ORGANISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Organisational Knowledge Management

Organisational Knowledge Management

Knowledge management (KM) is one of many terms related to practices that attempt to build, codify, and share experiences, approaches, facts, and general “know-how.” Its various manifestations combine approaches to training, collaboration, information science, computer technologies, and business process development. As organisations began to realize the impact of the “information age” in which human knowledge and behaviours were more important than mere products and facilities, leaders became more interested in mechanisms to build their intellectual capital. Companies are doing KM by:

encouraging collaboration and sharing of knowledge through meetings, teamwork, and presentations

developing mentoring and coaching systems that especially focus on orienting new employees and sharing the experiences of people who are about to retire

developing computerized databases that capture best practices and lessons learned

creating formats and templates for reports, proposals, sales presentations, and other frequently created documents

archiving important documents and processes so that they can be re-purposed by others

developing strategies for interviewing, de-briefing, and documenting the thinking processes and actual behaviours of exemplary performers

There are several important concepts that are related to knowledge management:

Intellectual capital is the amount of everything the people in an organisation know that can be formalized, captured, and leveraged. This is harder to put a value on unless you can define exactly how this either reduces expenses or increases revenues as compared to your competition.

Intellectual property is explicit knowledge that can be protected by standard legal constructs including copyright and patents. This is more amenable to valuation, because it can be well-defined and incorporated into pricing agreements or licensing. Examples of intellectual property are patented formulas or processes, as well as copyrights on books, music, or presentations.

Human capital includes both the knowledge and commitment of your employees; it is perhaps the hardest to define because it is broadest in scope. Human capital is driven both by the intellectual assets of individuals as well as the various cultural and human resource factors that make them loyal and motivated. (Lado 1994, 699-727)

One important question raised in this domain is whether knowledge really can be shared and communicated, no less managed. To understand this problem, we need to make a distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge. (Foss 1996, 470-476)

Explicit knowledge can be stated in numbers and words and shared in the shape of manuals, data, scientific formulae, training, specifications, and so on. Examples of this include the calculations necessary to figure out a break-even analysis, the process used to turn on a new machine, or the decision process in figuring out whether a particular medical expense is covered by a given insurance policy.

Tacit knowledge is not made explicit. Examples of this would include how managers decide on the right job candidate among a pool of qualified applicants, how scientists develop an innovative new product, or the skill of an accomplished skier in adapting to new ski runs and snow conditions.

Most experienced practitioners and researchers agree that knowledge is not something that can be explicitly managed. Rather, executives and human resources professionals can create the conditions and ...