Knowledge Management

Definitions of Knowledge Management (KM): 

According to Ron Young, CEO/CKO Knowledge Associates International - "Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organisations to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives."

A similarly broad definition is presented by Davenport & Prusak (2000), which states that KM "is managing the corporation's knowledge through a systematically and organizationally specified process for acquiring, organizing, sustaining, applying, sharing and renewing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of employees to enhance organizational performance and create value."

It is useful because it places a focus on knowledge as an actual asset, rather than as something intangible. It enables the firm to better protect and exploit what it knows, and to improve and focus its knowledge development efforts to match its needs.

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge:

In the KM literature, knowledge is most commonly categorized as either explicit or tacit.

Explicit: Information or knowledge that is set out in tangible form. It is formal and systematic and can be expressed in formed and specific language and processed and transmitted easily.

Tacit: Information or knowledge that one would have extreme difficulty operationally setting out in tangible form. It is highly personal and influenced by ideas, commitment, beliefs, values and emotions.

The classic example in the KM literature of true "tacit" knowledge is Nonaka and Takeuchi's example of the kinaesthetic knowledge that was necessary to design and engineer a home bread maker, knowledge that could only be gained or transferred by having engineers work alongside bread makers and learn the motions and the "feel" necessary to knead bread dough (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

KM in an organization is regarded as the core for achieving organizational objectives such as:

• Clear organizational vision and goals (Leonard, 1995;Kanter et al,1992)
• Flexibility in the system
• Knowledge capturing, sharing and creation (Seeley & Dietrick, 2000)
• Support Learning (Martin, 2000; Davenport & Prusak, 2000)
• Collaboration, transfer & knowledge exchange (Martin, 2000)
• Cross functional interaction (Ahmed et al, 2002)
• Multidimensional, trust, commitment (Garvey & Williamson 2002)
• Effective Communication, interaction and support ( Leonard & Sensiper, 1998; O’Dell & Grayson,1998)
• Social network (Paton & Mc Calman, 2000; Wasserman & Faust, 1994)

Managers should ideally combine capture and connectivity to develop and continuing system of knowledge acquisition, distribution, storage and refreshment. For effective KM, organisations need to have people whose job it is to be accountable for managing the knowledge within the organisation. They need to have processes that identify and budget the knowledge needed to do a piece of work, knowledge tracking and reporting so that new knowledge is shared and reused.

Embedding KM into the everyday working practices helps move the organization into a state of continuous learning and innovation.