledge and then make it
available for search and retrievable.

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 4. Analyze and Activate: Careful evaluation of new knowledge to ensure accuracy is key.
Then, analyze the knowledge to look for patterns, trends or connections that can lead
to new knowledge.

5. Codify: Collected knowledge should be codified to make it more searchable and enable
tagging, templating, and cataloguing.

6. Disseminate: Captured knowledge has no value unless potential users know it’s
available. Plan to notify users of new or updated knowledge and where to find it via
channels those users engage with most, including email, newsletters, websites, or social
networks.

7. Implement Demand-Driven KM: An effective KM strategy includes stimulating

demand for knowledge. Encourage users to ask questions, submit queries, and search.
In this way, you will be able to identify in-demand content and be more efficient in
knowledge capture.

8. Augment Through Technology: Take your KM strategy to the next level. Consider
how cognitive computing and artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance human
capabilities for observation, analysis, decision making, processing, and responding to
people and situations.

So, above the discussion, we can clearly see these eight types of strategies are mainly followed
for knowledge management.

7. Relevance of Knowledge Management in Today’s Business

World
7.1 The Relevance of Knowledge Management for the Organization’s
Performance
Managing knowledge and developing managerial competencies should enable better execution
and implementation of the process. All the processes within the organization can be reduced to
three basic processes: processes of effectiveness, efficiency, and innovation.

 Significance of knowledge management from the aspect of effectiveness:

Effectiveness involves performing the most desirable processes and making the most
feasible decisions. Knowledge management can help the organization become more
effective by helping them to choose and implement the most appropriate decisions.

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 Knowledge management enables members of the organization to collect information
necessary for monitoring external events. This results in fewer surprises for the
organization’s leaders and, consequently, reduces the need for modifying plans.
Otherwise, poor knowledge management can result in organizational errors that are
reflected in the repetition of the same problems or their poor prediction, even when they
are obvious. Knowledge management enables the organization to rapidly adapt its
processes in line with current opportunities, which is especially evident in times of
frequent and dynamic changes. At the same time, knowledge management
organizations may have significant problems in maintaining the effective process in
case employees leave the organization (voluntarily or forcefully) or when admitting
new members.

 Significance of knowledge management from the aspect of efficiency:

Effective knowledge management can provide the organization with greater
productivity and efficiency. Cases that confirm this are many. It is interesting to give
an example of Toyota that, thanks to the network of knowledge sharing within the
company, has provided a competitive advantage over other car manufacturers for years,
primarily in productivity, and then in the speed of development of the new vehicle
model. Toyota has managed to solve three basic dilemmas concerning the sharing of
knowledge, referring to the following (Bacera-Fernandez and Gonzales 2004):
• Motivate members to participate and openly share useful knowledge (at the same time
preventing them from being reared by the competition).
• Prevent free riders (individuals who learn from others, but do not help others to learn)
and reduce the costs associated with seeking and accessing different types of valuable
knowledge.

The last statement can be in contradiction with one of the basic principles of knowledge
management, which reads - knowledge management is expensive, but this is not so important
given the benefits it brings. However, Toyota’s idea is quite different and emphasizes the view
that some types of knowledge, although they have some theoretical value for the organization,
can be imaginary because this knowledge for the given organization is not appropriate, and in
this regard, it must be taken into account that it is managed knowledge that is necessary for the
organization

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  Significance of knowledge management from the aspect of innovation:
Organizations that manage knowledge and have developed a knowledge-sharing
system can expect their employees to generate new innovative solutions to solve
problems, as well as the development of more innovative organizational processes.
Knowledge management can provide more productive brainstorming and thus improve
the process of innovation in an organization.

 Significant Benefits of Knowledge Management for the organization:

Already we know the relevance of knowledge management based on organizational

performance. Let’s discuss the kind of benefits a business can gain by implementing it in
business.

 Promotes Continuous Learning & Development: Knowledge management gives

employees 24×7 uninterrupted access to useful company information that makes
learning a continuous process
 Turns Employees More Decisive: The cost and consequences of a bad decision can
be staggering. Although one bad decision might seem normal, the cumulative cost of
such poor decisions can be billions of dollars. With a systematic and well-structured
knowledge management system, you can empower employees to be smart decision-
makers.
 Fosters a Collaborative & Positive Work Culture: Two are always better than
one. Because with two heads comes more ideas and superior results, as compared to
one person walking all alone. Knowledge management is based on a similar approach.
It provides employees with a platform where they can collaborate on ideas, brings their
experiences and unique insights to the table, and work together as one joint family.
 Ignites Innovative Thinking: If you look closely, you will realize that all the benefits
of knowledge management are connected in some way or the other. For example,
collaboration is directly connected to innovation. A collaborative work style exposes
employees to diverse perspectives, opinions, and experiences.
 Helps in Regular Knowledge Transfer: Employees are your biggest knowledge
source. When they leave, the knowledge they hold also leaves with them, which can be
a huge loss for your organization.

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  Instant Access to Relevant Information: Employees need the right information at
their fingertips to do their jobs effectively and keep employees engaged in the
workplace. This information is scattered everywhere, in emails, calls, chats, word
documents, presentations, etc. With a variety of sources, it gets overwhelming for
employees to find what they need. Knowledge management makes this task easier and
more instant.

 Speeds Up Employee Onboarding: Getting new employees familiar with your

company, its work, and people requires more than just an office tour. It provides
employees with useful information they need to put their best foot forward at work and
start performing right from their initial days. This way, less time is wasted badgering
seniors and colleagues with trivial questions, and more time is devoted to real learning.
 Knowledge Management Helps Avoid Duplicated Work: Managing your company
information and sharing it through employee learning opportunities, cross-training, and
better intra-company communications can help you build richer skill sets among your
employees. But it’s also key to helping you avoid employee redundancy.

8. Conclusion
Based on the above critical review, it is understood that Knowledge management is the biggest
factor for competitive advantage for any organization. Today, organizations realize that
Knowledge Management is a valuable asset that can be managed effectively as physical assets
to improve performance. With the growing competition day by day, every organization needs
to innovate and implement new and exemplary methods to sustain itself in the competitive
world. Innovation comes with tacit and explicit knowledge contributed to the organization by
its human resource. Hence, every organization must realize the importance of knowledge
management and implement it within their organizations to attain a competitive advantage.
Knowledge management is a tool that helps in the successful running of a firm because with
people comes knowledge and with knowledge comes growth. Therefore, knowledge
management focuses on connecting people, processes, and technology to leverage corporate
knowledge.

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9. Reference
1. Hegazy, F., & Ghorab, K. (2015). The effect of knowledge management processes on
organizational business processes and employees’ benefits in an academic institution's
Portal environment. Communications of the IBIMA, 1-
32. https://doi.org/10.5171/2015.928262

2. Technology, U. o. (2012). Knowledge Management. Alaska: Pink Elephant Inc.

3. Zao-Sanders, M. (2022). web.mit.edu. Retrieved from web.mit.edu:
http://web.mit.edu/ecom/www/Project98/G4/Sections/section1b.html
4. Lokman Hebibi, Naser Raimi, & Raica Milićićević. (2019, January 15).
Knowledge Management and The Imortanceof Knowkedge Manafment For
Theorganization, S Performance. Academia. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from
https://www.academia.edu/61758821/Knowledge_management_and_the_importance_
of_knowledge_management_for_the_organizations_performance?from_sitemaps=tru
e

5. Knowledgebase Blog. 2022. Benefits of Knowledge Management For Your Business.

[online] Available at: https://www.proprofskb.com/blog/knowledge-management-
benefits/ [Accessed 30 July 2022].

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