Understanding Knowledge Management: Types, Roles, and Benefits

1. Chapter 11 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

2. Learning Objectives • Define knowledge and describe the different types of knowledge • Describe the characteristics of knowledge management • Describe organizational learning and its relationship to knowledge management • Describe the knowledge management cycle • Describe the technologies that can be used in a knowledge management system

3. Learning Objectives • Describe different approaches to knowledge management • Describe the activities of the chief knowledge officer and others involved in knowledge management • Describe the role of knowledge management in organizational activities • Describe ways of evaluating intellectual capital in an organization

4. Learning Objectives • Describe how KMS are implemented • Describe the roles of technology, people, and management in knowledge management • Describe the benefits and drawbacks of knowledge management initiatives • Describe how knowledge management can revolutionize the way an organization functions

5. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Knowledge management concepts and definitions • Knowledge management The active management of the expertise in an organization. It involves collecting, categorizing, and disseminating knowledge

6. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Knowledge Understanding, awareness, or familiarity acquired through education or experience. Anything that has been learned, perceived, discovered, inferred, or understood. The ability to use information. In a knowledge management system, knowledge is information in action

7. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Knowledge-based economy The modern, global economy, which is driven by what people and organizations know rather than only by capital and labor

8. Introduction to Knowledge Management

9. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Characteristics of knowledge • Extraordinary leverage and increasing returns • Fragmentation, leakage, and the need to refresh • Uncertain value • Uncertain value of sharing • Intellectual capital The know-how of an organization. Intellectual capital often includes the knowledge that employees possess

10. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Explicit and tacit knowledge • Explicit (leaky) knowledge Knowledge that deals with objective, rational, and technical material (data, policies, procedures, software, documents, etc.) • Tacit knowledge Knowledge that is usually in the domain of subjective, cognitive, and experiential learning. It is highly personal and hard to formalize

11. Introduction to Knowledge Management • Knowledge management systems (KMS) A system that facilitates knowledge management by ensuring knowledge flow from the person(s) who know to the person(s) who need to know throughout the organization; knowledge evolves and grows during the process

12. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Learning organization An organization capable of learning from its past experience, implying the existence of an organizational memory and a means to save, represent, and share it through its personnel • Organizational memory That which an organization “knows”

13. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Organizational learning The process of capturing knowledge and making it available enterprisewide • Learning skills include: • Openness to new perspectives • Awareness of personal biases • Exposure to unfiltered data • A sense of humility

14. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Organizational culture The aggregate attitudes in an organization concerning a certain issue (e.g., technology, computers, DSS)

15. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Reasons people do not like to share knowledge: • General lack of time to share knowledge and time to identify colleagues in need of specific knowledge • Apprehension or fear that sharing may reduce or jeopardize people’s job security • Low awareness and realization of the value and benefit of the knowledge others possess • Dominance in sharing explicit over tacit knowledge, such as know-how and experience that requires hands-on learning, observation, dialogue, and interactive problem solving • Use of a strong hierarchy, position-based status, and formal power

16. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Reasons people do not like to share knowledge: • Insufficient capture, evaluation, feedback, communication, and tolerance of past mistakes that would enhance individual and organizational learning effects • Differences in experience levels • Lack of contact time and interaction between knowledge sources and recipients • Poor verbal/written communication and interpersonal skills • Age differences • Gender differences

17. Organizational Learning and Transformation • Reasons people do not like to share knowledge: • Lack of a social network • Differences in education levels • Ownership of intellectual property due to fear of not receiving just recognition and accreditation from managers and colleagues • Lack of trust in people because they may misuse knowledge or take unjust credit for it • Lack of trust in the accuracy and credibility of knowledge due to the source • Differences in national culture or ethnic background and values and beliefs associated with it

18. Knowledge Management Activities • Knowledge management initiatives and activities • Knowledge management initiatives have one of three aims: • To make knowledge visible, mainly through maps, yellow pages, and hypertext • To develop a knowledge-intensive culture • To build a knowledge infrastructure

19. Knowledge Management Activities • Knowledge creation is the generation of new insights, ideas, or routines • Four modes of knowledge creation: • Socialization • Externalization • Internalization • Combination

20. Knowledge Management Activities • Knowledge sharing • Knowledge sharing is the willful explication of one person’s ideas, insights, solutions, experiences to another individual either via an intermediary or directly • In many organizations, information and knowledge are not considered organizational resources to be shared but individual competitive weapons to be kept private

21. Knowledge Management Activities • Knowledge seeking • Knowledge seeking (knowledge sourcing) is the search for and use of internal organizational knowledge • Lack of time or lack of reward may hinder the sharing of knowledge or knowledg seeking

22. Approaches to Knowledge Management • The process approach to knowledge management • Process approach The process approach to knowledge management attempts to codify organizational knowledge through formalized controls, processes and technologies

23. Approaches to Knowledge Management • The practice approach to knowledge management • Practice approach The practice approach toward knowledge management focuses on building the social environments or communities of practice necessary to facilitate the sharing of tacit understanding

24. Approaches to Knowledge Management • Hybrid approaches to knowledge management • The practice approach is used so that a repository stores only explicit knowledge that is relatively easy to document • Tacit knowledge initially stored in the repository is contact information about experts and their areas of expertise • Increasing the amount of tacit knowledge over time eventually leads to the attainment of a true process approach

25. Approaches to Knowledge Management • Best practices In an organization, the best methods for solving problems. These are often stored in the knowledge repository of a knowledge management system

26. Approaches to Knowledge Management • Knowledge repository The actual storage location of knowledge in a knowledge management system. Similar in nature to a database, but generally text-oriented

27. Approaches to Knowledge Management • Developing a knowledge repository • Knowledge repositories are developed using several different storage mechanisms • The most important aspects and difficult issues are making the contribution of knowledge relatively easy for the contributor and determining a good method for cataloging the knowledge

28. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • The KMS cycle • KMS follows six steps in a cycle: • Create knowledge • Capture knowledge • Refine knowledge • Store knowledge • Manage knowledge • Disseminate knowledge

29. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management

30. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Components of KMS • KMS are developed using three sets of technologies: • Communication • Collaboration • Storage and retrieval.

31. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Technologies that support knowledge management • Artificial intelligence • Intelligent agents • Knowledge discovery in databases • Extensible Markup Language (XML)

32. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Artificial intelligence • AI methods used in KMS: • Assist in and enhance searching knowledge • Help establish knowledge profiles of individuals and groups • Help determine the relative importance of knowledge when it is contributed to and accessed from the knowledge repository

33. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • AI methods used in KMS: • Scan e-mail, documents, and databases to perform knowledge discovery, determine meaningful relationships, glean knowledge, or induce rules for expert systems • Identify patterns in data (usually through neural networks) • Forecast future results by using existing knowledge • Provide advice directly from knowledge by using neural networks or expert systems • Provide a natural language or voice command–driven user interface for a KMS

34. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Intelligent agents • Intelligent agents are software systems that learn how users work and provide assistance in their daily tasks • They are used to elicit and identify knowledge

35. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) A machine learning process that performs rule induction, or a related procedure to establish knowledge from large databases

36. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Knowledge discovery in databases • Model marts Small, generally departmental repositories of knowledge created by employing knowledge-discovery techniques on past decision instances. Similar to data marts. Also see model warehouses • Model warehouses Large, generally enterprisewide repositories of knowledge created by employing knowledge-discovery techniques on past decision instances. Similar to data warehouses. Also see model marts

37. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management

38. Information Technology (IT) in Knowledge Management • Extensible Markup Language (XML) • XML enables standardized representations of data structures so that data can be processed appropriately by heterogeneous systems without case-by-case programming

39. KMSImplementation • Knowledge management products and vendors • Knowware Technology tools that support knowledge management

40. KMSImplementation • Software development companies and EIS vendors • Collaborative computing tools • Knowledge servers • Enterprise knowledge portals (EKP) An electronic doorway into a knowledge management system

41. KMSImplementation • Software development companies and EIS vendors • Electronic document management (EDM) A method for processing documents electronically, including capture, storage, retrieval, manipulation, and presentation • Content management systems (CMS) An electronic document management system that produces dynamic versions of documents, and automatically maintains the current set for use at the enterprise level

42. KMSImplementation • Software development companies and EIS vendors • Knowledge harvesting tools • Search engines • Knowledge management suites

43. KMSImplementation • Knowledge management products and vendors • Knowledge management consulting firms • Knowledge management ASPs

44. KMSImplementation • Integration of KMS with other business information systems • With DSS/BI Systems • With AI • With databases and information systems • With CRM systems • With SCM systems • With corporate intranets and extranets

45. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • Chief knowledge officer (CKO) The person in charge of a knowledge management effort in an organization

46. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • The functions of the CKO include: • Set knowledge management strategic priorities. • Establish a knowledge repository of best practices. • Gain a commitment from senior executives to support a learning environment. • Teach information seekers how to ask better and smarter questions. • Establish a process for managing intellectual assets. • Obtain customer satisfaction information in near real-time. • Globalize knowledge management

47. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • Skills required of a CKO include: • Interpersonal communication skills • Leadership skills • Business acumen • Strategic thinking • Collaboration skills • The ability to institute effective educational programs • An understanding of IT and its role in advancing knowledge management

48. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • The CEO, officers, and managers of the organization • The CEO is responsible for championing a knowledge management effort • The officers make available the resources needed to get the job done

49. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • Officers • CFO ensures that the financial resources are available • COO ensures that people begin to embed knowledge management practices into their daily work processes • CIO ensures IT resources are available • Managers also support the knowledge management effort and provide access to sources of knowledge

50. Roles of People in Knowledge Management • Community of practice A group of people in an organization with a common professional interest, often self-organized for managing knowledge in a knowledge management system