Knowledge Management

Learning Objectives
 Define knowledge and describe the different
types of knowledge
 Describe the characteristics of knowledge
management
 Describe organizational learning and its
relationship to knowledge management
 Describe the knowledge management cycle
 Describe the technologies that can be used in
a knowledge management system

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 Learning Objectives
 Describe different approaches to knowledge
management
 Describe the chief knowledge officer and
others involved in knowledge management
 Describe the role of knowledge management
in organizational activities
 Describe the different ways of evaluating
intellectual capital in an organization
 Describe how KMS are implemented

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 Learning Objectives
 Describe the roles of technology, people, and
management in knowledge management
 Describe the benefits and drawbacks of
knowledge management initiatives
 Describe how knowledge management can
revolutionize the way an organization
functions

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 Introduction to Knowledge Management

 Knowledge management concepts and

definitions
 Knowledge management
KM is the systematic and active management of
ideas ,information ,and knowledge residing in an
organization’s employees.
The structuring of knowledge enables
 Effective and efficient problem solving

 Dynamic learning

 Strategic planning

 Decesion Making

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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management
 Knowledge is
 information that is contextual, relevant, and
actionable
 understanding, awareness, or familiarity
acquired through education or experience
 anything that has been learned, perceived,
discovered, inferred, or understood.

In a knowledge management system,

“knowledge is information in action”
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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management

Data Relevant and

Knowledge
Processed Information Actionable

DEPLOYMENT CHART

Database DEPT 1
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PHASE 5

DEPT 2

Wisdom
DEPT 3

DEPT 4

4 5
2 3
1

Relevant and actionable processed-data

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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management
 Characteristics of knowledge
 Extraordinary leverage and increasing returns
 Fragmentation, leakage and the need to refresh
 Uncertain value
 Uncertain value of sharing

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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management
 Explicit and tacit knowledge
 Explicit (leaky) knowledge
Knowledge that deals with objective,
rational, and technical material (data,
policies, procedures, software, documents,
etc.)
 Easily documented, transferred, taught
and learned
 Examples…

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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management
 Explicit and tacit knowledge
 Tacit (embedded) knowledge
Knowledge that is usually in the domain of
subjective, cognitive, and experiential
learning
 It is highly personal and hard to formalize
 Hard to document, transfer, teach and learn
 Involves a lot of human interpretation
 Examples…

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 Introduction to
Knowledge Management
 Knowledge management systems
(KMS)
A system that facilitates knowledge
management by ensuring knowledge
flow from the person(s) who know to
the person(s) who need to know
throughout the organization;
knowledge evolves and grows during
the process
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 Organizational
Learning and Transformation
 Learning organization
An organization capable of learning from
its past experience, implying the
existence of an organizational memory
and a means to save, represent, and
share it through its personnel
 Organizational memory
Repository of what the organization
“knows”
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 Organizational
Learning and Transformation
 Organizational learning
 Development of new knowledge and
insights that have the potential to
influence organization’s behavior
 The process of capturing knowledge and
making it available enterprise-wide
 Need to establish corporate memory
 Modern IT helps…
 People issues are the most important!

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 Organizational
Learning and Transformation
 Organizational culture
The aggregate attitudes in an
organization concerning a certain issue
(e.g., technology, computers, DSS)
 How do people learn the “culture”?
 Is it explicit or implicit?
 Can culture be changed? How?
 Give some examples of corporate culture:
Microsoft, Google, Apple, HP, GM, …
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 Organizational
Learning and Transformation
 Why people don’t like to share knowledge:
 Lack of time to share knowledge and time to
identify colleagues in need of specific knowledge
 Fear that sharing may jeopardize one’s job
security
 Low awareness and realization of the value and
benefit of the knowledge others possess
 Dominance in sharing explicit over tacit knowledge
 Use of a strong hierarchy, position-based status,
and formal power
 Insufficient capture, evaluation, feedback,
communication, and tolerance of past mistakes
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 Organizational
Learning and Transformation
 Why people don’t like to share knowledge:
 Differences in experience and education levels
 Lack of contact time and interaction between
knowledge sources and recipients
 Poor verbal/written communication and
interpersonal skills
 Age, gender, cultural and ethical defenses
 Lack of a social network
 Ownership of intellectual property
 Lack of trust in people because they may misuse
knowledge or take unjust credit for it
 Perceived lack of accuracy/credibility of knowledge
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 Knowledge Management Activities
 Knowledge management initiatives and
activities
 Most knowledge management initiatives
have one of three aims:
1. To make knowledge visible
2. To develop a knowledge-intensive culture
3. To build a knowledge infrastructure

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 Knowledge Management Activities
 Knowledge creation is the
generation of new insights, ideas, or
routines
 Four modes of knowledge creation:
 Socialization
 Externalization
 Internalization
 Combination

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 Analytics-based knowledge
Prof. Pawan Kumar Sec-B
creation?
 Knowledge Management Activities
 Knowledge sharing
 Knowledge sharing is the willful
explication of one person’s ideas, insights,
experiences to another individual either
via an intermediary or directly
 In many organizations, information and
knowledge are not considered
organizational resources to be shared but
individual competitive weapons to be kept
private
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 Knowledge Management Activities
 Knowledge seeking
 Knowledge seeking (knowledge sourcing)
is the search for and use of internal
organizational knowledge
 Lack of time or lack of reward may
hinder the sharing of knowledge or
knowledge seeking

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 Approaches to Knowledge Management
 Process approach to knowledge management
attempts to codify organizational knowledge
through formalized controls, processes and
technologies
 Focuses on explicit knowledge and IT
 Practice approach focuses on building the
social environments or communities of
practice necessary to facilitate the sharing of
tacit understanding
 Focuses on tacit knowledge and socialization

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 Approaches to Knowledge Management
 Hybrid approaches to knowledge
management
 The practice approach is used so that a
repository stores only explicit knowledge
Hybrid
at
that is relatively easy to document
80/20  Tacit knowledge initially stored in the
to repository is contact information about
50/50 experts and their areas of expertise
 Increasing the amount of tacit knowledge
over time eventually leads to the
attainment of a true process approach
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 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM (KMP)

Approaches to
KNOWLEDGE PORTAL

Knowledge Management
(Web-based End User Interface)

KNOWLEDGE UTILIZATION
Human Experts
Ad hoc
Search
Intelligent Broker

A
Comprehensive KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY
(Knowledge / Information / Data Nuggets)

View to
Knowledge Web Crawler Data/Text Mining Tools
Manual
KNOWLEDGE CREATION

Repository
Entries

DIVERSE INFORMATION / DATA SOURCES

(Weather / Medical Info / Finance / Agriculture / Industrial)

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 The KMS cycle
 KMS usually follow a six-step cycle:
1. Create knowledge
2. Capture knowledge
3. Refine knowledge
4. Store knowledge
5. Manage knowledge
6. Disseminate knowledge

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
2
Capture
The Cyclic Model Knowledge

of Knowledge
Management
1 3
Create Refine
Knowledge Knowledge

6 4
Disseminate Store
Knowledge Knowledge

5
Manage
Knowledge

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Components of KMS
 KMS are developed using three sets of core
technologies:
1. Communication

2. Collaboration
3. Storage and retrieval
 Technologies that support KM
 Artificial intelligence

 Intelligent agents

 Knowledge discovery in databases

 Extensible Markup Language (XML)

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Artificial intelligence
 AI methods used in KMS:
 Assist in and enhance searching knowledge
 Help for knowledge representation (e.g., ES)
 Help establish knowledge profiles of individuals
and groups
 Help determine the relative importance of
knowledge when it is contributed to and
accessed from the knowledge repository

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 AI methods used in KMS:
 Scan e-mail, documents, and databases to
perform knowledge discovery, determine
meaningful relationships and rules
 Identify patterns in data (usually through neural
networks and other data mining techniques)
 Forecast future results by using data/knowledge
 Provide advice directly from knowledge by using
neural networks or expert systems
 Provide a natural language or voice command–
driven user interface for a KMS

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Intelligent agents
 Intelligent agents are software systems that
learn how users work and provide
assistance in their daily tasks
 They are used to elicit and identify
knowledge
 See ibm.com, gentia.com for examples
 Combined with enterprise knowledge portal
to proactively disseminate knowledge

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Knowledge discovery in databases
(KDD)
A machine learning process that
performs rule induction, or a related
procedure to establish (or create)
knowledge from large databases
 a.k.a. Data Mining (and/or Text Mining)

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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Model marts
Small, generally departmental repositories of
knowledge created by employing knowledge-
discovery techniques on past decision
instances. Similar to data marts
 Model warehouses
Large, generally enterprise-wide repositories
of knowledge created by employing
knowledge-discovery techniques. Similar to
data warehouses
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 Information Technology (IT) in
Knowledge Management
 Extensible Markup Language (XML)
 XML enables standardized representations of
data structures so that data can be
processed appropriately by heterogeneous
information systems without case-by-case
programming or human intervention
 Web 2.0
 The evolution of the Web from statically
disseminating information to collaboratively
creating and sharing information
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 KM System Implementation
 Knowledge management products and
vendors
 Knowware
Technology tools (software/hardware products)
that support knowledge management
 Software development companies / vendors
 Collaborative computing tools
 Knowledge servers
 Enterprise knowledge portals (EKP)
An electronic doorway into a knowledge management
system…

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 KM System Implementation
 Software development companies / vendors
 Electronic document management (EDM)
A method for processing documents
electronically, including capture, storage,
retrieval, manipulation, and presentation
 Content management systems (CMS)
An electronic document management system
that produces dynamic versions of documents,
and automatically maintains the current set for
use at the enterprise level

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 KM System Implementation
 Software development tools
 Knowledge harvesting tools
 Search engines
 Knowledge management suites
 Knowledge management consulting firms
 Knowledge management ASPs

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 KMS Implementation
 Integration of KMS with other business
information systems
 With DSS/BI Systems
 With AI
 With databases and information systems
 With CRM systems
 With SCM systems
 With corporate intranets and extranets

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 Roles of People in
Knowledge Management
 Chief knowledge officer (CKO)
The person in charge of a knowledge
management effort in an organization
 Sets KM strategic priorities
 Establishes a repository of best practices
 Gains a commitment from senior executives
 Teaches information seekers how to better elicit it
 Creates a process for managing intellectual assets
 Obtain customer satisfaction information
 Globalizes knowledge management

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 Roles of People in
Knowledge Management
 Skills required of a CKO include:
 Interpersonal communication skills
 Leadership skills
 Business acumen
 Strategic thinking
 Collaboration skills
 The ability to institute effective educational
programs
 An understanding of IT and its role in advancing
knowledge management

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 Roles of People in
Knowledge Management
 The CEO, other chief officers, and managers
 The CEO is responsible for championing a
knowledge management effort
 The officers make available the resources needed
to get the job done
 CFO ensures that the financial resources are available
 COO ensures that people begin to embed knowledge
management practices into their daily work processes
 CIO ensures IT resources are available
 Managers also support the KM efforts by providing
access to sources of knowledge

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 Roles of People in
Knowledge Management
 Community of practice (CoP)
A group of people in an organization
with a common professional interest,
often self-organized for managing
knowledge in a knowledge management
system.

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 Roles of People in
Knowledge Management
 KMS developers
 The team members who actually develop
the system
 Internal + External

 KMS staff
 Enterprise-wide KMS require a full-time
staff to catalog and manage the knowledge

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Success stories of knowledge management
 Implementing a good KM strategy can:
 Reduce…

 loss of intellectual capital

 costs by decreasing the number of times

the company must repeatedly solve the

same problem
 redundancy of knowledge-based activities

 Increase…

 productivity

 employee satisfaction

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 MAKE: Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises
“Annually identifying the best practitioners of KM”
 Criteria (performance dimensions):

1. Creating a knowledge-driven corporate culture

2. Developing knowledge workers through leadership
3. Fostering innovation
4. Maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
5. Creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing
6. Facilitating organizational learning
7. Delivering value based on stakeholder knowledge
8. Transforming enterprise knowledge into stakeholders’ value

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 MAKE: Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises
“Annually identifying the best practitioners of KM”
 2008 Winners:

1. McKinsey & Company 10. PricewaterhouseCoopers

2. Google 11. Ernst & Young
3. Royal Dutch Shell 12. IBM
4. Toyota 13. Schlumberger
5. Wikipedia 14. Samsung Group
6. Honda 15. BP
7. Apple 16. Unilever
8. Fluor 17. Accenture
9. Microsoft 18. …

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Useful applications of KMS
 Finding experts electronically and using
expert location systems
 Expert location systems (know-who)
Interactive computerized systems that help
employees find and connect with colleagues
who have expertise required for specific
problems—whether they are across the county
or across the room—in order to solve specific,
critical business problems in seconds

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Knowledge management valuation
 Financial metrics for knowledge
management valuation
 Focus knowledge management projects on
specific business problems that can be easily
quantified
 When the problems are solved, the value and
benefits of the system become apparent

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Knowledge management valuation
 Nonfinancial metrics for knowledge
management valuation—new ways to view
capital when evaluating intangibles:
 Customer goodwill
 External relationship capital
 Structural capital
 Human capital
 Social capital
 Environmental capital

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Causes of knowledge management failure
 The effort mainly relies on technology and
does not address whether the proposed
system will meet the needs and objectives of
the organization and its individuals
 Lack of emphasis on human aspects
 Lack of commitment
 Failure to provide reasonable incentive for
people to use the system…

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Factors that lead to knowledge management
success
 A link to a firm’s economic value, to demonstrate
financial viability and maintain executive
sponsorship
 A technical and organizational infrastructure on
which to build
 A standard, flexible knowledge structure to
match the way the organization performs work
and uses knowledge
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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Factors that lead to knowledge
management success
 A knowledge-friendly culture that leads directly
to user support
 A clear purpose and language, to encourage
users to buy into the system
 A change in motivational practices, to create a
culture of sharing
 Multiple channels for knowledge transfer

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 Ensuring the Success of
Knowledge Management Efforts
 Factors that lead to knowledge management
success
 A significant process orientation and valuation
to make a knowledge management effort
worthwhile
 Nontrivial motivational methods to encourage
users to contribute and use knowledge
 Senior management support

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 Last words on KM
 Knowledge is an intellectual asset
 IT is “just” an important enabler
 Proper management of knowledge is a
necessary ingredient for success

 Key issues:
 Organizational culture
 Executive sponsorship
 Measurement of success
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 End of the Chapter

 Questions ?

1-53 Prof. Pawan Kumar Sec-B