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ASSIGNMENT-2
Knowledge Management (MGT-403)
First Semester (2023-2024)
Course Learning Outcomes-Covered
Define the different Knowledge types and explain how they are addressed by
knowledge management in different business environments.
Identify and analyse role of communities of practice in knowledge management and
the challenges and issues pertaining to community of practice.
Demonstrate effective knowledge management skills to utilize knowledge
management tools for the benefits of the organization.
The focus of the assignment is to evaluate the understanding level of students related
to communities of Practice, learning organization, and various techniques used to
capture tacit and explicit knowledge.
Assignment Questions
Q.1: Write a detailed note on the “Three forms of knowledge” Explained
by K. Wiig in his knowledge management model. Briefly describe the four
types of knowledge explained by K. Wiig. (2 Marks)
Q.2: Discuss in detail the following techniques of capturing tacit
Knowledge? (3 Marks)
a. Learning History.
b. Storytelling.
c. Interviews.
Q. 3: Why are “Communities of practice” Important? How can
organizations cultivate communities of practice? How can these
communities of practice contribute towards the knowledge needs of the
organization? (2.5 Marks)
Q. 4: Compare and contrast some different types of communities of
practice. Describe how they would differ with respect to their goals. (2.5
Marks)
1 Introduction to Knowledge Management
A light bulb in the socket is worth two in the pocket.
—Bill Wolf (1950–2001)
This chapter provides an introduction to the study of knowledge management (KM).
A brief history of knowledge management concepts is outlined, noting that much of
KM existed before the actual term came into popular use. The lack of consensus over
what constitutes a good definition of KM is addressed and the concept analysis technique is described as a means of clarifying the conceptual confusion that still persists
over what KM is or is not. The multidisciplinary roots of KM are enumerated together
with their contributions to the discipline. The two major forms of knowledge, tacit
and explicit, are compared and contrasted. The importance of KM today for individuals, for communities of practice, and for organizations are described together
with the emerging KM roles and responsibilities needed to ensure successful KM
implementations.
Learning Objectives
1. Use a framework and a clear language for knowledge management concepts.
2. Define key knowledge management concepts such as intellectual capital, organizational learning and memory, knowledge taxonomy, and communities of practice
using concept analysis.
3. Provide an overview of the history of knowledge management and identify key
milestones.
4. Describe the key roles and responsibilities required for knowledge management
applications.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
The ability to manage knowledge is crucial in today’s knowledge economy. The creation and diffusion of knowledge have become increasingly important factors in
competitiveness. More and more, knowledge is being thought of as a valuable commodity that is embedded in products (especially high-technology products) and
embedded in the tacit knowledge of highly mobile employees. While knowledge is
increasingly being viewed as a commodity or intellectual asset, there are some paradoxical characteristics of knowledge that are radically different from other valuable
commodities. These knowledge characteristics include the following:
•
Using knowledge does not consume it.
•
Transferring knowledge does not result in losing it.
•
Knowledge is abundant, but the ability to use it is scarce.
•
Much of an organization’s valuable knowledge walks out the door at the end of the
day.
The advent of the Internet, the World Wide Web, has made unlimited sources of
knowledge available to us all. Pundits are heralding the dawn of the Knowledge Age
supplanting the Industrial Era. Forty-five years ago, nearly half of all workers in
industrialized countries were making or helping to make things. By the year 2000,
only 20 percent of workers were devoted to industrial work—the rest was knowledge
work (Drucker 1994; Barth 2000). Davenport (2005, p. 5) says about knowledge
workers that “at a minimum, they comprise a quarter of the U.S. workforce, and at
a maximum about half.” Labor-intensive manufacturing with a large pool of relatively
cheap, relatively homogenous labor and hierarchical management has given way to
knowledge-based organizations. There are fewer people who need to do more work.
Organizational hierarchies are being put aside as knowledge work calls for more collaboration. A firm only gains sustainable advances from what it collectively knows,
how efficiently it uses what it knows, and how quickly it acquires and uses new
knowledge (Davenport and Prusak 1998). An organization in the Knowledge Age is
one that learns, remembers, and acts based on the best available information, knowledge, and know-how.
All of these developments have created a strong need for a deliberate and systematic
approach to cultivating and sharing a company’s knowledge base—one populated
with valid and valuable lessons learned and best practices. In other words, in order to
be successful in today’s challenging organizational environment, companies need to
learn from their past errors and not reinvent the wheel. Organizational knowledge is
Introduction to Knowledge Management
3
not intended to replace individual knowledge but to complement it by making it
stronger, more coherent, and more broadly applied. Knowledge management represents a deliberate and systematic approach to ensure the full utilization of the
organization’s knowledge base, coupled with the potential of individual skills, competencies, thoughts, innovations, and ideas to create a more efficient and effective
organization.
Increasingly, companies will differentiate themselves on the basis of what they know. A relevant
variation on Sidney Winter’s definition of a business firm as an organization that knows how to do
things would define a business firm that thrives over the next decade as an organization that knows
how to do new things well and quickly. (Davenport and Prusak 1998, 13)
Knowledge management was initially defined as the process of applying a systematic approach to the capture, structuring, management, and dissemination of knowledge throughout an organization to work faster, reuse best practices, and reduce costly
rework from project to project (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Pasternack and Viscio
1998; Pfeffer and Sutton, 1999; Ruggles and Holtshouse, 1999). KM is often characterized by a pack rat approach to content: “save it, it may prove useful some time in the
future.” Many documents tend to be warehoused, sophisticated search engines are
then used to try to retrieve some of this content, and fairly large-scale and costly KM
systems are built. Knowledge management solutions have proven to be most successful
in the capture, storage, and subsequent dissemination of knowledge that has been
rendered explicit—particularly lessons learned and best practices.
The focus of intellectual capital management (ICM), on the other hand, is on those
pieces of knowledge that are of business value to the organization—referred to as intellectual capital or assets. Stewart (1997) defines intellectual capital as “organized knowledge that can be used to produce wealth.” While some of these assets are more visible
(e.g., patents, intellectual property), the majority consists of know-how, know-why,
experience, and expertise that tends to reside within the head of one or a few employees (Klein 1998; Stewart 1997). ICM is characterized less by content—because content
is filtered and judged, and only the best ideas re inventoried (the top ten for example).
ICM content tends to be more representative of the real thinking of individuals (contextual information, opinions, stories) because of its focus on actionable knowledge
and know-how. The outcome is less costly endeavors and a focus on learning (at the
individual, community, and organizational levels) rather than on the building of
systems.
A good definition of knowledge management would incorporate both the capturing
and storing of knowledge perspective, together with the valuing of intellectual assets.
For example:
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Chapter 1
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 is achieved through the promotion of creating, sharing, and applying
knowledge as well as through the feeding of valuable lessons learned and best practices into
corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning.
When asked, most executives will state that their greatest asset is the knowledge
held by their employees. “When employees walk out the door, they take valuable
organizational knowledge with them” (Lesser and Prusak 2001, 1). Managers also
invariably add that they have no idea how to manage this knowledge! Using the intellectual capital or asset approach, it is essential to identify knowledge that is of value
and is also at risk of being lost to the organization through retirement, turnover, and
competition.. As Lesser and Prusak (2001, 1) note: “The most knowledgeable employees often leave first.” In addition, the selective or value-based knowledge management
approach should be a three-tiered one, that is, it should also be applied to three organizational levels: the individual, the group or community, and the organization itself.
The best way to retain valuable knowledge is to identify intellectual assets and then
ensure legacy materials are produced and subsequently stored in such a way as to make
their future retrieval and reuse as easy as possible (Stewart 2000). These tangible byproducts need to flow from individual to individual, between members of a community of practice and, of course, back to the organization itself, in the form of lessons
learned, best practices, and corporate memory.
Many knowledge management efforts have been largely concerned with capturing,
codifying, and sharing the knowledge held by people in organizations. Although there
is still a lack of consensus over what constitutes a good definition of KM (see next
section), there is widespread agreement as to the goals of an organization that undertakes KM. Nickols (2000) summarizes this as follows: “the basic aim of knowledge
management is to leverage knowledge to the organization’s advantage.” Some of
management’s motives are obvious: the loss of skilled people through turnover, pressure to avoid reinventing the wheel, pressure for organization-wide innovations in
processes as well as products, managing risk, and the accelerating rate with which new
knowledge is being created. Some typical knowledge management objectives would
be to:
•
Facilitate a smooth transition from those retiring to their successors who are recruited
to fill their positions
•
Minimize loss of corporate memory due to attrition and retirement
•
Identify critical resources and critical areas of knowledge so that the corporation
knows what it knows and does well—and why
Introduction to Knowledge Management
•
5
Build up a toolkit of methods that can be used with individuals, with groups, and
with the organization to stem the potential loss of intellectual capital
What Is Knowledge Management?
An informal survey conducted by the author identified over a hundred published
definitions of knowledge management and of these, at least seventy-two could be
considered to be very good! Carla O’Dell has gathered over sixty definitions and has
developed a preliminary classification scheme for the definitions on her KM blog (see
http://blog.simslearningconnections.com/?p=279) and what this indicates is that KM
is a multidisciplinary field of study that covers a lot of ground. This should not be
surprising as applying knowledge to work is integral to most business activities.
However, the field of KM does suffer from the “Three Blind Men and an Elephant”
syndrome. In fact, there are likely more than three distinct perspectives on KM, and
each leads to a different extrapolation and a different definition.
Here are a few sample definitions of knowledge management from the business
perspective:
Strategies and processes designed to identify, capture, structure, value, leverage, and share an
organization’s intellectual assets to enhance its performance and competitiveness. It is based on
two critical activities: (1) capture and documentation of individual explicit and tacit knowledge,
and (2) its dissemination within the organization. (The Business Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/knowledge-management.html)
Knowledge management is a collaborative and integrated approach to the creation, capture,
organization, access, and use of an enterprise’s intellectual assets. (Grey 1996)
Knowledge management is the process by which we manage human centered assets . . . the
function of knowledge management is to guard and grow knowledge owned by individuals, and
where possible, transfer the asset into a form where it can be more readily shared by other
employees in the company. (Brooking 1999, 154)
Further definitions come from the intellectual or knowledge asset perspective:
Knowledge management consists of “leveraging intellectual assets to enhance organizational
performance.” (Stankosky 2008)
Knowledge management develops systems and processes to acquire and share intellectual assets.
It increases the generation of useful, actionable, and meaningful information, and seeks to
increase both individual and team learning. In addition, it can maximize the value of an organization’s intellectual base across diverse functions and disparate locations. Knowledge management maintains that successful businesses are a collection not of products but of distinctive
knowledge bases. This intellectual capital is the key that will give the company a competitive
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Chapter 1
advantage with its targeted customers. Knowledge management seeks to accumulate intellectual
capital that will create unique core competencies and lead to superior results. (Rigby 2009)
A definition from the cognitive science or knowledge science perspective:
Knowledge—the insights, understandings, and practical know-how that we all possess—is the
fundamental resource that allows us to function intelligently. Over time, considerable knowledge
is also transformed to other manifestations—such as books, technology, practices, and traditions—within organizations of all kinds and in society in general. These transformations result
in cumulated [sic] expertise and, when used appropriately, increased effectiveness. Knowledge is
one, if not THE, principal factor that makes personal, organizational, and societal intelligent
behavior possible. (Wiig 1993)
Two diametrically opposed schools of thought arise from the library and information science perspective: the first sees very little distinction between information
management and knowledge management, as shown by these two definitions:
KM is predominantly seen as information management by another name (semantic drift).
(Davenport and Cronin 2000, 1)
Knowledge management is one of those concepts that librarians take time to assimilate, only to
reflect ultimately “on why other communities try to colonize our domains.” (Hobohm 2004, 7)
The second school of thought, however, does make a distinction between the management of information resources and the management of knowledge resources.
Knowledge management “is understanding the organization’s information flows and implementing organizational learning practices which make explicit key aspects of its knowledge base. . . .
It is about enhancing the use of organizational knowledge through sound practices of information management and organizational learning.” (Broadbent 1997, 8–9)
The process-technology perspective provides some sample definitions, as well:
Knowledge management is the concept under which information is turned into actionable
knowledge and made available effortlessly in a usable form to the people who can apply it. (Patel
and Harty, 1998)
Leveraging collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and innovation. (Carl Frappaolo, Delphi
Group, Boston, http://www.destinationkm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=949)
A systematic approach to manage the use of information in order to provide a continuous flow
of knowledge to the right people at the right time enabling efficient and effective decision making
in their everyday business. (Steve Ward, Northrop Grumman, http://www.destinationkm.com/
articles/default.asp?ArticleID=949)
A knowledge management system is a virtual repository for relevant information that is
critical to tasks performed daily by organizational knowledge workers. (What is KM? http://www
.knowledgeshop.com)
Introduction to Knowledge Management
7
The tools, techniques, and strategies to retain, analyze, organize, improve, and share business
expertise. (Groff and Jones 2003, 2)
A capability to create, enhance, and share intellectual capital across the organization . . . a shorthand covering all the things that must be put into place, for example, processes, systems, culture,
and roles to build and enhance this capability. (Lank 1997)
The creation and subsequent management of an environment that encourages knowledge to be
created, shared, learnt [sic], enhanced, organized and utilized for the benefit of the organization
and its customers. (Abell and Oxbrow 2001)
Wiig (1993, 2002) also emphasizes that, given the importance of knowledge in
virtually all areas of daily and commercial life, two knowledge-related aspects are vital
for viability and success at any level. These are knowledge assets that must be applied,
nurtured, preserved, and used to the largest extent possible by both individuals and
organizations; and knowledge-related processes to create, build, compile, organize,
transform, transfer, pool, apply, and safeguard knowledge. These knowledge-related
aspects must be carefully and explicitly managed in all affected areas.
Historically, knowledge has always been managed, at least implicitly. However, effective and
active knowledge management requires new perspectives and techniques and touches on almost
all facets of an organization. We need to develop a new discipline and prepare a cadre of knowledge professionals with a blend of expertise that we have not previously seen. This is our challenge! (Wiig, in Grey 1996)
Knowledge management is a surprising mix of strategies, tools, and techniques—
some of which are nothing new under the sun: storytelling, peer-to-peer mentoring,
and learning from mistakes, for example, all have precedents in education, training,
and artificial intelligence practices. Knowledge management makes use of a mixture
of techniques from knowledge-based system design, such as structured knowledge
acquisition strategies from subject matter experts (McGraw and Harrison-Briggs 1989)
and educational technology (e.g., task and job analysis to design and develop task
support systems; Gery 1991).
This makes it both easy and difficult to define what KM is. At one extreme, KM
encompasses everything to do with knowledge. At the other extreme, KM is narrowly
defined as an information technology system that dispenses organizational knowhow. KM is in fact both of these and much more. One of the few areas of consensus
in the field is that KM is a highly multidisciplinary field.
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Chapter 1
Multidisciplinary Nature of KM
Knowledge management draws upon a vast number of diverse fields such as:
•
Organizational science
•
Cognitive science
•
Linguistics and computational linguistics
•
Information technologies such as knowledge-based systems, document and informa-
tion management, electronic performance support systems, and database technologies
•
Information and library science
•
Technical writing and journalism
•
Anthropology and sociology
•
Education and training
•
Storytelling and communication studies
•
Collaborative technologies such as Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW)
and groupware as well as intranets, extranets, portals, and other web technologies
The above is by no means an exhaustive list but serves to show the extremely varied
roots that KM grew out of and continues to be based upon today. Figure 1.1 illustrates
some of the diverse disciplines that have contributed to KM.
The multidisciplinary nature of KM represents a double-edged sword: on the one
hand, it is an advantage as almost anyone can find a familiar foundation upon which
to base an understanding and even practice of KM. Someone with a background in
Database Technologies
Collaborative Technologies
Help Desk Systems
Organizational Science
Cognitive Science
KM Disciplines
Technical Writing
Artificial Intelligence
Electronic Performance
Support Systems
Document and
Information Management
Web Technologies
Decision Support Systems
Library and Information Sciences
Figure 1.1
Interdisciplinary nature of knowledge management
Introduction to Knowledge Management
9
journalism, for example, can quickly adapt this skill set to capture knowledge from
experts and reformulate this knowledge as organizational stories to be stored in corporate memory. Someone coming from a more technical database background can
easily extrapolate his or her skill set to design and implement knowledge repositories
that will serve as the corporate memory for that organization. However, the diversity
of KM also results in some challenges with respect to boundaries. Skeptics argue that
KM is not and cannot be said to be a separate discipline with a unique body of knowledge to draw upon. This attitude is typically represented by statements such as “KM
is just IM” or “KM is nonsensical—it is just good business practices.” It becomes very
important to be able to list and describe what attributes are necessary and in themselves sufficient to constitute knowledge management both as a discipline and as a
field of practice that can be distinguished from others.
One of the major attributes lies in the fact that KM deals with knowledge as well
as information. Knowledge is a more subjective way of knowing, typically based on
experiential or individual values, perceptions, and experience. Consider the example
of planning for an evening movie to distinguish between data, information, and
knowledge.
Data
Content that is directly observable or verifiable: a fact; for example, movie list-
ings giving the times and locations of all movies being shown today—I download the
listings.
Information Content that represents analyzed data; for example, I can’t leave before
5, so I will go to the 7 pm show at the cinema near my office.
Knowledge At that time of day, it will be impossible to find parking. I remember the
last time I took the car, I was so frustrated and stressed because I thought I would miss
the opening credits. I’ll therefore take the commuter train. But first, I’ll check with
Al. I usually love all the movies he hates, so I want to make sure it’s worth seeing!
Another distinguishing characteristic of KM, as opposed to other information
management fields, is the fact that knowledge in all of its forms is addressed: tacit
knowledge and explicit knowledge.
The Two Major Types of Knowledge: Tacit and Explicit
We know more than we can tell.
—Polanyi 1966
Tacit knowledge is difficult to articulate and difficult to put into words, text, or
drawings. Explicit knowledge represents content that has been captured in some
10
Chapter 1
Table 1.1
Comparison of properties of tacit versus explicit knowledge
Properties of tacit knowledge
Properties of explicit knowledge
Ability to adapt, to deal with new and
exceptional situations
Ability to disseminate, to reproduce, to access
and re-apply throughout the organization
Expertise, know-how, know-why, and
care-why
Ability to teach, to train
Ability to collaborate, to share a vision, to
transmit a culture
Ability to organize, to systematize, to
translate a vision into a mission statement,
into operational guidelines
Coaching and mentoring to transfer
experiential knowledge on a one-to-one,
face-to-face basis
Transfer knowledge via products, services,
and documented processes
tangible form such as words, audio recordings, or images. Tacit knowledge tends to
reside within the heads of knowers, whereas explicit knowledge is usually contained
within tangible or concrete media. However, it should be noted that this is a rather
simplistic dichotomy. In fact, the property of tacitness is a property of the knower:
that which is easily articulated by one person may be very difficult to externalize by
another. The same content may be explicit for one person and tacit for another.
There is also somewhat of a paradox at play here: highly skilled, experienced, and
expert individuals may find it harder to articulate their know-how. Novices, on the
other hand, are more apt to easily verbalize what they are attempting to do because
they are typically following a manual or how-to process. Table 1.1 summarizes some
of the major properties of tacit and explicit knowledge.
Typically, the more tacit knowledge is, the more valuable it tends to be. The
paradox lies in the fact that the more difficult it is to articulate a concept such as story,
the more valuable that knowledge may be. This is often witnessed when people make
reference to knowledge versus know-how, or knowing something versus knowing how
to do something. Valuable tacit knowledge often results in some observable action
when individuals understand and subsequently make use of knowledge. Another
perspective is that explicit knowledge tends to represent the final end product whereas
tacit knowledge is the know-how or all of the processes that were required in order
to produce that final product.
We have a habit of writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished
as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or how you had the
wrong idea at first, and so on. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what
you actually did in order to do the work. (Feynman 1966).
Introduction to Knowledge Management
11
A popular misconception is that KM focuses on rendering that which is tacit into
more explicit or tangible forms, then storing or archiving these forms somewhere,
usually some form of intranet or knowledge portal. The “build it and they will come”
expectation typifies this approach: Organizations take an exhaustive inventory of
tangible knowledge (i.e., documents, digital records) and make them accessible to all
employees. Senior management is then mystified as to why employees are not using
this wonderful new resource. In fact, knowledge management is broader and includes
leveraging the value of the organizational knowledge and know-how that accumulates
over time. This approach is a much more holistic and user-centered approach that
begins not with an audit of existing documents but with a needs analysis to better
understand how improved knowledge sharing may benefit specific individuals, groups,
and the organization as a whole. Successful knowledge-sharing examples are gathered
and documented in the form of lessons learned and best practices and these then form
the kernel of organizational stories.
There are a number of other attributes that together make up a set of what KM
should be all about. One good technique for identifying these attributes is the concept
analysis technique.
The Concept Analysis Technique
Concept analysis is an established technique used in the social sciences (i.e., philosophy and education) in order to derive a formula that in turn can be used to generate
definitions and descriptive phrases for highly complex terms. We still lack a consensus
on knowledge management–related terms, and these concepts do appear to be complex
enough to merit the concept analysis approach. A great deal of conceptual complexity
derives from the fact that a word such as knowledge is necessarily subjective in nature,
not to mention value laden in interpretation.
The concept analysis approach rests on the obtaining consensus around three major
dimensions of a given concept (shown in figure 1.2).
1. A list of key attributes that must be present in the definition, vision, or mission
statement
2. A list of illustrative examples
3. A list of illustrative nonexamples
This approach is particularly useful in tackling multidisciplinary domains such
as intellectual capital, because clear criteria can be developed to enable sorting
into categories such as knowledge versus information, document management versus
knowledge management, and tangible versus intangible assets. In addition, valuable
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Chapter 1
Concept Name
Key Attributes
Examples
Nonexamples
1.
1.
1.
2.
2.
2.
3.
3.
3.
4.
4.
4.
5.
5.
5.
6.
6.
6.
7.
7.
7.
Figure 1.2
Illustration of the Concept Analysis Technique
contributions to the organization’s intellectual capital are derived through the production of ontologies (semantic maps of key concepts), identification of core competencies, and identification of knowledge, know-how, and know-why at risk of being lost
through human capital attrition.
Concept analysis is a technique used to visually map out conceptual information
in the process of defining a word (Novak 1990, 1991). This is a technique derived from
the fields of philosophy and science education (Bareholz and Tamir 1992; Lawson
1994) and is typically used in clearly defining complex, value-laden terms such as
democracy or religion. It is a graphical approach to help develop a rich, in-depth understanding of a concept. Figure 1.2 outlines the major components of this approach.
Davenport and Prusak (1998) decry the ability to provide a definitive account of
knowledge management since “epistemologists have spent their lives trying to understand what it means to know something.” In his 2008 keynote address, Michael
Stankosky reiterated this disappointment that we still “don’t know what to call it!” If
Introduction to Knowledge Management
13
you can’t manage what you cannot measure, then you can’t measure what you cannot
name. Knowledge management, due to this still ongoing lack of clarity and lack of
consensus on a definition, presents itself as a good candidate for this approach. In
visioning workshops, this is the first activity that participants are asked to undertake.
The objective is to agree upon a list of key attributes that are both necessary and sufficient in order for a definition of knowledge management to be acceptable. This is
completed by a list of examples and nonexamples, with justifications as to why a
particular item was included on the example or nonexample list. Semantic mapping
(Jonassen, Beissner, and Yacci 1993; Fisher 1990) is the visual technique used to extend
the definition by displaying words related to it. Popular terms to distinguish clearly
from knowledge management include document management, content management,
portal, knowledge repository, and others. Together, the concept and semantic maps
visually depict a model-based definition of knowledge management and its closely
related terms.
In some cases, participants are provided with lists of definitions of knowledge
management from a variety of sources can so they can try out their concept map of
knowledge management by analyzing these existing definitions. Definitions are typically drawn from the knowledge management literature as well as internally, from
their own organization. The use of concept definition through concept and semantic
mapping techniques can help participants rapidly reach a consensus on a formulaic
definition of knowl
