The Knowledge in Knowledge Management

The use of computers has over the last two decades led to the dominance of a database-centred view of organisational information resources. It is this school of thought that has become the focal point of many conceptualisations of knowledge management (KM). Many proponents of this school of thought propagate the development and implementation of KM databases. But knowledge is more organic than mechanical. Therefore, substituting database structures for the people who actually creates organisational knowledge will ultimately remove the intrinsic meaning of knowledge. This paper, based on an ongoing doctoral work, takes a dichotomous view of knowledge as either explicit or tacit and argues that the management of tacit knowledge, so far neglected in the literature on KM, is very important in conferring competitive advantages on organisations. Using empirical results from the research, it reveals the advantages of managing tacit knowledge. These benefits range from better customer service to prevention of project period escalation and improved workmanship. This paper concludes that behavioural approach to KM ensures that employees, who are the source of organisational knowledge, are well motivated to 'go the extra mile' in pursuit of organisational goals.

International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management, 2014

Successful implementation of knowledge management for organization requires a systematic and comprehensive perspective about various organizational factors. Appropriateness of these factors and their integration and coordination is a vital prerequisite to implement knowledge management effectively. The primary purpose of the research is investigating the relationship between three fundamental aspects of intellectual assets – human capital, structural capital and relational capital – with knowledge management practices. The method of the research is descriptive and co relational. The research was conducted in petrochemical Company in Tehran. The total number of personnel was 720 and the sample of 265 members of personnel was selected as statistical sampling. According to the research findings, there are significant relationships between these intellectual assets and knowledge management practices. These findings support the necessity of preparing the prerequisites of effective implem...

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.

A light bulb in the socket is worth two in the pocket.

The Knowledge-Creating Company from Nonakay Takeuchi and their following papers became a essential reference for practitioners and academics interested in understanding how knowledge is shaped and how can this knowledge be applied to the firm. Time has told us that the capability to create and apply new knowledge successfully constitutes the true source of competitive advantage of the firm. In our study about the knowledge creation process we must pursue three main issues-a. the nature and typology of knowledge based on relevant and generally accepted criteria. b. the determination of the different entities, levels, systems or agents that are able to create knowledge and c. how this entities can develop knowledge within them and capture and transfer knowledge related to lower to higher levels. Firstly, the issues of classifying knowledge by means of a relevant and generally accepted criterion must be addressed. We can consider this issue as already solved through the consideration of the named knowledge epistemological dimension. The extensive use of Polany's (1996) distinction between tacit or implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge has proved that knowledge tacitness can establish a two-extreme continuous typology for knowledge, by which one extreme shows characteristics quite different from the opposite. Distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit can be considered generally accepted if we examine the knolwedge creation and knowledge management literature.