Traditionally, the path to investigating knowledge management is – appropriately – by attempting to categorize the knowledge.
Broadly speaking, we can say that in the organizational context, intellectual capital and knowledge exist in the categories explicit (or formal) or tacit knowledge. In her 2003 article Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions, Meridith Levinson considers that the former includes such assets as
…patents, trademarks, business plans, marketing research and customer lists. As a general rule of thumb, explicit knowledge consists of anything that can be documented, archived and codified, often with the help of IT.
More difficult to quantify (never mind capture) is tacit knowledge, or “know-how” as opposed to:
- “know-what” (facts)
- “know-why” (science)
- “know-who” (networking)
Tacit knowledge involves acquiring and using skills and information, just not in a way that can be captured and transferred easily.
Levinson continues:
The challenge inherent with tacit knowledge is figuring out how to recognize, generate, share and manage it. While IT in the form of e-mail, groupware, instant messaging and related technologies can help facilitate the dissemination of tacit knowledge, identifying tacit knowledge in the first place is a major hurdle for most organizations.
According to Parsaye and Chignell (1988, p.365), there are three approaches to capturing tacit knowledge from groups and individuals:
- Interviewing experts.
- Learning by being told.
- Learning by observation.
Expert interviews can be undertaken using a formal, structured interview process, or by recording so-called war stories about real-life situations. Structured interviewing of experts in a particular subject is the most commonly used technique to capture pertinent, tacit knowledge.
More…
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References:
Levinson, M. (2010). Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions. CIO Magazine. [Internet] Available from: http://www.cio.com/article/40343/Knowledge_Management_Definition_and_Solutions?page=1&taxonomyId=3011 Retrieved 3 October 2010
Parsaye, K., Chignell, M. (1988). Expert systems for experts. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
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October 18 2010 | e-learning | 1 Comment »
When we consider knowledge in the organizational or workplace environment, I would suggest that the immediate word association that emerges in most peoples’ minds is “knowledge management.” As I have already suggested,
knowledge is a kind of cognitive or conceptual dark matter that we know must exist, but measuring and quantifying it, and demonstrating its effects is a sophisticated business.
In her 2010 article Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions, Meredith Levinson begins by asserting that “there’s no [my italics] universal definition of knowledge management.” Looking at the literature, definitions of KM cover a relatively broad range of the domain. Table 1 describes some definitions of the domain.
Table 1 Definitions of Knowledge Management
| Source |
Definition & Characteristics |
| Maarten Sierhuis |
The ability to manage “knowledge”. We are all familiar with the term Information Management. This term came about when people realized that information is a resource that can and needs to be managed to be useful in an organization. We can use techniques and methods that were developed as part of Knowledge Technology to analyze the knowledge sources in an organization. Using these techniques we can perform Knowledge Analysis and Knowledge Planning. |
| Thomas Bertels |
Knowledge management is the management of the organization towards the continuous renewal of the organizational knowledge base – this means e.g. creation of supportive organizational structures, facilitation of organizational members, putting IT-instruments with emphasis on teamwork and diffusion of knowledge (e.g. groupware) into place. |
| Denham Grey |
Knowledge is the full utilization of information and data, coupled with the potential of people’s skills, competencies, ideas, intuitions, commitments and motivations. Knowledge is people, money, leverage, learning, flexibility, power, and competitive advantage |
| Karl M. Wiig |
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:
1. Knowledge assets — to be applied or exploited — must be nurtured, preserved, and used to the largest extent possible by both individuals and organizations.
2. Knowledge-related processes — to create, build, compile, organize, transform, transfer, pool, apply, and safeguard knowledge — must be carefully and explicitly managed in all affected areas.
Knowledge must be managed effectively to ensure that the basic objectives for existence are attained to the greatest extent possible. Knowledge management in organizations must be considered from three perspectives with different horizons and purposes: 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. |
More…
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References:
Levinson, M. (2010). Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions. CIO Magazine. [Internet] Available from: http://www.cio.com/article/40343/Knowledge_Management_Definition_and_Solutions?page=1&taxonomyId=3011 Retrieved 23 September 2010
KM Forum Archives — The Early Days. [Internet] Available from http://www.km-forum.org/what_is.htm Retrieved 24 September 2010
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October 04 2010 | e-learning | 1 Comment »
The E-Learning Curve Blog’s primary focus is technology in education, so obviously when I 
investigate Knowledge Management (KM), one of the central topics to cover is the use of technology – specifically digitally mediated technology – to support education, training, and organizational and individual professional development.
But before we can do this, I would assert that it’s important to look at the nature of knowledge and it’s role in the life of individuals and organizations. This is problematic; in one sense, today’s post is a non sequitur because it discusses epistemological knowledge rather than knowledge in the organizational/KM sense of the term. In another way, today’s post represents the Problem of Knowledge that we will encounter as we investigate the topic over subsequent articles in this series.
Knowledge is slippery stuff, a kind of cognitive or conceptual dark matter that we know (pun intended) must exist, but measuring and quantifying it, and demonstrating its effects is a sophisticated business.
As an aside, I think it’s appropriate that Episteme (the Greek personification of knowledge displayed in the image above) is headless…
Sarkisyan and Marinova (2003) citing Arthur Murray describe the following categorizations of types of knowledge:
- Epistemology: The study of the nature and foundations of knowledge;
- Etymology: The study of the history of change of a linguistic expression within a domain;
- Corporate Knowledge: The collective body of experience and understanding of an organization’s processes for managing both planned and unplanned situations;
Equally, Murray suggests that knowledge can be studied and classified according to a set of disciplines:
- Morphology: The study of patterns and structure of word formations in language;
- Ontology: The study of relationships that give rise to meaning of expressions;
- Taxonomy: A framework for the classification and arrangement of objects (used to build a classification hierarchy).
So, what is knowledge?
Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as:
(i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject;
(ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or
(iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
I know (pun intended) from my undergraduate days studying Philosophy that debates on the subject in that domain generally start with Plato’s formulation (but not endorsement) of knowledge as “justified true belief.” There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge – nor any prospect of one.
Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate. This classical epistemological view addresses the questions:
- What is knowledge?
- How is knowledge acquired?
- What do people know?
- How do we know what we know?
Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.
At this point, you could justifiably (pun intended) ask: “So what? How does this help me acquire information and learn new skills and expertise?”
Well, as intimated previously, it does not necessarily get you further down the path to setting up your corporate knowledge ecosystem; but I am suggesting that this is a path we need to tread carefully, lest we slip and fall to the side.
More…
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References:
Murray A., Intelligent KM, Knowledge Management Argot: Knowledge Management Forum – KM Archives – the Early Days”, 1991-96
Sarkisyan, A, Marinova, N. (2003). Intellectual and Knowledge Based Assets of the Organizations and Contemporary Technologies for Their Management Assoc. International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies – CompSysTech’2003
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September 30 2010 | e-learning | 4 Comments »
