Knowledge Assets/SKLC

From Meritology

1 Knowledge Managment overview
2 Knowledge Management
3 Schools of thought in Knowledge Management
4 Notes

Knowledge Managment overview

Knowledge Management ('KM') comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. It has been an established discipline since 1995 ^[1] with a body of university courses and both professional and academic journals dedicated to it. Many large companies have resources dedicated to Knowledge Management, often as a part of 'Information Technology' or 'Human Resource Management' departments. Knowledge Management is a multi-billion dollar world-wide market.

Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, developmental processes, lessons learnt transfer (for example between projects) and the general development of collaborative practices. Knowledge Management is frequently linked and related to what has become known as the learning organisation, lifelong learning and continuous improvement. Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organisational Learning by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as an asset and the development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge, information and signal flow.

Knowledge Management

There is a broad range of thought on Knowledge Management with no unanimous definition. The approaches vary by author and school. Knowledge Management may be viewed from each of the following perspectives:

Techno-centric: A focus on technology, ideally those that enhance knowledge sharing/growth.
Organisational: How does the organisation need to be designed to facilitate knowledge processes? Which organisations work best with what processes?
Ecological: Seeing the interaction of people, identity, knowledge and environmental factors as a complex adaptive system.

In addition, as the discipline is maturing, there is an increasing presence of academic debates within epistemology emerging in both the theory and practice of knowledge management. British and Australian standards bodies both have produced documents that attempt to bound and scope the field, but these have received limited acceptance or awareness.

Knowledge Management has always existed in one form or another. Examples include on-the-job peer discussions, formal apprenticeship, discussion forums, corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs. However, with computers becoming more widespread in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations of technology such as knowledge bases, expert systems, and knowledge repositories have been introduced to further enhance the process.

The emergence of Knowledge Management has also generated new roles and responsibilities in organisations, an early example of which was the Chief Knowledge Officer. In recent years, Personal knowledge management (PKM) practice has arisen in which individuals apply KM practice to themselves, their roles and their career development.

Schools of thought in Knowledge Management

There are a variety of different schools of thought in Knowledge Management. These include:

the Intellectual capital movement with Leif Edvinsson and Tom Stewart
a focus on collaboration including social planning concepts of Community of practice, community consultation processes, public participation and a range of collaborative technologies. Much of this work originates from research by Etienne Wenger and the Lotus Institute (now absorbed into IBM Research). Other prominent figures include Saint-Onge, McDermott and others.
the use of social network analysis to understand interactions between people within organisations, both qualitatively and quantitatively, associated with Krebs, Stephen Borgatti, Cross and others.
a body of work derivative of Information theory associated with Larry Prusak and Tom Davenport and linked to the conversion of internalized tacit knowledge into explicit codified knowledge (SECI) allowing successful knowledge sharing as highlighted by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi. This is probably the dominant school of thought, as represented by publications and includes later developments by authors such as Probst, Von Krough & Malhotra amongst many others including Knowledge Asset Management
Management of tangibles & intangibles, living networks, co-creation and whole systems through value networks and value network analysis (Allee). This work also includes linkages and connections to theory associated with the Learning organization
Complexity approaches associated with David Snowden (see Cynefin) Max Boisot, J C Spender and others. Variations of this include the use of narrative (Snowden, David M. Boje and others) as a form of fragmented knowledge