KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used

in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of
insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge,
either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or
practice.
An established discipline since 1991 KM includes courses taught in the fields of
business administration, information systems, management, and library and
information sciences. More recently, other fields have started contributing to KM
research; these include information and media, computer science, public health,
and public policy.
Many large companies and non-profit organizations have resources dedicated to
internal KM efforts, often as a part of their 'business strategy', 'information
technology', or 'human resource management' departments. Several consulting
companies also exist that provide strategy and advice regarding KM to these
organizations.

SUCCESSFUL MANAGING OF KNOWLEDGE

Focus on five tasks:
Generating knowledge
Accessing knowledge
Representing and embedding knowledge
Facilitating knowledge
Transferring knowledge
1

It is a process of instilling the culture and helping people find ways to share and
utilize their collective knowledge.

KM DEFINITIONS
Prof. Gopinath defines the Knowledge Management in three different views:
Knowledge Management is a right principle for right application and right use.
Knowledge Management is a field of handling knowledge in different stages. It
focuses around creation, capturing, nurturing, documenting, disseminating,
absorbing and conserving for development of human resources.
Knowledge Management is a process of enriching human resource, material
resource and environment (organizations environment, work environment)
preservation.
R. Gregory Wenig (1998) defines KM from organizational perspective. According
to his definition, Knowledge Management for the organization consists of activities
focused on the organization gaining knowledge from its own experience and from
the experience of others, and on the judicious application of that knowledge to
fulfill the mission of the organization.
Tom Davenport (1998, brint.com) says KM is: Process of capturing, distributing,
and effectively using knowledge.
Ellen Knapp (1998 brint.com) defines KM as the art of transforming information
and intellectual assets into enduring value for an organizations clients and its
people.
Types of Knowledge From Knowledge Management point
Skills: These are personalized skills possessed by individuals. Many times experts
explicit their skills so that their knowledge can be used more effectively by users.

Cases are stories of real time events that give practical knowledge to the users.
Thus we learn how the world works in real life. This is the best way to learn from
previous mistakes and achieve from previous successes.
Processes are supposed to be high-level skills that are systematized to provide most
abstract form of knowledge. Out of many skills required for a work, few are
worked out into processes to make them standards.

STAGES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Michael Koenig explained three stages of Knowledge Management:
1.) The first stage of KM all about use of IT (intranets) for knowledge sharing and
coordination across the enterprise.
2.) The second stage added focus on human and cultural factors as essential in
getting humans to implement KM.
3.) The third stage is the awareness of the importance of content- and, in particular,
an awareness of the importance of the retrievability and therefore of the
arrangement, description, and structure of that content.

THE COMPONENTS OF A KM STRATEGY

In designing a KM strategy, there are quite a few different approaches and tools
depending on the resources (human, financial, technological) we have at hand and
the type of knowledge we want to capture and share.
Well discuss here some of the below tools in more detail, with a focus on those
that capture our tacit knowledge. If knowledge lives within the minds of our
organization with around eighty percent of any organizations knowledge tacit
we clearly need good and sounds ways to capture and share it.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
EMERGING PERSPECTIVES
3

Yes, knowledge management is the hottest subject of the day. The question is: what
is this activity called knowledge management, and why is it so important to each
and every one of us? The following writings, articles, and links offer some
emerging perspectives in response to these questions. As you read on, you can
determine whether it all makes any sense or not.

DEVELOPING A CONTEXT
Like water, this rising tide of data can be viewed as an abundant, vital and
necessary resource. With enough preparation, we should be able to tap into that
reservoir -- and ride the wave -- by utilizing new ways to channel raw data into
meaningful information. That information, in turn, can then become the knowledge
that leads to wisdom. Les Alberthal
Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management, it's probably
appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge,
which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this
observation made by Neil Fleming as a basis for thought relating to the following
diagram.
o A collection of data is not information.
o A collection of information is not knowledge.
o A collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
o A collection of wisdom is not truth.
The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply
collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a
synergy of its own.

We begin with data, which is just a

meaningless point in space and time,
without reference to either space or time. It
is like an event out of context, a letter out of
context, a word out of context. The key
concept here being "out of context." And,
since it is out of context, it is without a
meaningful relation to anything else. When we encounter a piece of data, if it gets
our attention at all, our first action is usually to attempt to find a way to attribute
meaning to it. We do this by associating it with other things. If I see the number 5, I
can immediately associate it with cardinal numbers and relate it to being greater
than 4 and less than 6, whether this was implied by this particular instance or not.
If I see a single word, such as "time," there is a tendency to immediately form
associations with previous contexts within which I have found "time" to be
meaningful. This might be, "being on time," "a stitch in time saves nine," "time
never stops," etc. The implication here is that when there is no context, there is
little or no meaning. So, we create context but, more often than not, that context is
somewhat akin to conjecture, yet it fabricates meaning.
That a collection of data is not information, as Neil indicated, implies that a
collection of data for which there is no relation between the pieces of data is not
information. The pieces of data may represent information, yet whether or not it is
information depends on the understanding of the one perceiving the data. I would
also tend to say that it depends on the knowledge of the interpreter, but I'm
probably getting ahead of myself, since I haven't defined knowledge. What I will
say at this point is that the extent of my understanding of the collection of data is
dependent on the associations I am able to discern within the collection. And, the
associations I am able to discern are dependent on all the associations I have ever
5

been able to realize in the past. Information is quite simply an understanding of the
relationships between pieces of data, or between pieces of data and other
information.

AN EXAMPLE
This example uses a bank savings account to show how data, information,
knowledge, and wisdom relate to principal, interest rate, and interest.
Data: The numbers 100 or 5%, completely out of context, are just pieces of data.
Interest, principal, and interest rate, out of context, are not much more than data as
each has multiple meanings which are context dependent.
Information: If I establish a bank savings account as the basis for context, then
interest, principal, and interest rate become meaningful in that context with specific
interpretations.
Principal is the amount of money, $100, in the savings account.
Interest rate, 5%, is the factor used by the bank to compute interest on the
principal.
Knowledge: If I put $100 in my savings account, and the bank pays 5% interest
yearly, then at the end of one year the bank will compute the interest of $5 and add
it to my principal and I will have $105 in the bank. This pattern represents
knowledge, which, when I understand it, allows me to understand how the pattern
will evolve over time and the results it will produce. In understanding the pattern, I
know, and what I know is knowledge. If I deposit more money in my account, I
will earn more interest, while if I withdraw money from my account, I will earn
less interest.

Wisdom: Getting wisdom out of this is a bit tricky, and is, in fact, founded in
systems principles. The principle is that any action which produces a result which
encourages more of the same action produces an emergent characteristic called
growth. And, nothing grows forever for sooner or later growth runs into limits.
If one studied all the individual components of this pattern, which represents
knowledge, they would never discover the emergent characteristic of growth. Only
when the pattern connects, interacts, and evolves over time, does the principle
exhibit the characteristic of growth.
Now, if this knowledge is valid, why doesn't
everyone simply become rich by putting money in a
savings account and letting it grow? The answer has
to do with the fact that the pattern described above is
only a small part of a more elaborate pattern which operates over time. People
don't get rich because they either don't put money in a savings account in the first
place, or when they do, in time, they find things they need or want more than being
rich, so they withdraw money. Withdrawing money depletes the principal and
subsequently the interest they earn on that principal. Getting into this any deeper is
more of a systems thinking exercise than is appropriate to pursue here.

A CONTINUUM
Note that the sequence data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom represents an
emergent continuum. That is, although data is a discrete entity, the progression to
information, to knowledge, and finally to wisdom does not occur in discrete stages
of development. One progresses along the continuum as one's understanding
develops. Everything is relative, and one can have partial understanding of the
relations that represent information, partial understanding of the patterns that

represent knowledge, and partial understanding of the principles which are the
foundation of wisdom. As the partial understanding stage.

EXTENDING THE CONCEPT

We learn by connecting new information to patterns that we already understand. In
doing so, we extend the patterns. So, in my effort to make sense of this continuum,
I searched for something to connect it to that already made sense. And, I related it
to Csikszentmihalyi's interpretation of complexity.
Csikszentmihalyi[csi94] provides a definition of complexity based on the degree to
which something is simultaneously differentiated and integrated. His point is that
complexity evolves along a corridor and he provides some very interesting
examples as to why complexity evolves. The diagram below indicates that what is
more highly differentiated and integrated is more complex. While high levels of
differentiation without integration promote the complicated, that which is highly
integrated, without differentiation, produces mundane. And, it should be rather
obvious from personal experience that we tend to avoid the complicated and are
uninterested in the mundane. The complexity that exists between these two
alternatives is the path we generally find most
attractive.
On

4/27/05

Robert

Lamb

commented

that

Csikszentmihalyi's labeling could be is bit clearer if

"Differentiation" was replaced by "Many Components"
and

"Integration"

was

replaced

by

Highly

Interconnected." Robert also commented that "Common

Sense" might be another label for "Mundane." If the mundane is something we
8

seem to avoid paying attention to then "Common Sense" might often be a very
appropriate label. Thanks Robert.
What I found really interesting was the view that resulted when I dropped this
diagram on top of the one at the beginning of this article. It seemed that
"Integrated" and "Understanding" immediately correlated to each other. There was
also a real awareness that "Context Independence" related to "Differentiated."
Overall, the continuum of data to wisdom seemed to correlate exactly to
Csikszentmihalyi's model of evolving complexity.

THE

VALUE

OF

KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT
In an organizational context, data represents facts or
values of results, and relations between data and
other relations have the capacity to represent
information. Patterns of relations of data and information and other patterns have
the capacity to represent knowledge. For the representation to be of any utility it
must be understood, and when understood the representation is information or
knowledge to the one that understands. Yet, what is the real value of information
and knowledge, and what does it mean to manage it?
Without associations we have little chance of understanding anything. We
understand things based on the associations we are able to discern. If someone says
that sales started at $100,000 per quarter and have been rising 20% per quarter for
the last four quarters, I am somewhat confident that sales are now about $207,000
per quarter. I am confident because I know what "rising 20% per quarter" means
and I can do the math.

Yet, if someone asks what sales are apt to be next quarter, I would have to say, "It
depends!" I would have to say this because although I have data and information, I
have no knowledge. This is a trap that many fall into, because they don't
understand that data doesn't predict trends of data. What predicts trends of data is
the activity that is responsible for the data. To be able to estimate the sales for next
quarter, I would need information about the competition, market size, extent of
market saturation, current backlog, customer satisfaction levels associated with
current product delivery, current production capacity, the extent of capacity
utilization, and a whole host of other things. When I was able to amass sufficient
data and information to form a complete pattern that I understood, I would have
knowledge, and would then be somewhat comfortable estimating the sales for next
quarter. Anything less would be just fantasy!
In this example what needs to be managed to create value is the data that defines
past results, the data and information associated with the organization, it's market,
it's customers, and it's competition, and the patterns which relate all these items to
enable a reliable level of predictability of the future.What I would refer to as
knowledge management would be the capture, retention, and reuse of the
foundation for imparting an understanding of how all these pieces fit together and
how to convey them meaningfully to some other person.
The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness[bel97a]
with which the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization to
deal with today's situations and effectively envision and create their future.
Without on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed
based on what the individual or group brings to the situation with them. With ondemand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed with the sum
total of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of

10

a similar nature. Which approach would you perceive would make a more effective
organization?

THE CORE ISSUES IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

(1)

Knowledge recognition and representation

This focuses on the recognition of conceptual knowledge and procedural

knowledge. The conceptual knowledge can be represented by structured

approaches, while the procedural knowledge requires new representation
methods. The difficulty of knowledge representation is how to represent
conceptual knowledge and the implicit knowledge hiding in procedures.
(2)

Knowledge storage
To realize knowledge management, the first issue is to store the knowledge and

information from different domains to the knowledge base in some standard

format. After that knowledge workers are able to query information and
knowledge by some querying mechanism, or the knowledge management system
can actively push the proper knowledge to proper workers.
(3)

Knowledge analyses and reasoning

For the effective utilization on knowledge, i t is required that the knowledge

management system must be built with the abilities of knowledge analyzing and
reasoning, which means to get reasonable results based on existed objective facts.
To realize knowledge reasoning, the knowledge representation mechanism should
first be constructed, and some reasoning methods such as logic-based reasoning
and data mining are also needed.
(4)

Knowledge customization
The individual customization of knowledge is an important step to improve the

effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge management. Each knowledge worker

faces on different tasks and decisions, thus the needed knowledge of different
11

workers are also different. Knowledge will not take action unless they are
transferred to proper workers.
(5)

Knowledge transferring
Knowledge transferring is the necessary condition to implement knowledge

share and cooperation. Through the communication and cooperation in network,

knowledge can be created and transferred to applications. The implementation of
knowledge management makes enterprises easy to obtain needed knowledge
during the whole production and management procedures, and meanwhile, this
knowledge utilization does not depend on time and space.
2.3 The Limitations of Knowledge Management
Though knowledge management has been considered by lots of enterprises so
far, most of the related work rests on information management or theoretic layer.
For instance, most enterprises think that if they can realize the unified
management of information the knowledge management is an easy task. As a
result, a lot of enterprises developed information management systems, but few of
them can manage knowledge. On the other hand, when realizing knowledge
management, many enterprises usually focus on the document criterion and
ignore the reformation of management patern. This also makes the ineffectiveness
of knowledge management .
The limitations of knowledge management can be summarized as follows:
(1) Current knowledge management techniques mostly depend on
explicit knowledge and are short of effective ways to deal with implicit
knowledge. There are some mature technologies for explicit knowledge
management, such as database technologies, but the effectiveness of
current explicit knowledge management is not beter than that of traditional
management information systems. In fact, the problem of current explicit
knowledge management is that people usually do not distinguish the
12

difference between knowledge and information. I t can not make effective

improvement if people simply regard knowledge management as
information management.
(2) Current knowledge management depends too much on the company
knowledge officer (CKO). When a company plans to start knowledge
management, the common procedure is to first appoint a company
knowledge officer. The CKO takes charge for almost all affairs, including
making the planning and prescription of knowledge management, building
knowledge management system, and training knowledge workers. In this
mechanism, the effectiveness of knowledge management mostly relies on
the abilities of CKO. But in real world, the CKO usually is also one of the
h i gh managers. He or she may not know the related knowledge about new
products, new materials and new market tendency. This will result in that
the designed configuration and management mechanism of knowledge
resource could not satisfy the practical requirements of the company.
(3) Current knowledge management makes few improvements on
traditional information management. That is to say it does not consider the
business process reconstruction and the impact on organization
management. I t emphasizes on the fixed mode of knowledge acquirement,
knowledge representation and knowledge transferring, e.g. by a computer
software system. In this style, the knowledge workers will feel that the
knowledge management system is much imperative, which will leads the
effectiveness decreasing of knowledge management.

BARRIERS IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

LACK OF TOP MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT

13

Top management is responsible for each and every activity at all the levels of
the organizations. It is instrumental in development of organizational structure,
technological infrastructure and various decisions making processes which are
essential for effective creation, sharing and use of knowledge. Effective knowledge
creation and sharing require long term commitment and support from top
management in recruitment and retention of right people. Lack of top management
is the most critical barrier for a successful KM implementation, particularly in
knowledge creation and sharing. It is also responsible for identifying
organizational strength and weaknesses as well as analyzing the opportunities and
threads in the external environment. The top management has to conceptualize a
vision about what type of knowledge should be developed and used into a
management system for implementation.
LACK OF TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
As most of the issues of KM are culture based, the role of technology cant be
overlooked. Lack of technological infrastructure (TI) is one of the barriers in
implementation of KM. TI provides a stronger platform to KM and enhances its
impact in an organization, by helping and leveraging its knowledge systematically
and actively. The wide varieties of technology such as business intelligence,
knowledge base, collaboration, portals, customer management systems, data
mining, workflow, etc., support KM activities and the selection of appropriate
technology improves the performance of businesses.TI enables collecting, defining,
storing, indexing and linking data, and digital objects in order to support
management decisions. It is able to over-come the barriers of time and space. It
also serves as a repository in which knowledge can be reliably stored and efficiently
retrieved.
LACK OF METHODOLOGY

14

KM is a group of clearly defined processes or methods used to search

important knowledge among different KM operations. Despite top management
commitment, organizational structure and technological support, KM may fail due
to lack of methodology. Successful KM implementation requires a set of
methodology. Methodology defines each and every activity which is going to be
held during the KM implementation. It is necessary for enhancing KM
implementation. Many authors have suggested the step-by-step methodology for
KM implementation. But even though, when it comes to real implementation, they
fail. Organizations have to understand those guidelines and transfer them according
to their context.
LACK OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Business organizations should adopt an organizational structure (OS) which
matches

and

supports

its

strategy.

OS

includes

division

of

labor,

departmentalization and distribution of power which is necessary to support the

information and decision process of the organizations. It is defined as the
specification of jobs to be done within an organization and the ways in which those
jobs relate to one another. There are two types of organizational structure; one is
bureaucracy and the other is task force. Bureaucratic structure hinders the flow of
knowledge, hence it should be discouraged. Task force structure is flexible and
adoptable which brings a team or group together to deal with problems. OS needs to
support the knowledge transfer and must contribute towards creation and reuse of
knowledge for the successful implementation of KM in the organizations. It must
be capable enough to administer the knowledge related activities. Creating an
organizational structure to manage knowledge is by no means enough for the
success of KM, but it is an important ingredient of success.
LACK OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
15

Organizational culture defines the core beliefs, value norms and social customs
that govern the way individuals act and behave in an organization. It is the sum of
shared philosophies, assumptions, values, expectations, attitudes, and norms that
bind the organizations together. Lack of organizational culture is a key barrier for
successful implementation of knowledge management in an organization.
Organizational culture is the largest barrier in creation of a successful knowledgebased organization. Culture considers the multiple aspects mainly collaboration
and trust. Trust is one of the aspects of the knowledge friendly cultures that fosters
the relationship between individuals and groups, thereby, facilitating a more
proactive and open knowledge sharing. Absence or minimal level of collaboration
hinders the transfer of knowledge between individuals as well as of the groups.
LACK OF MOTIVATION AND REWARDS
Organizational goals cant be achieved unless organizations integrate the
concept of motivation and re-wards to its employees. Motivation can be provided
through recognition, visibility, and inclusion of knowledge performance in
appraisal systems and incentives. The motivation could be either intrinsic or
extrinsic. Rewarding and recognizing an employee with tangible form for their
knowledge sharing efforts is extrinsic motivation while intrinsic motivation is
intangible nature. Employees share their knowledge easily when motivated. It is
critical for sharing of both types of knowledge tacit as well as explicit knowledge.
One of the examples of motivation and reward system practices by Bharti Cellular
Limited is of knowledge-dollar (K$) scheme, under which employees earn points
or K$s every time when they share new knowledge in an organization knowledge
base or every time they replicate or apply knowledge shared by others.
STAFF RETIREMENT
Staff retirement is the major barrier in the KM implementation. Many
organizations are facing lot of problems due to expertise retirement. I f any
16

employee retires from his/her job, it is very difficult to get a substitute of that
level. His/her experience and expertise will be lost by the organizations.
Organizations are less vigilant about protecting their human intellectual capital.
Organizations need to focus on knowledge retention and its transfer into their
business process management. According to Accenture, one out of four
organizations makes no effort whatsoever to capture the workplace knowledge of
retirees, and a further 16% of organizations expect retirees to have an informal chat
with colleagues before leaving. Thats more than 40% of the organizations have no
formal processes for retaining expertise.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

SUCCESSFUL MANAGING OF KNOWLEDGE

KM DEFINITIONS
STAGES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
THE COMPONENTS OF A KM STRATEGY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT EMERGING PERSPECTIVES
THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
LIMITATION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
THE CORE ISSUES IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
BARRIERS IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
REFERENCES

17