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PART A - WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
INTRODUCTION
More than 50% of the economies on our planet have evolved from a pre-agricultural phase through agricultural and industrial development to the post-industrial present of the so-called 'knowledge-based economy'. Within this knowledge-based economy, 'knowledge' is hailed as the new asset and 'intellectual capital', it is said, is derived from it.
But, what is knowledge? And, if we are capable of understanding its nature, how do we manage it as an asset and use it to operate more effectively in what is sometimes defined as the global knowledge marketplace?
The study of knowledge and the management of it, is, in itself, a growth industry within knowledge-based economies with more than 300 new books on the subject published within the last two years. Alongside these publications there have been thousands of articles, periodicals and discussion papers produced on many different aspects. A cursory search of the Internet also reveals thousands of sites dedicated to this area of study.
Despite the wide range of academic, organisational and journalistic interest, people within knowledge-based organisations are beginning to form a practical view of knowledge management as something which "is here to stay - only 2% considered it to be a fad and 10% said it was transforming their organisations." (KPMG 1998: 20)
In the creation of a knowledge-based organisation, considerable reliance must be placed on vision, belief and commitment. To reflect this, we must design knowledge systems that users want to use if we are to jointly harness the power of people and technology. Flatter hierarchies, cross-functional teams, electronic groupware...all aim at improving communications among different individuals and departments. It would seem that some sort of balance needs to be struck between groupware and teamwork employing methodology with a high degree on integration and flexibility.
Organisational memory compromises many important intangibles such as culture, history, processes, human memory and fact. Taken together, these components form the next competitive advantage. Knowledge systems need to exploit organisational memory in many diverse ways.
Davenport and Prusak (1998) state that common sense should play a large part in building a knowledge system well, testing it and see who comes! The place to start is with high value knowledge; begin with a focused pilot project and let demand drive additional initiatives and work on multiple fronts (technology, organisation and culture) at once.
THE CHANGING ORGANISATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
The organisations of the 20th Century tended to be characterised by the following features:
Differing features are appearing in 21st Century organisations:
Dee Hock, former CEO of Barclaycard says:
“And if you really think deeply about it, you discover that every organisation and every institution, without exception, has no reality save in your mind. It’s not in buildings. Those are manifestations of it. It’s not its name, it’s not its logo, and it’s not some fictional piece of paper called a stock certificate. It’s not money. It is a mental concept around which people and resources gather in pursuit of common purpose”.
If Dee Hock is correct, people are, more and more, defining organisations. As a result, their individual knowledge is of immense value to organisations. This is often referred to as the ‘intellectual capital’ of the organisation. Clearly, such changes in organisational structure have implications for how information and knowledge is managed.
DATA, INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE
Data are facts, pictures or numbers presented without a context. Information is organised data presented in context. Knowledge is information in context together with an understanding of how to use it.
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) opened up a debate in the 1990s on the nature and relationship of tacit and explicit knowledge. This is a debate you should make yourself familiar with. They argued that tacit knowledge (held personally by an individual) could be made explicit (that is transferred between individuals and groups) in either written or spoken form. Furthermore, they believed that the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge was part of a cycle of knowledge creation called the SECI (Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation) process. You will find many interpretations of the SECI process on the WWW.
KNOWLEDGE & KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The meaning of knowledge within organisations has evolved to refer to something which differs from the classic definitions of knowledge. Knowledge within organisations can be defined as:
“The information contained within the organisation about customers, products and services which is contained within people’s minds or filed in analogue or digital format” (KPMG, 1997)
This definition of knowledge has led to the formulation of the following definition of Knowledge Management:
“A systematic attempt to use knowledge within an organisation to improve overall performance.” (KPMG, 1997)
Many argue that while these definitions may hold true for private sector organisations they are not easily applied to public or voluntary sector organisations.
The Sveiby Knowledge Institute (SKI) model of knowledge management is useful as it aligns strategic, knowledge and ICT management through process.
The model is divided into three domains, strategic management, ICT management and knowledge management. The three domains are linked by processes with people, knowledge, skills and information at the core of the process. The model is driven by people’s skills, knowledge and experience not by ICT or strategy. The strategy is drawn from the knowledge of those involved in the processes supported by technologies defined and designed to support the strategic development of the organisation.
In large organisations, strategy, human resource and ICT management are frequently located in different departments. The Community and Housing Directorate of Newcastle City Council successfully used the model to ensure that strategy, human resource and ICT management was dispersed across all business units. This ensured that knowledge sharing took place closer to the point of service delivery across the Directorate. Giving individuals and groups new strategic, resource and technology management roles involved both individual and organizational learning which assisted in considerable team capacity building.
Davenport and Prusak’s one-third rule states that knowledge management projects should be one third resource management, one third organisational culture and one third information technology. If you spend more than one third on ICT they say it is a technology not a knowledge management project.
APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The development of approaches to knowledge management within organisations is often referred to in terms of waves:
Knowledge management has its origins in four different disciplines that were relatively independent until the late 1990’s. The broad discussion on the emerging knowledge society provided credibility for each of them, emphasizing the importance of the new rules of global, networked, and knowledge-intensive economy. Each of the four different disciplines gained momentum from the perceived ongoing transformation, indirectly amplifying each other.
These four disciplines of knowledge management can be described as:
The first had its starting point in computer technology, the second in information services, the third in research on organisational innovation, learning, and sense-making and the fourth in business strategy and human resource management. |
