knowledge management importance essay

Knowledge management

Ivan Andreev

Demand Generation & Capture Strategist, Valamis

February 22, 2022 · updated April 2, 2024

14 minute read

Taking advantage of all the expertise within an organization is a great way to maximize its potential. Companies have a well of untapped knowledge within their workforce that is lying dormant or siloed to individual staff or departments.

With the proper management structures in place, this knowledge can be found, stored, and made accessible to the wider workforce, offering tangible business benefits.

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management in practice, types of knowledge, examples of knowledge management.

• Importance of knowledge management

Benefits of knowledge management

Knowledge management process, knowledge management methods, what are knowledge management systems.

Knowledge management is the conscious process of defining, structuring, retaining, and sharing the knowledge and experience of employees within an organization.

As organizations evolve, expand into new areas, and define their approach to business, they develop significant institutional knowledge . This information is invaluable to the company. Imparting it to new or less experienced staff is vital for maintaining successful operations.

The primary goal of knowledge management is facilitating the connection of staff looking for information, or institutional knowledge, with the people who have it.

With practical knowledge management in place, organizations can spread information and raise the level of expertise held by specific individuals or teams to improve the efficiency of their practices.

It often refers to training and learning in an organization or of its customers. It consists of a cycle of creating, sharing, structuring, and auditing knowledge to maximize the effectiveness of an organization’s collective expertise.

Knowledge management can be separated into three main areas:

• Accumulating knowledge
• Storing knowledge
• Sharing knowledge

By accumulating and storing the staff’s knowledge, companies hold onto what has made them successful in the past. In addition, sharing this information throughout the organization informs staff of past approaches that improve performance or better inform new strategies.

To achieve the goal of knowledge management, companies have to enable and promote a culture of learning and development, creating an environment where employees are encouraged to share information to better the collective workforce.

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When discussing knowledge management, it is helpful to consider the different types of knowledge and how it is possible to share them within an organization.

The information knowledge management covers can generally be broken down into three main types:

1. Explicit knowledge is knowledge and information that can be easily codified and taught, such as how to change the toner in a printer and mathematical equations.

2. Implicit knowledge is knowledge that explains how best to implement explicit knowledge. For example, consider discussing a task with an experienced co-worker. They may provide explicit steps detailing how to complete the job. But they may also use their understanding of the situation to consider different options and decide the best approach for your given circumstances. The experienced employee utilizes and shares their implicit knowledge to improve how the team operates.

3. Tacit knowledge is knowledge gained through experience. Therefore, it is more intuitive and less easy to share with others. Examples of tacit knowledge are “know-hows”, innovative thinking, and understanding body language.

While knowledge management for implicit and tacit knowledge can be harder to implement, with correct procedures in place, you can ensure all relevant information is shared around the company and retained as staff retire or move on.

Utilizing all the expertise in your company benefits the business as a whole, creating best practices for everyday tasks, improving situational awareness, developing employee intuition for course corrections, and enhancing organizational capacity.

Staff retiring

An employee’s knowledge and skillset grow as they spend time with an organization. As a result, staff typically retire with a wealth of expertise that the company needs to mine using efficient knowledge management processes in order to reduce disruption and prevent workforce knowledge gaps.

This means identifying and capturing the meaningful information that needs to be retained by the organization and determining the best approach for storing and distribution.

Employee transfer or promotion

When staff change positions within a company, they must develop additional skillsets and expertise to match their new role.

Efficient knowledge management procedures simplify delivering this information to create a seamless transition from one position to another.

Why is knowledge management important?

Knowledge management is important because it boosts the efficiency of an organization’s decision-making ability.

By making sure that all employees have access to the overall expertise held within the organization, a smarter workforce is built that is more able to make quick, informed decisions, benefiting the entire company.

Knowledge management allows innovation to grow within the organization, customers benefit from increased access to best practices, and employee turnover is reduced.

The importance of knowledge management is growing every year. As the marketplace becomes ever more competitive, one of the best ways to stay ahead of the curve is to build your organization in an intelligent, flexible manner. You must have the ability to spot issues from a distance and be able to respond quickly to new information and innovations.

Companies begin the knowledge management process for many different reasons.

• A merger or acquisition could spur the need for codifying knowledge and encouraging teams to share their expertise.
• The imminent retirement of key employees could demonstrate the need to capture their knowledge.
• An upcoming recruitment drive shows the wisdom in using knowledge management to assist in training new employees.

52% of respondents in Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends Survey stated workforce movement as the driving force behind proactively developing knowledge management strategies.

Whatever the reason is, implementing knowledge management processes offers tangible benefits that drive value. This is backed up by research , showing knowledge management positively influences dynamic capabilities and organizational performance.

A survey of over 286 people working in knowledge management across a range of industries, locations, and company sizes found the most significant benefits to be:

• Reduced time to find information
• Reduced time for new staff to become competent
• Reduced operational costs
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Improved bid win/loss ratio

Making knowledge management a significant part of a company’s leadership approach produces a more streamlined workforce with faster onboarding and well-informed staff that provide a better experience for customers.

Knowledge management is a critical tool for any company that wants to increase its bottom line and market share .

IDC estimates that Fortune 500 companies lose $31 billion from not sharing knowledge within their organization every year. Studies estimate improving employee access to information and tools could save organizations roughly $2 million a month for every 4000 employees.

Implementing effective knowledge management requires proactive strategies and incorporating multiple new processes.

Companies have to uncover the existing knowledge available to them, understand how to spread this information to produce additional value, and plan what this looks like in action.

Knowledge management process. Credit: Valamis. ( CC BY 4.0 )

1. Discovery

Every organization has multiple sources of knowledge, from employees to data and records.

This could be the education and skillsets staff bring to the job, the experience and unique expertise they develop on the job, or hard drives of data that can positively affect the business with proper analysis.

During the discovery process, organizations must identify all the available sources of knowledge, with a particular emphasis on information that could be easily lost.

This process is simplified by a strong understanding of where and how knowledge flows around the organization.

2. Collection

Collecting all the available knowledge and data creates the foundation from which future processes build.

Sloppy or incorrect knowledge collection leads to decisions without a complete understanding of the organization and its capabilities.

Companies must audit their existing staff expertise, documentation, and external knowledge sources. A range of tools is available to help, including automated surveys, document scanning, and metadata.

Post-implementation, many organizations redefine internal processes to make capturing institutional knowledge a part of everyday processes. This could be through continual employee feedback systems or more in-depth offboarding procedures.

3. Assessment

This process involves the deep analysis of the knowledge gathered in the previous two steps. Data must be assessed and organized into a structured, searchable, and easily accessible form.

Assessment of the gathered knowledge is required to ensure it is accurate, offers value, and is up to date.

Then teams can determine how best to share information to improve company performance and give staff the knowledge they need to maximize performance.

Utilizing the right knowledge management system simplifies this process by allowing leadership to organize, assess, segment, and store a comprehensive knowledge database.

The whole point of knowledge management is to give staff the expertise and information they need to do their job to the best of their ability.

Once you have built a detailed and accurate body of knowledge related to your company, you need to plan how it will be shared.

See the “Knowledge management methods” section below for examples of how to share information around your company.

While there are many examples of sharing information, one thing that should be universal is creating a cultural shift towards learning and development .

Leadership must prioritize and reward knowledge sharing, creating an atmosphere where team members are actively encouraged to both teach each other and learn from one another.

5. Application

This is the step where organizations reap the rewards of knowledge management. Discovering and storing institutional knowledge is just the beginning.

Staff utilizing newly acquired expertise in their tasks brings a range of benefits in productivity, accuracy, decision-making, and more innovative employees.

6. Creation

The final stage of knowledge management is to create more knowledge.

It should never be considered a one-and-done process. A single audit and rollout won’t deliver the results you are looking for.

Knowledge management is a continual process that maximizes a company’s performance for the expertise available to it.

Whether it is a team discovering a new, more efficient approach to a task or a better way of capturing data related to company performance, organizations should constantly be innovating and creating new knowledge to pass on to future employees.

Depending on what the company needs, their knowledge management will look different.

Below we have listed common examples of knowledge management methods in action:

1. Tutoring & training, communities of practice, and Q&A

These examples all involve transferring information directly from the knowledge holder to other employees.

This could be through in-person tutoring, company-wide training sessions, online chats, and group discussions – or a mix of these options and others.

Many companies value building a skills matrix that maps each employee’s expertise. This simplifies finding the employee with the most experience or knowledge in a given field. In addition, it identifies knowledge gaps within the workforce and shows areas requiring focus for specific knowledge management methods and training.

Some examples of this type of knowledge management may not require a formalized structure. For example, perhaps your company is having problems with a new project, which reminds you of a previous situation. Using the company Slack, for example, you can search for similar questions and find old threads discussing how you overcame the problem last time. Prior expertise that you may not have thought about in years is stored and discovered in old communications to help you right now.

• Questions can be immediately answered
• Clarifications can be made if the material is not understood
• Brainstorming sessions can be facilitated, taking advantage of the combined power of the group’s experience and knowledge
• In-person learning tends to be remembered more clearly
• It can be time-consuming and take away from the tasks the knowledge holder is trying to complete
• A system of expertise location can be time-consuming to build and maintain
• It can be challenging to document and save for future use
• Difficulty finding the right expert with good communication skills and knowledge of the company
• You can lose the knowledge if the knowledge holder leaves the company

2. Documentations, guides, guidelines, FAQ, and tutorials

Written communications are great for storing and transferring knowledge.

With text-based knowledge management, a system to store, categorize and navigate subjects is always available.

In many cases, metadata is a great help for this.

• The company has an invaluable source of information of up to date information
• Easy to find and share online (when organized well)
• Can easily combine multiple people’s expertise into one packet
• Requires a lot of time to create and keep up-to-date
• Must be appropriately managed to ensure relevant knowledge is easily found
• Requires infrastructure (internet access, etc.)
• It takes time to consume

3. Forums, intranets, and collaboration environments

These online resources spark conversation and bring many knowledge holders into the same place.

Threads, subforums, and groups can be divided by topic, level of expertise, or any number of other classifications.

• Collaboration drives innovation
• Many experts can be brought together into one place, no matter their location globally
• Facilitating contact with remote teams helps teamwork and knowledge transfer
• It can be a chaotic, noisy environment
• Knowledge is not actively being vetted as it is added to discussions
• Searching through many messages and threads for relevant answers is time-consuming
• Messages and threads might not be archived

4. Learning and development environments

Creating an environment where learning is considered an asset will continuously drive employees to educate themselves.

Incentivizing them to take advantage of your knowledge management systems will result in upskilled employees ready to take on leadership roles in your organization.

For this to happen, there must be structured and accessible learning and development technology in place that employees can use.

• Motivated employees can develop themselves at will
• Training pathways can be set out
• Wide range of resources available to produce a constant flow of fresh content
• The structure allows for easier discovery of subjects
• Authoring tools available such that internal experts can build company-specific courses
• Analytic tools are available to help find knowledge gaps inside the company
• Requires a lot of effort to develop and maintain in house
• Readily available solutions may be too generic to add real value for your company
• Content must be created and continually updated
• Requires an influential learning culture to motivate staff to participate

5. Case studies

These in-depth studies into particular areas serve as complete guides to a subject.

Looking at the actions taken, the results they produce, and any lessons learned is extremely valuable.

• Allow for complete documentation and archiving of lessons learned
• Easily shareable
• Efficient for communicating complex information
• It takes a lot of time and skill to create
• The case study may have limitations or require approval from the parties involved
• Can be too specialized to apply the knowledge broadly
• In fast-paced fields that are constantly innovating, case studies can become out of date quickly

6. Webinars

These online seminars can be beneficial in widely disseminating ideas throughout teams, branches, or the entire company.

• Accessible for all interested employees to attend
• Potential for interactivity where attendees can ask questions specific to issues they are having
• Can be recorded and reused
• Planning, finding the right speakers, and settling on a topic is time-consuming
• Requires organization
• External experts can cost a lot
• Requires time to find answer

Knowledge management systems are IT solutions that allow for the storage and retrieval of the information stored within the company, allowing for better collaboration and more efficient problem-solving.

Depending on what your company needs, they will have different features.

Examples of knowledge management systems are:

• Feedback database – Everyone involved in a product, from designers to salespeople to customers, can share their feedback with the organization. All stakeholders can access the feedback and thus quickly make fundamental changes armed with better information.
• Research files – In developing projects and ideas, a company does market and consumer research to determine what is needed, what niches are yet to be filled in the market, and what trends can be forecasted. The files are then shared within the organization to allow all departments to benefit from the research conducted.

Shared project files – This system allows for greater collaboration and teamwork, especially across distances.

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Knowledge management (KM) is the process of identifying, organizing, storing and disseminating information within an organization.

When knowledge is not easily accessible within an organization, it can be incredibly costly to a business as valuable time is spent seeking out relevant information versus completing outcome-focused tasks.

A knowledge management system (KMS) harnesses the collective knowledge of the organization, leading to better operational efficiencies. These systems are supported by the use of a knowledge base. They are usually critical to successful knowledge management, providing a centralized place to store information and access it readily.

Companies with a knowledge management strategy achieve business outcomes more quickly as increased organizational learning and collaboration among team members facilitates faster decision-making across the business. It also streamlines more organizational processes, such as training and on-boarding, leading to reports of higher employee satisfaction and retention.

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The definition of knowledge management also includes three types of knowledge—tacit, implicit, and explicit knowledge. These types of knowledge are largely distinguished by the codification of the information.

• Tacit knowledge:  This type of knowledge is typically acquired through experience, and it is intuitively understood. As a result, it is challenging to articulate and codify, making it difficult to transfer this information to other individuals. Examples of tacit knowledge can include language, facial recognition, or leadership skills.
• Implicit knowledge:  While some literature equivocates implicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, some academics break out this type separately, expressing that the definition of tactic knowledge is more nuanced. While tacit knowledge is difficult to codify, implicit knowledge does not necessarily have this problem. Instead, implicit information has yet to be documented. It tends to exist within processes, and it can be referred to as “know-how” knowledge.
• Explicit knowledge:  Explicit knowledge is captured within various document types such as manuals, reports, and guides, allowing organizations to easily share knowledge across teams. This type of knowledge is perhaps the most well-known and examples of it include knowledge assets such as databases, white papers, and case studies. This form of knowledge is important to retain intellectual capital within an organization as well as facilitate successful knowledge transfer to new employees.

While some  academics  (link resides outside ibm.com) summarize the knowledge management process as involving knowledge acquisition, creation, refinement, storage, transfer, sharing and utilization. This process can be synthesized this a little further. Effective knowledge management system typically goes through three main steps:

• Knowledge Creation:  During this step, organizations identify and document any existing or new knowledge that they want to circulate across the company.
• Knowledge Storage:  During this stage, an information technology system is typically used to host organizational knowledge for distribution. Information may need to be formatted in a particular way to meet the requirements of that repository.
• Knowledge Sharing:  In this final stage, processes to share knowledge are communicated broadly across the organization. The rate in which information spreads will vary depending on organizational culture. Companies that encourage and reward this behavior will certainly have a competitive advantage over other ones in their industry. 

There are a number tools that organizations utilize to reap the benefits of knowledge management. Examples of knowledge management systems can include:

• Document management systems  act as a centralized storage system for digital documents, such as PDFs, images, and word processing files. These systems enhance employee workflows by enabling easy retrieval of documents, such as lessons learned.
• Content management systems (CMS) are applications which manage web content where end users can edit and publish content. These are commonly confused with document management systems, but CMSs can support other media types, such as audio and video.   
• Intranets  are private networks that exist solely within an organization, which enable the sharing of enablement, tools, and processes within internal stakeholders. While they can be time-consuming and costly to maintain, they provide a number of groupware services, such as internal directories and search, which facilitate collaboration.
• Wikis  can be a popular knowledge management tool given its ease of use. They make it easy to upload and edit information, but this ease can lead to concerns about misinformation as workers may update them with incorrect or outdated information.
• Data warehouses  aggregate data from different sources into a single, central, consistent data store to support data analysis, data mining, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning. Data is extracted from these repositories so that companies can derive insights, empowering employees to make data-driven decisions.

While knowledge management solutions can be helpful in facilitating knowledge transfer across teams and individuals, they also depend on user adoption to generate positive outcomes. As a result, organizations should not minimize the value of human elements that enable success around knowledge management.

• Organizational Culture:  Management practices will affect the type of organization that executives lead. Managers can build learning organizations by rewarding and encouraging knowledge sharing behaviors across their teams. This type of leadership sets the groundwork for teams to trust each other and communicate more openly to achieve business outcomes.
• Communities of practice:  Centers of excellence in specific disciplines provide employees with a forum to ask questions, facilitating learning and knowledge transfer. In this way, organizations increase the number of subject matter experts in a given area of the company, reducing dependencies on specific individuals to execute certain tasks.

Armed with the right tools and strategies, knowledge management practices have seen success in specific applications, such as:

• Onboarding employees:  Knowledge management systems help to address the huge learning curve for new hires. Instead of overwhelming new hires with a ‘data dump’ in their first weeks, continually support them with knowledge tools that will give them useful information at any time.  Learn more
• Day-to-day employee tasks:  Enable every employee to have access to accurate answers and critical information. Access to highly relevant answers at the right time, for the right person, allows workforces to spend less time looking for information and more time on activities that drive business.  Learn more
• Self-serve customer service:  Customers repeatedly say they’d prefer to find an answer themselves, rather than pick up the phone to call support.  When done well, a knowledge management system helps businesses decrease customer support costs and increase customer satisfaction.  Learn more

Companies experience a number of benefits when they embrace knowledge management strategies. Some key advantages include:

• Identification of skill gaps:  When teams create relevant documentation around implicit or tacit knowledge or consolidate explicit knowledge, it can highlight gaps in core competencies across teams. This provides valuable information to management to form new organizational structures or hire additional resources.
• Make better informed decisions:  Knowledge management systems arm individuals and departments with knowledge. By improving accessibility to current and historical enterprise knowledge, your teams can upskill and make more information-driven decisions that support business goals.
• Maintains enterprise knowledge:  If your most knowledgeable employees left tomorrow, what would your business do? Practicing internal knowledge management enables businesses to create an organizational memory. Knowledge held by your long-term employees and other experts, then make it accessible to your wider team.
• Operational efficiencies:  Knowledge management systems create a go-to place that enable knowledge workers to find relevant information more quickly. This, in turn, reduces the amount of time on research, leading to faster decision-making and cost-savings through operational efficiencies.  Increase productivity not only saves time, but also reduces costs.
• Increased collaboration and communication:  Knowledge management systems and organizational cultures work together to build trust among team members. These information systems provide more transparency among workers, creating more understanding and alignment around common goals. Engaged leadership and open communication create an environment for teams to embrace innovation and feedback.
• Data Security:  Knowledge management systems enable organizations to customize permission control, viewership control and the level of document-security to ensure that information is shared only in the correct channels or with selected individuals. Give your employees the autonomy access knowledge safely and with confidence.

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Knowledge Management 101: Knowledge Management Cycle, Processes, Strategies, and Best Practices

By Becky Simon | August 28, 2017 (updated August 11, 2023)

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Regardless of industry or product, all companies rely on the knowledge of their employees to be successful. Organizations must treat knowledge as an asset, but it’s not enough to simply hire skilled employees. Instead, successful companies should build in processes to store, grow, and share knowledge to increase the knowledge base of the overall workforce. This concept is known as knowledge management.

In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about knowledge management: what it is, types of knowledge, and the history and evolution of the field. Then, we’ll break down the benefits and challenges of implementing knowledge management, and discuss multiple models of the knowledge management life cycle. Finally, we’ll look at the rise of knowledge management systems, and offer free, downloadable templates to get you started building a knowledge management plan.

What Is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management (KM) is the process(es) used to handle and oversee all the knowledge that exists within a company. Knowledge management relies on an understanding of knowledge, which consists of discrete or intangible skills that a person possesses.

The field of knowledge management identifies two main types of knowledge. Explicit knowledge is knowledge or skills that can be easily articulated and understood, and therefore easily transferred to others (this is also called formal or codified knowledge). Anything that can be written down in a manual - instructions, mathematical equations, etc. - qualify as explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge , by contrast, is knowledge that is difficult to neatly articulate, package, and transfer to others. These are usually intuitive skillsets that are challenging to teach, such as body language, aesthetic sense, or innovative thinking. (A third knowledge type is implicit knowledge , which is information that has not yet been codified or transferred, but that would be possible to teach. Implicit knowledge is different from tacit knowledge, which is unlikely to be able to be codified. For this article, however, we will primarily discuss explicit and tacit knowledge.)

You can break these knowledge types down further into four categories:

• Factual Knowledge is measurable, observable, and verifiable data.
• Conceptual Knowledge relates to perspectives and systems.
• Expectational Knowledge is knowledge rooted in expectations, hypotheses, or judgments.
• Methodological Knowledge deals with decision-making and problem-solving.

Knowledge management enables organizational learning, a concept where companies are invested not only in the reliable, expert production of a product or service, but in the knowledge that underlies these production processes. Companies devoted to organizational learning are interested in maintaining and building upon internal knowledge at an organizational level - not just helping individuals accrue special skills, but ensuring that this knowledge is available to and dispersed throughout the workforce.

As one Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) paper states, the core goal of knowledge management is to connect “knowledge nodes” - those with knowledge and those seeking knowledge - to ultimately increase the knowledge within an organization. Within that goal, the authors identify four objectives of KM: to capture knowledge, to increase knowledge access, to enhance the knowledge environment, and to manage knowledge as an asset.

Ultimately, knowledge management is an integrated system of accumulating, storing, and sharing knowledge within a team or organization. KM consists of several components, as well as strategies to implement it successfully - we’ll delve deeper into these later in the article.

Who Uses Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management can be implemented enterprise-wide across a number of industries. However, the way you implement KM might change depending on factors such as industry and company size.

KM is often used differently for small vs. large organizations, however. Small (and/or young) companies must carve out a competitive market advantage early on, and therefore benefit from KM by codifying and storing internal knowledge from the get-go. Large organizations - even those with unwavering strength in their market - use KM to act quickly in the digital age, where business changes constantly and often without warning. Without a reliable system to store existing knowledge and accumulate new knowledge, it would be difficult to react to these market changes. However, both large and small companies can benefit from KM because it treats the knowledge that every individual brings as an asset, so employees feel respected for their skills in the workplace.

For those looking to implement knowledge management in a specific department, you can also tailor the practice to sub-fields. Other than enterprise KM, knowledge management is most commonly implemented in IT/information systems and science, organizational management, business administration, human resources management, content management, or for personal use.

History of Knowledge Management

Efforts to formally manage knowledge have been in place for most of the past half century. In the late 20th century, however, with the evolution of computers, organizations began implementing more reliable storage systems. In the 1990s, the Swedish financial service provider Skandia created the first Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) position, which paved the way for other companies to treat knowledge management as an integral part of their structure.

In fact, several academics have formalized the topic, and knowledge management is now regarded as a scientific discipline. In the mid-1990s, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi published the first academic research on knowledge management, and coined the SECI model (socialization, externalization, combination, internalization) as a path of knowledge transfer. Since then, Nonaka and Takeuchi have studied several other aspects of knowledge within a company, as have other academics. The knowledge management life cycle, which details how to store and disseminate knowledge throughout an organization, was also set forth by business academics in the l990s and early 2000s; the four most popular models are Wiig (1993), Zack (1996), Bukowitz and Williams (2000), and McElroy (2003).

In general, knowledge management has evolved from a loose tendency to accumulate, store, and teach (and therefore increase) knowledge within a team or organization into a prioritized method of building a knowledgeable workforce - all with the goal of gaining a competitive advantage. As we will discuss later on, there are several theories of how to best store knowledge and stimulate knowledge transfer within an organization. Skeptics say that today’s knowledge management is simply a “fad,” while others argue that its principles are here to stay: its strategies, methods, and implementation systems will simply continue to evolve as technology and business does, too.

What Is the Primary Benefit of Knowledge Management?

While it may not seem directly related to the tactics of knowledge management, the primary goal is to increase company efficiency to improve business decision-making. The idea is that building expertise into your organization - and dispersing it amongst employees - empowers you to make more informed, faster, and ultimately more profitable decisions.

Of course, there are several secondary benefits. Successful KM will enable you to:

• Increase collaboration and idea generation
• Optimize a culture of knowledge sharing
• Protect intellectual capital
• Treat human capital as an asset (which makes employees feel respected for their knowledge)
• Capture and store knowledge for the future workforce

Kevin D. Murray, CPP, CISM is a technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) specialist with an extensive career in information security and counterespionage consulting for business and government. He breaks the benefits of KM into four value areas:

Control: Not knowing where your information is is the first step to losing it.

Security: ‘You gotta keep the bait in the bucket, not in the pond.’

Access: When you need your information, you will get it faster.

Responsibility: With all the eggs in one basket, one is forced to carry the basket more carefully, meaning you provide better protection for your information.  

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What Are the Challenges of Knowledge Management?

There are many challenges that businesses face when implementing knowledge management. Here is a list of some of the most common ones:

• Creating a culture of flexibility and collaboration: This is one of the most significant and enduring challenges of KM. Companies already struggle to implement new policies, because people naturally tend to resist change. However, KM can be especially difficult because employees might want to protect their skills and knowledge, or be reluctant to learn from their peers.
• Security: You have to design a knowledge transfer system that makes it easy for the appropriate people to access information, while protecting sensitive or private  intelligence from outsiders.
• Measuring knowledge: It can be difficult to define metrics to measure the knowledge within your organization, especially for tacit knowledge that cannot be easily quantified. To overcome this, some experts recommend focusing on the purpose of knowledge, rather than the efforts or results (which are often also unquantifiable).
• Identifying an expert: There won’t always be a single “keeper” of every knowledge type, but you will still have to identify who within the company possesses certain knowledge, and use them as the base level of knowledge from which you want to build. This process is difficult tactically, but can also be delicate among employees who might feel competitive about their skill levels.
• Document storage and management: While not all knowledge makes for straightforward documentation, it will have to be stored and organized in some form. Document management is a challenge for many companies, but organization is a vital aspect of KM - otherwise, it will be impossible to locate and use the knowledge you have stored. Consider using a dedicated document management system to keep everything organized.
• Disseminating knowledge throughout an organization: You’ll need to devise a process where, once you store the knowledge, other team members can access it. This is complicated both theoretically and tactically, so many organizations opt for a software system designed specifically for this purpose. We’ll take a closer look at KM systems later on.
• Continual improvement: Like most process-driven strategies, you should continually improve upon the knowledge management system you implement. Stage periodic reviews or, if possible, dedicate resources to continually optimize your process.
• Determining where KM is housed: If KM serves your entire organization, decide which department will “own” the strategy. Companies most commonly house KM in HR or IT. Remember, this department is not only responsible for effectively managing the knowledge itself, but also for maintaining the community of knowledge sharing and organizational learning.

How Does Knowledge Management Work? Basic Components and Strategies

As we’ve discussed, the theory behind knowledge management is that in order to make the best business decisions, the workforce must be as educated and skillful as possible. One way to ensure an educated - and continually learning - workforce is to stimulate organizational learning, which companies can do by implementing knowledge management. This practice ensures not only that existing knowledge (both explicit and tacit forms) is codified and stored, but that it can be dispersed among other employees so that people can continue to amass skills. Another benefit is that KM evenly distributes knowledge so no one is contributing in silos.

As Nonaka and Takeuchi first stated in their seminal academic papers, there are three main ways that people approach knowledge management:

• People-centric: Centered on people, relationships, and how people form learning communities and other informal ways of knowledge sharing. This idea is also known as ecological KM theory .
• Tech-centric: Focused on the technology that facilitates knowledge storage and transfer, and aims to create technology systems that encourage knowledge sharing.
• Process-centric: Interested in how the organizational structure and processes accommodate and encourage knowledge sharing and organizational learning. This concept includes the production processes, the organizational hierarchy, and the cultural framework.

The approach you take will depend on how your company currently functions. Organizational structure, politics, management style, and existing processes all create parameters around what kind of KM implementation is workable. Regardless of the approach you choose, however, implementing KM will inevitably affect your organization’s people, technology, and processes. Therefore, it’s best to keep all three in mind when enacting a knowledge management strategy.

Theoretical approaches aside, there are some common tactical ways of handling knowledge. The common strategies include:

• Storing knowledge vs. sharing knowledge: Storing knowledge involves accumulating, codifying, and maintaining knowledge in a reliable storage system. This is a good first step, but successful knowledge management also requires a system to disperse that stored knowledge.
• Codification vs. personalization: The difference between these strategies are similar to the previous example. Codification is any activity where you are collecting knowledge (creating and maintaining databases, content architecture, training to support software storage systems), and creating awareness of these collection systems. Personalization, is connecting people to this codified knowledge by forming learning communities, promoting active discussion and knowledge transfer, and facilitating group interaction.
• Push vs. pull: These represent two opposing strategies. In a push strategy, individuals actively encode their knowledge to make it available for others. In a pull strategy, team members seek out experts to request knowledge sharing, so you only transfer knowledge on an as-needed basis.
• Socialization: Tacit to tacit, where knowledge is transferred intuitively through observation, guidance, and practice.
• Externalization : Tacit to explicit, which codifies intuitive, intangible knowledge in order to be taught. This type of knowledge transfer is the most difficult because tacit knowledge is extremely difficult to break down into digestible directives.
• Combination: Explicit to explicit, where codified knowledge is transferred or combined with other codified knowledge. This type of knowledge transfer is the simplest.
• Internalization: Explicit to tacit, where an organization follows and practices codified knowledge so that it becomes intuitive.

Data mining is a process of discovering data patterns based on algorithms, and is another common element of sophisticated knowledge management programs. Because codifying all of your internal knowledge will result in a huge knowledge library, data mining can help identify patterns and extract data. It still uses qualitative methods of data analysis, but automated programs will likely rely on algorithmic work.

The Knowledge Management Life Cycle

As we’ve discussed, the process of knowledge management follows general steps. Today, this progression has been formalized by several scholars, along with how knowledge should be stored and disseminated throughout an organization. This includes the processes, tools, and technologies that make up the knowledge management life cycle.

While each life cycle differs in specific steps, this infographic shows the basic steps.

There are multiple, semi-competing theories of the knowledge management life cycle. However, despite the nuanced theoretical and syntactical differences, the top four all follow a similar pattern. Here are the top four KM life cycle models:

• Wiig Model (1993): This model relies on the principle that in order for information to be useful, it must be organized. Therefore, this model is primarily concerned with organizing all data once it is codified, but also outlines how knowledge is built, stored, pooled (with other stored knowledge), and then extended into the organization. The phases of the Wiig model are creation, sourcing, compilation, transformation, and application.
• Zack Model (1996): While the phases here are similar to the Wiig model, the Zack model prioritizes a logical, standardized process when advancing to each new stage. The phases of the Zack model are acquisition, refinement, storage/retrieval, distribution, and presentation.
• Bukowitz and William Model (2000): This model builds upon the previous two by expanding the definition of knowledge storage to include the infrastructure that supports this learning community (such as communication, hierarchy, and working relationships). Bukowitz and William also emphasize the need for not only maintaining your knowledge repository, but also building it over time. The phases here are: get, use, learn, contribute, and assess.
• McElroy Model (2003): Building upon the process focus of the Bukowitz and William model, McElroy is concerned with knowledge production and integration. It creates ways for team members to submit “claims” when they fail to receive or understand knowledge, all in an effort to improve group learning. The phases in the McElroy model are learning, validation, acquisition, integration, and completion.

Here’s how all the different phases of these model relate to each other:

The integrated knowledge management cycle, proposed by Kimiz Dalkir, Ph.D., combines several of the concepts we’ve discussed into one general framework. Dalkir identifies three key stages in her model: knowledge capture and/or creation, knowledge sharing and dissemination, and knowledge acquisition and application. In this model, Dalkir emphasizes the cycle aspect in order to ensure continual improvement - not only in the amount and quality of knowledge stored, but of the underlying processes, as well

How to Improve Knowledge Management

Even with an understanding of the KM life cycle, knowledge management can be difficult to implement. Below are a few tips on how to improve knowledge management:

• Understand the flow of knowledge in your organization: While the various KM life cycle models list phases to follow, they are merely a blueprint. Knowledge management will only be successful if you understand how your organization already naturally gains, stores, and shares knowledge, so use the existing flow of information to structure your formal knowledge management process.
• Clearly define your goals and how you will measure them: Just like any project, you won’t be able to judge your success without clearly defined goals. Choose objectives and how you will measure them before you implement KM.
• Encourage socialization: One way to foster an environment of knowledge transfer is to let it happen naturally, by talking and casually sharing. Allow team members to talk and form relationships in-office, which will make them more likely to turn to each other for information or advice, or to learn new skills.
• Generate new knowledge: Remember that knowledge management is not only concerned with storing existing knowledge; rather, you need to create processes to manage the ongoing stream of new information. Actively generate new knowledge within your organization not only to create a robust knowledge stream, but also to show your employees that you treat new knowledge - and their knowledge - as an asset. This will make workers more apt to adopt KM.
• Employ technology: Technology can play a huge role in standardizing and organizing the KM process. However, remember that technology itself is not knowledge management, but simply a tool to enhance your processes. We’ll discuss knowledge management technology in depth in the next section.

What Is a Knowledge Management System?

A knowledge management system is any technology that is used to store and manage knowledge - essentially, a tool to oversee knowledge management. However, a successful knowledge management system also taps into the underlying goals of KM: codifying knowledge, retrieving knowledge, improving collaboration, and stimulating overall organizational learning.

Knowledge management systems have evolved from a useful tool to optimize KM processes to an integral component of KM itself. Today, organizations rely on KM systems to perform many of the functions of knowledge management - data storage is an obvious example, but technology systems can also help foster collaboration and group learning, among other objectives.

There are several emerging features in contemporary knowledge management systems. Here’s a look at some of the most prominent ones:

• Content and document management: This is a critical component because codifying knowledge almost always results in documentation (or another form of created content). When choosing a KM system, make sure the platform can support the file size, type(s), and volume that you need. This is especially important for enterprise companies who will need to store massive amounts of data, and scale regularly. (For this functionality, look for enterprise portals.)
• Lessons learned databases: These are systems that aim to make intangible (often tacit) knowledge clear and available to other users. The focus with lessons learned databases is as the name implies: on lessons learned by experts that others should follow (think of it as best practices). The key here is to find a database that can house this kind of qualitative information and make it accessible.
• Groupware: As we’ve discussed, collaboration is a key component of KM. Groupware refers to any collaborative work platform, and is usually intended for workers who need to communicate remotely. Groupware is broken down into two categories: synchronous groupware (collaborate and update in real time) and asynchronous groupware.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): The adoption of AI (as telepresence) into KM systems replaces the human consultants that had been analyzing the data and monitoring the KM processes. Today, cognitive computing, adaptive technology, and intelligent filtering tools, in particular, have huge implications for codifying knowledge, and will likely be adopted by more KM systems. However, the importance of human quality assurance (QA) in much of today’s data work has raised concerns about AI’s ability to fully take over this space.

Although KM systems can help automate and standardize knowledge management, there are several challenges when implementing a system. Security, data accuracy, and changes in technology (cost, implementation, usability) are focused difficulties that you should keep in mind from the get-go. A much more pervasive and ongoing challenge, however, is creating a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing via technology. People may already be reluctant to share information with their peers, and technology can create even more barriers for doing so. Therefore, you’ll need to build in processes that support and stimulate this type of knowledge transfer.

Kevin Murray offers four key things to look for when choosing a KM system:

• Security: Information is valuable. Like any other valuable, there are people who will steal it.
• Accountability: Information is valuable only when it is accurate. Limit access. Log intensively. Test for accuracy.
• Backup: Everyone knows the value of backing up. Not everyone knows how to do it. Hiding a backup drive in the CEO's desk won't help if the building floods or burns. Creating, maintaining, and correctly storing back-ups should be an automatic functionality.
• Ease of Use: If the system is too difficult or demanding to use, people will take shortcuts. Shortcuts usually reduce security and the integrity of the information you're managing.

When discussing the future of KM systems, many critics claim that knowledge management itself is a fad. However, others think that KM and KM systems will simply evolve to meet the demands of today’s business world - likely incorporating more AI-driven systems. Murray agrees with the latter camp.

“It's no fad. It's an imperative. The amount of information being created grows each year. It has to be managed, if you want it to be useful,” he says. “KM systems will continue to increase in popularity, functionality, and ease-of-use, just like the evolution of typewriters and word processing software. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will blend into the mix even more.”

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Knowledge Management and HR Relation Essay

Introduction, reference list.

The need to hire a skilled workforce has led to the development of the concept of knowledge management (KM) as an important aspect of human resources (HR) practices. The notion of KM is not easy to describe in terms of a single definition since various interpretations and styles of use make this strategy dynamic and flexible.

This concept was born as a theory that stimulated the professionalism of employees and contributed to developing their necessary skills (Kianto, Vanhala, and Heilmann, 2016). The importance of KM lies in the ability to find and implement valuable knowledge that might help achieve organizational goals and other related tasks, for instance, saving time and costs.

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the meaning of KM for HR specialists and examine ways in which HR managers can incorporate KM into their professional work. This essay will mainly focus on large and knowledge-intensive companies with subsidiaries in different countries, which can especially benefit from KM.

Also, the relationship between KM and HR will be considered as one of the key topics. The gaps and findings made by scholars will be analyzed, and their roles will be evaluated in the context of the connection between the two concepts under consideration. The importance of studying KM from a practical perspective lies in the differentiation of individual models, for instance, Wiig’s system that involves a 4-phase implementation of this phenomenon – building, holding, pooling, and using knowledge (Foote and Halawi, 2016).

In general, HR influences KM significantly, and providing conditions for searching and implementing valuable knowledge contributes to the business growth of large enterprises due to an opportunity to distribute information among all subsidiaries quickly and efficiently.

Firstly, in this section, the notion and concept of KM will be defined, and the relationship between KM and HR will be discussed. According to Figueiredo et al. (2016, p. 498), knowledge management is “the set of efforts to optimize and develop internal organizational conditions that catalyze all processes and practices related to knowledge, in order to fulfil organizational objectives”.

In addition to the practical, theoretical significance of this concept is an essential aspect since the corresponding framework makes it possible to implement the necessary projects and tasks in the context of a holistic program, thereby facilitating the rapid exchange of information.

As Uddin (2017, p. 31) argues, KM is “the process of creating, utilizing, sharing, storing and reuse of knowledge for making better organizational decisions due to the availability of relevant knowledge”. Therefore, this is a broad concept that relates to all aspects of managing and using knowledge for the benefit of a company.

Impacts of HR on KM

KM practice allows capturing the knowledge and expertise developed by employees and sharing it with the rest of the company. Therefore, the principle of accumulating knowledge within a specific firm is part of its operations; thus, KM is not a new concept. This approach to data sharing pertains to all the processes necessary to manage information within an organization (Dalkir, 2011; Easterby-Smith and Lyles, 2011).

Companies continuously provide training to their employees, which is part of the KM principle since individuals share information and learn from these activities (Gold et al., 2011). From an individual’s perspective, new knowledge may be acquired through reflection (Alavi and Denford, 2011). HR managers can influence the practice of KM in a company because they are responsible for hiring and training practices, as well as the overall environment in a workplace that can support KM.

The relationship between HR practices and knowledge management is because people within an organization create and use intellectual assets. According to El-Farr and Hosseinghoizadeh (2019, p. 10), “competitive advantage is increasingly based on the successful application, leverage and creation of knowledge – especially knowledge embedded in human assets”. HR managers should focus on establishing practices that aid employees in generating knowledge, managing it, and using it through appropriate competencies.

Therefore, the central claims made about the relationship between HR and KM pertain to the fact that human resources are the core elements of both practices. Since knowledge is created and managed by employees, HR managers can ensure that a company hires those people who possess the competencies necessary to carry out this practice (Uddin, 2017). One can argue that based on the core principles of KM, information about products, the process of their development, and other intellectual properties are the central values that an organization has.

Secondly, the nature of information and its place within organizational operations are to be defined. As El-Farr and Hosseingholizadeh (2019, p. 11) state, knowledge itself is “social creation emerging at the interface between people and information”. Therefore, it neither can exist without people nor may be used without considering the human aspect of KM.

Moreover, HR is also a people-centered practice, which means that both KM and HR focus on the same element of organizational work – human resources and their intellectual value. This suggests that companies should invest in their human capital to enhance performance. According to Gope, Elia, and Passionate (2018, p. 649):

“HRM practices can improve management process at the organisational level by increasing employees’ skills and abilities, influencing their behaviour and attitudes and increasing their motivation and learning capacity, and through facilitating the development of competencies.”

Thus, since the task of HR is to help a company’s personnel develop professionally, KM is the core aspect of the HR managers’ work. The importance of KM facilitated by HR is supported by the fact that standardization organizations develop guidelines on implementing KM systems. According to Loon (2017), the fact that the International Standard Organisation (ISO) has developed a practice that outlines the leading KM practices signifies the importance of this organizational management element.

The author highlights that there are several paradigms and approaches to viewing KM and the types of knowledge used by practitioners. In general, all ISO standards are documents that outline the specifications and characteristics of a certain system (Loon, 2017). HR can benefit from using the ISO guideline since this is the best standardization practice that exists today.

Implications and Significance of KM

There are several implications of KM that help companies benefit from these systems and enhance their operations. According to Koenig (2018, para. 2), “KM can very fruitfully be seen as the undertaking to replicate, indeed to create, the information environment known to be conducive to successful R&D – rich, deep, and open communication and information access”. Employees can use the prior experience of their colleagues who work in the same industry for the same company.

The meaning of KM for organizations is described by different scholars. According to El-Farr and Hosseingholizadeh (2019), in the current globalized world, the notion of a knowledge economy defines the value of an organization to its customers. This effect results in the fact that knowledge may become an essential competitive advantage for a business.

For instance, practices used to develop new products, manage customer relationships or improve the existing processes developed by an organization help it create a unique offer for consumers (Millar, Chen, and Waller, 2017; Santoro and Usai, 2018). By using these practices, employees, other divisions or departments can enhance their work. The uniqueness of this organizational knowledge is the main element that defines its value since, in the era of the Internet, information can be accessed quickly (Nowacki and Bachnik, 2016).

However, if all companies within a specific industry decided to use the same practice for developing their product, it would be difficult for customers to choose the best option, and organizations would struggle with competitors.

Some evidence suggests that KM empowers employees, improving their satisfaction with their jobs. Kearns (2015) suggests that learning organizations contribute to the personal and professional development of their workers. Moreover, businesses can either fail or succeed in their KM efforts by developing an appropriate environment for subordinates to learn, which is the main task of HR.

Syed, Murray, and Hislop (2018) state that by acquiring knowledge from outside sources, companies leverage the economy of the scale principle. Articles by Kianto, Vanhala, and Heilmann (2016) and Arunprasad (2016) present evidence suggesting that KM practices affect employee productivity and work satisfaction positively. Therefore, by using KM, HR managers can influence the motivation of employees, as well as enhance their professionalism.

There are two types of information that HR managers can incorporate into the KM system – tacit and explicit. Nishinaka, Umemoto, and Kohda (2015) mention this classification in the framework of Frenkel’s model and note that these types differ in an application context. Tacit knowledge, as opposes to the traditional one, is something that cannot be easily transferred from one person to another (Gibb, 2010).

It is usually not articulated and content-specific, making it difficult to communicate to employees. In general, tacit knowledge is a part of a specific team or individual’s expertise. Explicit knowledge is the information that can be measured, recorded, and organized within the KM system. Arguably, both tacit and explicit knowledge are valuable components for a firm.

The competencies of HR managers also help overcome the issue of resistance when using KM. A survey by Jia, Minghui, and Xuan (2016) suggests that aversion and inertia are the primary causes that obstruct the implementation of KM. This may be explained by the behavioral and social implications of such systems, and HR managers can impact organizational culture to promote learning.

Another issue is aligning knowledge management with the day-to-day work of HR specialists since one can argue that the task is beyond their scope of practice. Zaim et al. (2018) state that KM has become an essential asset for businesses, which requires investment from companies to ensure their development.

KM is a complex topic with varied approaches and strategies for establishing an environment in which such a practice may be implemented successfully. Alavi and Denford (2011, p. 105) note that “organisational knowledge management is a broad and multi-faceted topic involving socio-cultural, organisational, behavioural, and technical dimensions.” KM requires HR managers to understand the specifics of behavior, information flow, and learning, as well as technology. This claim also supports the idea that HR managers are responsible for KM systems since these employees develop hiring and training practices for businesses.

Implementation of KM practices

KM systems developed and facilitated by HR should consider the flow of information. Alavi and Denford (2011, p. 107) point out the following elements of KM – “knowledge creation, knowledge storage and retrieval, knowledge transfer, and knowledge application”. In regards to the creation, there are two main ways a company can incorporate new knowledge into its practice – develop it or acquire necessary information. Organizational culture is one of the sources of internal organizational knowledge.

Nonetheless, some firms may prefer to use knowledge from outside sources. External resources are codified procedures or manuals that guide individuals and provide information in a structured manner. Next, from the perspective of the knowledge transfer process, a source and a recipient are the main elements of this activity.

When considering various elements of KM, it is essential to examine the practice itself. In this regard, information technology is a crucial component that allows companies to mine data, store them and transfer them to different teams and individuals quickly. This is particularly relevant to knowledge-intensive businesses where employee competencies develop and improve with each new project (Medina and Medina, 2015).

The development of the Internet has contributed to the practice of KM and made it easier for HR managers to establish a KM system (Yang, Secchi, and Homberg, 2018). The appropriate organizational culture may support knowledge sharing and learning and improve employee activities. As an example of a valid KM model, Wiig’s cycle can be given.

As Foote and Halawi (2016) remark, this concept involves a phased process of controlling knowledge in business firms and includes the stages of building, holding through technology or oral exchange, reporting, and implementing into the workflow. The whole system is simple, but, at the same time, demonstrates the key steps that should be taken to realize KM in practice. Both HR managers and employees obtain the necessary information guaranteed, which contributes to high working productivity.

The findings suggest that large international corporations benefit from KM since this concept allows sharing the know-how across different subsidiaries. In the context of the knowledge economy and considering the contemporary scope of HR strategic objectives, it is vital to integrate and invest in KM practices. HR managers are responsible for hiring people with competencies, which helps create an appropriate learning environment.

KM practices allow capturing knowledge that is developed within the organization by its employees and distributing it. Alternatively, an organization can use outside sources as part of the knowledge acquisition practice. The development of technology allows HR to benefit from various systems and applications that help store and transfer information quickly.

The practical implications of the KM in the context of HR involve an ability to improve a company’s competitive advantage. Wiig’s cycle is a vivid example of a valid and simple KM model. As an example of the concept of knowledge forms, Frenkel’s model may be analyzed, which highlights tacit and explicit contexts. Employees can ensure more productive work and save valuable resources due to effective KM promoted by HR specialists.

Alavi, M. and Denford, J. S. (2011) ‘Knowledge management: process, practice, and web 2.0’, in Easterby-Smith, M. and Lyles, M. A. (eds.), Handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management . 2nd edn. Chichester: Hoboken, pp. 105-124.

Arunprasad, P. (2016) ‘Guiding metaphors for knowledge-intensive firms: strategic HRM practices and knowledge strategies’, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 24(4), pp. 743-772.

Dalkir, K. (2011) Knowledge management in theory and practice. 2nd edn. London: MIT.

Easterby-Smith, M., and Lyles, M. A. (2011) Handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management . 2nd edn. Chichester: Wiley.

El-Farr, H. and Hosseingholizadeh, R. (2019) ‘Aligning human resource management with knowledge management for better organizational performance: how human resource practices support knowledge management strategies?’, in Wickham, M. (ed.), Current issues in knowledge management. London: IntechOpen, pp. 10-20.

Figueiredo, E., Pais, L., Monteiro, S. and Mónico, L. (2016) ‘Human resource management impact on knowledge management: evidence from the Portuguese banking sector’, Journal of Service Theory and Practice , 26(4), pp. 497-528.

Foote, A. and Halawi, L. A. (2016) ‘Knowledge management models within information technology projects’, Journal of Computer Information Systems , 58 (1), pp. 89-97.

Gibb, S. (2011) Human resource development: foundations, processes, context 3rd edn. London: Red Globe Press.

Gold, J., Holden, R., Iles, P., Stewart, J. and Beardwell, J. (eds) (2010) Human resource development: theory and practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gope, S., Elia, G. and Passiante, G. (2018) ‘The effect of HRM practices on knowledge management capacity: a comparative study in Indian IT industry’, Journal of Knowledge Management , 22(3), pp. 649-677.

Jia, L., Minghui, L. and Xuan L. (2016) ‘Why do employees resist knowledge management systems? An empirical study from the status quo bias and inertia perspectives’, Computers in Human Behavior , 65, pp. 189-200.

Kearns, P. (2015) O rganizational learning and development: from an evidence base. London: Routledge.

Kianto, A., Vanhala, M. and Heilmann, P. (2016) ‘The impact of knowledge management on job satisfaction’, Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(4), pp. 621-636.

Koenig, M. D. (2018) What is KM? Knowledge management explained . Web.

Loon, M. (2017) ‘Knowledge management practice system: theorising from an international meta-standard’, Journal of Business Research, 94, pp. 432-441.

Medina, R. and Medina, A. (2015) ‘The competence loop: competence management in knowledge-intensive, project-intensive organizations’, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 8(2), pp. 279-299.

Millar, C. C., Chen, S. and Waller, L. (2017) ‘Leadership, knowledge and people in knowledge-intensive organisations: implications for HRM theory and practice’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , 28(2), pp. 261-275.

Nishinaka, M., Umemoto, K. and Kohda, Y. (2015) ‘Emergence of common tacit knowledge in an international IT project: a case study between Japan and Singapore’, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business , 8 (3), pp. 533-551.

Nowacki, R. and Bachnik, K. (2016) ‘Innovations within knowledge management,’ Journal of Business Research, 69(5), pp. 1577-1581.

Santoro, G. and Usai, A. (2018) ‘Knowledge exploration and ICT knowledge exploitation through human resource management: a study of Italian firms’, Management Research Review , 41(6), pp. 701-715.

Syed, J., Murray, P. A. and Hislop, D. (eds) (2018) The Palgrave handbook of knowledge management. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Uddin, M. (2017) ‘Knowledge management: tool for enhancing HRM practices and organizational innovation’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences , 9(4), pp. 31-40.

Yang, Y., Secchi, D. and Homberg, F. (2018) ‘Are organisational defensive routines harmful to the relationship between personality and organisational learning?’, Journal of Business Research, 85, pp. 155-164.

Zaim, H. et al. (2018) ‘The effects of knowledge management processes on human resource management: mediating role of knowledge utilization’, Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management , 9(3), pp. 310-328.

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Knowledge Management: Important Tips

What do it managers need to know about ‘knowledge management’ in our days.

The unprecedented growth of knowledge in the 20 th and now in the 21th century has brought about the necessity to manage knowledge. The new world order, though far from being fully defined and agreed to, is beginning to already point at some of the strategic threats and opportunities that would be determining factors in our ability to help shape a new century that we can look back as symbolic of the human spirit and its collective accomplishment at its best and most current stage in the evolution. As knowledge increasingly becomes the key strategic resource of the future our need to develop comprehensive understanding of knowledge processes for the creation, transfer and deployment of this unique asset are becoming critical. In the face of a globally expanding and highly competitive knowledge-based economy, the traditional organizations are urgently seeking fundamental insights to help them nurture, harvest and manage the immense potential of their knowledge assets for capability to excel at the leading edge of innovation. Hence, the management of knowledge has become extremely important to the business world. This has brought about the rise of knowledge management. This article tries to ascertain the areas that managers should know in order to deal with knowledge management and knowledge management systems in organizations.

In order to understand knowledge management and its importance to today’s business, we need to understand what knowledge management actually means. Knowledge can be defined as the understanding managers gain which is attained through the process of experience or appropriate study. Before we try to define knowledge management, it is important to understand what knowledge is. Knowledge has been described by many as “information combined with experience, context, interpretation, reflection and is highly contextual” (Barnes, 2001). Hence, according to this definition knowledge is considered to be information plus something more. Knowledge can be of two types: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge as described by Poliyani refers to the information that we know but are not aware of knowing such information. In other words, our mind knows more than what we know. Explicit knowledge is the information that we hold (Barnes, 2001). It seems an insurmountable task to talk about knowledge and reach general consensus about it. Since human individuals have written all the literature, in other words, individual knowledge has created knowledge; all access is individual in turn. Publications over the past decades lack general consensus on the definition of knowledge management (Wilson). By contrast, different patterns of definitions originate from different academic disciplines, such as organizational theory, information science, psychology, and sociology (Wilson).

This definition of knowledge has been criticized by Wilson (2002 ). He studies the approach to knowledge management in different scholarly articles, by consultants, and in education institutes. According to his research, knowledge has been misinterpreted as information and has been used as synonymous terms. Even the concept of tacit knowledge has been deliberately misinterpreted by consultants and academicians in order to make knowledge management a new management fad.

Taking the available definition of knowledge in the literature, we consider knowledge taking the form of intellectual capital. Barnes (2001) describes information as explicit knowledge and intellectual capital as tacit knowledge. This intellectual capital becomes the true component of the organizations today. Further, knowledge has different process associated and it is important to identify the processes that can be managed (Barnes, 2001). This leads us to the problem of managing knowledge.

Know when it comes to defining knowledge management it is difficult choose the right definition as there are numerous definition provided in the literature (Wilson, 2002 ). The term “Knowledge Management” is used to describe everything from the application of new technology to harnessing of the intellectual capital of an organization. From an organizational context, it has become fashionable to downplay the significance of an organization’s information processing and communication capabilities for the success of knowledge management (Cross & Baird, 2000). It is certainly true that knowledge management’s salient issues go far beyond the infrastructure of information systems (Wilson, 2002 ). Knowledge management has been used in several frameworks such as organizational learning, improved levels of organizational performance, and use of analytical software for high performance in organizational learning (Wilson). As defined by Barnes (2001):

Knowledge management is the attempt to improve/maximise the use of knowledge which exists in an organisation. More specifically it aims to stimulate its creation and encourage its capture, sorting, sifting, access, linking, storage and distribution. In short, it addresses itself to the processes identified above.

Knowledge management is the deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization’s people, technology, processes and organizational structure in order to add value through reuse and innovation. This coordination is achieved by creating, sharing and applying knowledge as well as through feeding the valuable lessons learnt and incorporating the best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning (Dalkir). KM also facilitates flow of knowledge and sharing to improve the efficiency of individuals and hence the organizations. There are many factors that adversely affect the success of KM implementation in the organizations, known as KM barriers (Cross & Baird, 2000). These may be internal and external type barriers. Internal barriers originate from organizational cultures, organizational structures, etc. The second group of barriers is outside the immediate control of the organization.

On this discussion, it is important to understand the knowledge management barrier which becomes hindrances to establishing Knowledge management in organizations. Barriers, which hinder organizations to implement KM, have been identified from various authors who have researched and written directly on this issue. One of the earliest sets of barriers for implementing KM was reported by a study of Fraunhofer Stuttgart. According to this study, scarcity of time and lack of awareness about KM were the most important barriers to implement KM (Bullinger, Worner, & Prieto, 1997)Aligned with this type of approach, another study to explore the practices has identified three major barriers namely scarcity of time, lack of awareness and lack of top management support, to implement KM[20]. Based on lessons captured from leading organizations, two of the KPMG (Wilson, 2002 ) studies have proposed four (lack of time, lack of understanding of KM and its benefits, lack of funding and lack of senior management support) and five (lack of time, the sharing of one’s own knowledge, an unclear strategy, weaknesses of information communication technology support, and unclear information demand) key barriers respectively to KM initiatives (KPMG, 1998).

The Delphi study has proposed three barriers, among which culture was the top most barrier and immature technology and lack of need of KM were the minor barriers (Wilson, 2002 ). Another survey has identified culture, leadership, lack of understanding, efforts vs. reward, technology and knowledge complexity as barriers to KM implementation (Wilson, 2002 ). A survey of Indian engineering industries has proposed twenty barriers, amongst them, lack of understanding of KM and lack of top management commitment have been identified as top most barriers. According to this survey, there is a need for KM strategy which must be supported by top management and requires a good KM infrastructure, staff retention, and incentives to encourage knowledge sharing. Reference shows culture as a main barrier and lack of time, and lack of ownership of problem as two other barriers. Reference (Riege, 2005) classifies barriers into three categories namely organizational, individual, and technological barriers. Organizational barriers are lack of leadership, organizational structure, processes etc. Individual barriers are lack of time to share knowledge, job security, benefit of knowledge management, low awareness, and realization of the value etc. Technological barriers are lack of integration of information technology system, unrealistic expectation of employees, lack of training etc.

But there are problems that are faced while a knowledge management systems are implemented which leads to the failure of most knowledge management (Wilson, 2002 ). Knowledge management excessively takes the path of using information system. Knowledge building, externalized, organizational memory provides a powerful resource for knowledge advancement, and advances are realized through collective responsibility knowledge creation. What is important for today’s managers to know is how knowledge management can be accomplished. KM aims to increase the ability of workers to perform knowledge-intensive tasks. From the perspective of work as creative design, we can restate this purpose simply as understanding the problem at hand (Fische & Ostwald, 2001).

Hence, to manage knowledge it is important to identify process of determining overall business objectives, identifying target knowledge consumers, and conducting detailed needs assessment will typically result in a much larger vision than originally envisaged (Talisma, 2006). There are different barriers which arise in the way of knowledge sharing and management and need special attention to take care of these problems. Another problem that can be observed for implementation go knowledge managed is “KM [Knowledge Management] implementations do not pay enough attention to the actual knowledge content—Web pages, documents, FAQs, solution finders, searchable databases, and external syndicated information. The challenge is to not get inundated with information, and yet identify adequate and relevant knowledge to kick-start user adoption of the KM system.” (Talisma, 2006, p. 8). But there are questions that linger pertaining to the implementation of knowledge management systems and its excessive inclination on information system. Hence, managers should know that knowledge management systems are not information systems.

Works Cited

Barnes, P. C. (2001). A primer on knowledge management.  2008. Web.

Bullinger, H., Worner, K., & Prieto, J. (1997). Knowledge management today: Data, facts, trend, (in german). Institut fur Fraunhofer fur Arbeit Management und Organisation (IAO): Stuttgart.

Cross, R., & Baird, L. (2000). Technology is not enough: improving performance by building organizational memory. Sloan Management Review Vol. 41, No. 3 , 69–79.

Dalkir, K. Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice. Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.

Fische, G., & Ostwald, J. (2001). KM aims to increase the ability of workers Problems, Promises, Realities, and Challenges. IEEE Intelligent Systems , 60-74.

KPMG. (1998). Knowledge management research report 1998. in: KPMG Management (K. Consulting, ed.). Consulting.

Riege, A. (2005). Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must consider. Journal of Knowledge Management 9(3) , 18–35.

Talisma. (2006). Knowledge Management Implementation Best Practices. Web. 

Wilson, T. (2002). The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’.  2008. Web.

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Journal of Knowledge Management

ISSN : 1367-3270

Article publication date: 1 August 2002

Knowledge management (KM) plays important roles in public administration (PA). Each role serves specific constituencies and purposes and is implemented differently. Jointly, they build society’s intellectual capital (IC) to improve the effectiveness of public and private decision making and situation handling. Four public administration KM areas are considered: enhance decision making within public services; aid the public to participate effectively in public decision making; build competitive societal IC capabilities; and develop a knowledge‐competitive work force. Numerous KM approaches are adopted to serve these purposes. Most efforts address specific needs. Only few pursue broad, deliberate, and systematic KM. Examples of these approaches and perspectives are discussed. The premise for KM is that, among many factors, effective and intelligent behavior depends on having appropriate understanding in addition to being informed.

• Public administration
• Information
• Intellectual property
• Decision making

Wiig, K.M. (2002), "Knowledge management in public administration", Journal of Knowledge Management , Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 224-239. https://doi.org/10.1108/13673270210434331

Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited

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