Knowledge management

Abstract:

To date, organisations face many challenges in their efforts to respond to an increasingly competitive environment. The response to these challenges emanates from the best knowledge assets of the organisation. This chapter presents the value of knowledge management in the organisation's settings. Knowledge management is an interdisciplinary area of studies and is closely related to information science. It comprises a collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge in an organisation. The driving force of knowledge management is people, with their tacit and explicit knowledge. Knowledge is a synthetic human activity and is based on information and data. On the contrary, data is the basis for the creation of information, including raw facts and events, numbers and symbols, while information is analysed and organised data.

Key words

knowledge management

knowledge management vs. information and data

KM and characteristics

KM and components

tacit and explicit knowledge

knowledge-sharing

intellectual capital

personal knowledge management

principles of knowledge management

knowledge worker

Introduction

In her article, Carla O'Dell (2004: 18) estimated that more than 80 per cent of major organisations have explicit

knowledge management initiatives and many global organisations have communities of practice. Today organisations face many challenges in their attempt to respond to the increasing demands of their customers and to the competitive environment. The response to these challenges emanates from the 'organisation's best knowledge assets. The capture, transfer and use of internal and external know-how become part of the business strategy. The business strategy of an organisation relies much on its knowledge management system. The best place to house knowledge management is the special library.

Knowledge management has its roots in a variety of disciplines, including information science (Jashapara, 2005: 137). Knowledge management is a fairly new discipline as regards the work of the library. It is a new term while the roots of its meaning are as old as libraries. Nonetheless, knowledge management emerged and was popularised in business during the last decade of the twentieth century because the possession of knowledge enables business to gain competitive advantage. Knowledge management is a vital issue that is extensively recognised at organisational level (Agnihotri & Troutt, 2009: 339). Knowledge management requires a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to management processes. It is the evolution of good management practices (Broadbent, 1998: 35).

There has been much ink poured on the topic of knowledge management, knowledge flow systems, knowledge transfer and knowledge utilisation (Duncan, 1972: 274-5). This chapter is a theoretical approach to knowledge management. It is also a presentation of philosophical viewpoints of knowledge as it is differentiated from information and data. We consider it important to analyse in depth both knowledge and knowledge management because these are the fundamental concepts of our book.

The concept of knowledge management

Since its creation, knowledge management has stirred up diverse discussions and feelings. A quote about knowledge management that we like derives from Oxbrow and Abell (2002: 21) in their prophetic article about life after knowledge management. They write that 'some people love knowledge management, some hate it, some claim that they have always done it, but few people have been able to ignore it'. Knowledge management is not a fad but a reflection of the real world we live in, the enterprise we work at and the people that live on the earth. The centre of knowledge management was and still remains the same: people.

Intentionally, we present here various definitions and aspects of knowledge management because of its significance. The diversity of the perspectives engages in a great proportion of the relevant literature. It is evident that knowledge management is a widely accepted notion that raises much discourse and prevails over the philosophical reasoning and management theories. Put simply, knowledge management is 'getting the right information to the right people at the right time, so that they can make the right decisions' (Lamont, 2004: 57).

Knowledge management as a collection of strategies has arisen in response to the needs of organisations, businesses, communities and governments in the knowledge-based society and economy of the twenty-first century (Rowley, 2003: 433). Nowadays, knowledge and its management are vital areas in most organisations. It is well known that the business world was the first domain to recognise the importance of knowledge. Enterprises stimulate the development of knowledge. This happens because the possession of knowledge enables businesses to gain competitive advantage (Lee, 2005: 1). There are various definitions of knowledge management depending on the perspective from which the term is tackled: from an information systems perspective, from a human resources perspective or from a strategic management perspective. In organisational surroundings knowledge management refers to the practices of generating, capturing, collecting, disseminating and reusing know-how internally created. In the end, knowledge management sits alongside business objectives. It is a vehicle to meet business objectives.

From the dialogue in the respective literature the author of this book chooses the following definition of knowledge management from Ashok Jashapara (2005: 140): 'the effective learning processes associated with exploration, exploitation and sharing of human knowledge (tacit and explicit) that use appropriate technology and cultural environments to enhance an organisation's intellectual capital and performance'.

The definition presents a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach:

 It embraces the human perception of knowledge (tacit and explicit) as derived from human minds.

 It includes learning processes because knowledge expands the existing knowledge of people as they learn from the knowledge of others by sharing and exploiting it.

 The definition incorporates the technological angle (information systems) because a knowledge management project requires the appropriate technological equipment and systems to catalogue, index, abstract and make accessible the knowledge collected in a knowledge management system.

 The definition contains the corporate culture that distinguishes one firm from the other. In fact, organisational cultures can affect interpersonal relations. The whole concept of knowledge management is built on the intellectual capital of the corporation's members.

Larry Prusak, the world expert on knowledge management, underpins that companies have always managed knowledge (OECD, 2003: 13). Knowledge management is an interdisciplinary model that chiefly pertains to enterprises, because it deals with all aspects of knowledge that is scattered within a firm. Knowledge management is distinguished from information management. Information management is defined as 'the organisational methodology that is concerned with the acquisition, arrangement, storage, retrieval and use of information to produce knowledge', though knowledge management involves people (St. Clair, 2001: 8). Information management concerns the retrieval of recorded and documented explicit knowledge and information, whereas knowledge management is the process through which organisations generate value from their intellectual capital or knowledge-based assets (Singh, 2007: 172). Knowledge management deals with creating, securing, capturing, coordinating, combining, codifying, sharing, retrieving, re-using and distributing knowledge (Lee, 2005: 2). This description explains the core activities of special librarians. Knowledge management promotes learning and innovative activities within an organisation.

Knowledge management comprises a set of attributes such as accessing, evaluating, managing, organising, filtering and distributing information in a manner useful to end-users. Knowledge management involves blending internal with external information of a company which is transferred to actionable knowledge by using a technology platform (DiMattia and Oder, 1997: 33).

Organisations need to treat knowledge management as an imperative organisational functional domain and to link their knowledge management initiatives with the characteristics of their business environments, such as mission, vision, goals, objectives and strategies of the organisation (Wang and Belardo, 2009: 638). Knowledge management is often viewed as a collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge in an organisation. It is the systematic management of vital knowledge involving principles of management. It also helps in identifying strengths and weaknesses, problem-solving processes, creating opportunities and strategic learning (Lee et al., 2010: 21). Knowledge...