Knowledge Management Dimensions - Essay Example

?Running head: Knowledge Management Knowledge Management Insert Insert Insert 20 December Knowledge Management According to (Awad 26), knowledge management is the solution for realigning the firm's technical capabilities to create the knowledge that drives the firm forward The knowledge manager is attached with the task of maintenance and creation of knowledge repositories through guiding and motivating the organization in general towards upholding learning, sharing of knowledge, innovation and reuse of knowledge. Knowledge management involves a number of practices and strategies used by companies to identify, represent, create, distribute, and enable assimilation of experiences and insights. Such experiences and insights include knowledge, either embedded or embodied in organizations as practices or processes. Most huge profit seeking companies and non-profit companies have dedicated their resources to efforts towards managing internal Knowledge as a business strategy. However, they usually seek consultancy services from companies specialized in providing knowledge management services. This companies focus on knowledge management and sharing as a business strategy in an effort towards achieving competitive advantage, high performance, continuous improvement, and innovation in the organization (Rollett 6). Knowledge management encompasses a number of perspectives such as techno centric, ecological, and organizational perspectives. Techno centric perspective focuses on technological practices that enhance creation and sharing of knowledge while organizational perspective focuses on organization structure that facilitates best knowledge processes. On the other hand, ecological perspectives focus on complex adaptive system through interaction of knowledge, people, and the environment with regards to the ecosystem. In general, terms, the core components of Knowledge management are the technological aspects, people, organization structure, and processes. Knowledge Management Dimensions Varying dimensions of Knowledge can be distinguished by different frameworks with regards to tacit and explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that people hold in their minds consciously in a form where the individual can decide to communicate the knowledge to others. On the other hand, tacit knowledge is the knowledge that is internalized in an individual mind and the person holding the knowledge is not consciously aware about the application and sharing of the knowledge. Basically, the contextual perspective of knowledge refers to conditions where knowledge can be stored easily since it can be codified while on the other hand, knowledge aspects recognizes perspectives where knowledge sharing poses a difficulty and even an impossibility outside the particular site where it was initially develop. However, there are possibilities of successfully converting tacit knowledge that is internalized into explicit knowledge that will enable easy sharing of the knowledge. The conversion processes needs to enable individuals to internalize the knowledge and come up with codified knowledge that is meaningful to third parties accessing the information. Conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge entails simplification of the complex knowledge and thus beats the logic of its complexity particularly in case of oversimplification. More to the tacit and explicit knowledge framework is the embedded verses embodied knowledge differentiation framework and new verses established knowledge framework. Embedded knowledge concerns knowledge embedded in an information system designed outside a human mind individual while embodied knowledge is kind of knowledge established in the human mind of an individual with learned capabilities in the endocrine and nervous system (Gottschalk 13). On the other hand, distinction framework exists between new knowledge exploratory creation and innovation verses the exploitation and transfer of knowledge that is already established in an organization. These different forms of knowledge can be accessed during, before and after knowledge management practices have been carried out (Maybury & Thuraisingham 223). Knowledge management involves practices of actively managing knowledge where individuals work hard to encode knowledge explicitly into a form that can be easily shared through retrieving knowledge from the database repository. Individuals may also make requests of knowledge from experts that are specialized with specific subjects through knowledge management personalization approach where the experts provide insights to the knowledge requested. Organizations use different strategies towards knowledge management such as, knowledge brokerage, cross project learning, knowledge mapping, and rewards as a motivation towards knowledge sharing among other strategies. Organizations are motivated to carry out knowledge management as a key business strategy due to the need to avail increased content of knowledge in provisions of services and products and development. More so the need to achieve product development cycles that are shorter; improving learning and innovation within the organization, promoting employee expertise; enabling employees to obtain ideas and insights relevant to the work environment and managing intellectual assets and capital in the organization’s workforce (Mertins, Heisig & Vorbeck 4). Motives of knowledge management generally include creating management profile that is in line with modernity and is thus able to attract knowledge employees. It also involves improving the search for new knowledge and not just exploiting knowledge that exists; improving learning in the organization from experience constantly being acquired through its day to day activities and safeguarding staff independence through improving their know how in the organization (Christensen 17). Knowledge management technologies that were used in the past include document management systems and corporate on line yellow pages that later advanced to e-learning tools. The technologies advancement currently encompass database management system for corporates and social computing tools such as blogs, which have allowed for development of self governing unstructured approaches that create, capture and transfer knowledge. However, despite the advancement of knowledge management technological framework, e-learning tools have placed their emphasis on coded and text information that only represent explicit knowledge and not tacit knowledge (Thierauf 75). Knowledge management makes applicable the use of software tools, which are a collection of different technologies brought together for collective functioning towards a single solution. Software tools are designed to fit into organizations information technology infrastructure that may vary from one organization to another. There is need for organizations to make investments that are significant to the infrastructure of information technology that significantly supports management of knowledge within and outside the organization. Knowledge Management System Knowledge Management System refers to a system for facilitating the creation, capturing, storing, and disseminating knowledge. Knowledge management system enables the workforce to have a prompt and easy access to the database and information sources of their organization. The system is being pursued by Corporates organizations such as Pepsi considering its importance in assisting organizations to share relevant and vital information organization-wide, which would consequently lead to development of new and better ideas alongside innovative information technology for the organization. Knowledge Management System deals with information though is made up of a variety of distinguishing features such as purpose, context, processes, participants, and instruments that support knowledge management processes. The system enables deployment of knowledge management instruments through integrated services by participants in the entire knowledge management processes (Maier 82-85: Barnes 15) Works Cited Awad, Elias M. Knowledge Management. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley Pvt. Ltd. 2007. Barnes, Stuart. Knowledge Management Systems: Theory and Practice. NY: Thoson Learning. 2002. Christensen, Peter H. Knowledge management and Pitfalls. Copenhagen Business School Press. 2003. Gottschalk, Petter. Knowledge Management Systems: Value Shop Creation. NY: Idea Group Inc. 2007. Maier, Ronald. Knowledge Management System. NY: Springer. 2007. Maybury, Mark T. & Thuraisingham, Bhavani. Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works. MA: MIT Press, 2000. Mertins, Kai, Heisig, Peter &Vorbeck, Jens. Knowledge Management Concepts and Practices. New York. Springer, 2003. Thierauf, Robert J. Knowledge Management Systems for Businesses. CT: Greenwood Publishing Inc. 1999. Rollett, Herwig. Knowledge Management Processes and Technologies. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2003. Read More