Introduction to Knowledge Management

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Why is there a need for Knowledge Management?

According to Peter Drucker, knowledge has become the key source for the nation’s military and economic strength, so that there is a need for the systematic work on quality of knowledge and productivity of knowledge. The survival of every organization in the knowledge society highly depends on those two factors.   

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of capturing, developing, sharing and effectively using organizational knowledge (Davenport, 1994). It is about managing the knowledge life cycle, which includes the processes of knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and knowledge use. It is also related to the concept of intellectual capital.

Human vs. Structural Capital

Human Capital – t his is the body of knowledge that an organization possesses. This is the knowledge in the minds of the software developers, researchers, academic collaborators, business managers, and even the knowledge of the teachers and students in educational institution.

Structural Capital – this is everything that remains after the employees go home. It can be in the form of copyrights, customer files, business process software, databases, software manuals, trademarks and organizational structures. All these refer to the organizational capability.

What are the forces driving the Knowledge Management?

Now that we are in the Digital Age, the need to manage the intellectual capital becomes the major priority of all organizations and this is because of the following driving forces:

·         Increasing Domain Complexity – there is an apparent increase in complexity of the underlying knowledge. Intricacy of internal and external processes, increased in competition and continuous advancement in technology lead to increasing domain complexity. Curriculum development now typically requires not only brainstorming sessions by freethinking content designers but also partnerships by inter-organizational teams representing many various functional subunits.

·         Accelerating Market Volatility – the pace of change within each market has increased rapidly in the past decade. Market and environmental influences can result in overnight changes in an organization.

·         Intensified Speed of Responsiveness – because of technology, the decision-making landscape has changed and the time required to take an action for a particular issue is decreasing.

·        Diminishing Individual Experience – high employee turn-over rates have resulted in individuals with decision-making authority having less tenure within their organizations than ever before. This factor often tends to damage the mission-critical decision making, because of immature intuition, pressure for faster responsiveness and higher risk of wrong or unclear decision responses.

Is Knowledge Management for everybody?

Of course! KM is important for all kinds of organization. With KM, we can come up of better and faster decisions in an environment characterized by a high domain complexity and market volatility despite decision maker’s lack of experience.

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)

The breakthroughs in Information and Communications Technology facilitate sharing as well as accelerated growth in knowledge. Nowadays, knowledge is accumulating at an ever increasing rate. It is estimated that knowledge is currently doubling every 18 months and, of course, the pace is increasing... Technology facilitates the speed at which knowledge and ideas proliferate (Bradley, 1996). Knowledge Management System is the synergy between the latest technologies and social/structural mechanisms. With KMS, the employees can have an access to all the organization’s extensive documented base of facts, sources of information and immediate solutions.

An example of Knowledge Management System is the company’s Intranet portal and database, wherein the members can also update and even share their findings that can be a valuable contribution to the intellectual capital of the organization. Web-based conferencing is also a great instance of KMS, bridging knowledge sharing beyond time and geographical limitations.

What is an effective Knowledge Management?

You might be surprised that an effective KM is 80% focus on organizational culture and human factors and 20% on technology.  It is not always technology that will bring positive results in our organization when it comes to Knowledge Management. Remember that to effectively apply Artificial Intelligence, we must understand Human Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction.  

Reference:

Becerra-Fernandez, I. and Sabherwal, R. (2010). Knowledge Management: Systems and Processes. New York: ME Sharpe, Inc.