By
Temtim Assefa
School of Information Science
Addis Ababa University
2014
Course Objective
 Understand knowledge management solutions and




Foundations
Able to explain knowledge management infrastructure
Explain knowledge management mechanisms
Understand knowledge management technologies
Explain knowledge management process
Foundation of Knowledge Management
 The term Knowledge management started to
be used in 1980s
 However activities were practiced before that by
Librarians, philosophers, teachers, and writers
 Denning (2000) relates how from
 “time immemorial, the elder, the traditional
healer and the midwife in the village have been
the living repositories of distilled experience in
the life of the community”
3
Foundation…
 Some form of narrative repository has been in existence for




a long time,
People used a variety of ways of sharing knowledge in
order to build on earlier experience, eliminate costly
redundancies, and avoid making at least the same mistakes
again.
For example, knowledge sharing often took the form of
town meetings, workshops, seminars, and mentoring
sessions.
The primary “technology” used to transfer knowledge
consisted of the people themselves.
Migration of different peoples across continents also
promote knowledge sharing
4
Foundation……
 Drucker (early 1960s) was the first to coin the term
knowledge worker
 Senge (1990) focused on the “learning organization” as one
that can learn from past experiences stored in corporate
memory systems.
 Barton-Leonard (1995) documented the case of Chapparal
Steel as a knowledge management success story.
 Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) studied how knowledge is
produced, used, and diffused within organizations and how
such knowledge contributed to the diffusion of innovation
5
Foundation……
 A number of people, perceiving the value of measuring
intellectual assets, recognized the growing importance
of organizational knowledge as a competitive asset
(Sveiby, 1996; Norton and Kaplan, 1996; APQC, 1996;
and Edvinsson and Malone, 1997).
6
Foundation……
 Main contributors
1. Management theorists who have contributed significantly
to the evolution of KM include Peter Drucker, Peter Senge,
Ikujiro Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi, and Thomas Stewart.
2. Development of modern technology offer another
perspective on the history of KM






industralization beginning in 1800,
transportation technologies in 1850,
communications in 1900,
computerization in the 1950s,
virtualization in the early 1980s, and
the early efforts at personalization and profiling technologies
in 2000
7
8
Foundation… …
 With the advent ICT, KM has come to mean the
systematic, deliberate leveraging of knowledge assets.
 Technologies enable valuable knowledge to be
“remembered” via organizational learning and
corporate memory, and they also enable valuable
knowledge to be widely disseminated to all
stakeholder
 KMS = Technology + Organizational mechanisms
 Mechanisms include incentives, leadership, work
practices, standards, policies, etc
9
KM Solutions
 Knowledge management can be defined as performing
the activities involved in discovering, capturing,
sharing, and applying knowledge so as to enhance, in a
cost-effective fashion, the impact of knowledge on the
unit’s goal achievement.
 The term knowledge resources refers not only to the
knowledge currently possessed by the individual or the
organization but also to the knowledge that can
potentially be obtained (at some cost if necessary)
from other individuals or organizations
KM Solutions
 Knowledge management solutions refer to the variety




of ways in which KM can be facilitated
KM processes
KM systems
KM mechanisms and technologies
KM infrastructure
KM Systems
Knowledge management systems
are the integration of technologies
and mechanisms that are
developed to support KM processes
An Overview of KM Solutions
KM Processes
KM Systems
KM Mechanisms and Technologies
KM Infrastructure
Knowledge Management Processes
Creation
•Combination
•Socialization
Capture
•Externalization
•Internalization
Sharing
•Socialization
•Exchange
Application
•Direction
•Routines
Knowledge creation
 Knowledge creation is the transfer, combination, and
conversion of the different types of knowledge, as
users practice, interact, and learn.
 Practice, action, and interaction- is the driving force in
the creation of new knowledge
 It is the core activity in competitive intelligence
 Organization create an environment that facilitate
interaction and dialog among employees to promote
knowledge creation
Knowledge Creation
It has two main sub processes
1. Combination- refers to integration of
existing knowledge to create more
complex and new knowledge
2. Socialization – direct interaction
between people. When knowledge is
shared, it is amplified
Knowledge Capture
 Knowledge capture is defined as the process of
retrieving either explicit or tacit knowledge that
resides within people, artifacts, or organizational
entities.
 It includes activities like interviewing, observation,
personal diary, documentation of best practices, etc
 Knowledge captured might reside outside the
organizational boundaries, including consultants,
competitors, customers, suppliers, and prior
employers of the organization’s new employees
Externalization and Internalization
 Externalization involves converting tacit knowledge
into explicit forms such as words, concepts, visuals, or
figurative language
 Internalization is the conversion of explicit knowledge
into tacit knowledge. It represents the traditional
notion of “learning”
Knowledge Sharing
 Knowledge sharing is the process through which




explicit or tacit knowledge is communicated to other
individuals
It may take place across individuals, groups,
departments or organizations
It involves externalization of personal knowledge and
internalization of explicit knowledge
It also uses communication channels
The quality of communication channels has an effect
on effectiveness of the knowledge sharing process
Knowledge Application
 Creation of new value from knowledge by solving




problems or creating new products and services
This involves solving problems in a novel way, creating
new products and services, etc
Examples include workflow automation so that new
employees can quickly learn existing knowledge
Development of different intelligent agents
It has two main components
Direction & Routines
 Direction refers to the process through which
individuals possessing the knowledge direct the action
of another individual without transferring to that
person the knowledge underlying the direction
 Routines involve the utilization of knowledge
embedded in procedures, rules, and norms that guide
future behavior
 Routine is created to avoid reinvention by storing best
practices in procedure manual and software tools
KM Technologies
 Technologies that support KM include artificial
intelligence (AI) technologies encompassing those
used for knowledge acquisition and case-based
reasoning systems, electronic discussion groups,
computer-based simulations, databases, decision
support systems, enterprise resource planning
systems, expert systems, management information
systems, expertise locator systems, videoconferencing,
and information repositories encompassing best
practices databases and lessons learned systems
Knowledge Management Systems
 KM systems utilize a variety of KM mechanisms and




technologies to support the KM processes
Knowledge Management Discovery Systems
Knowledge Management Capture Systems
Knowledge Management Sharing Systems
Knowledge Application Systems
Knowledge Discovery Systems
 Knowledge discovery systems support the process of
developing new tacit or explicit knowledge from data
and information or from the synthesis of prior
knowledge
 Support two KM sub-processes
 combination, enabling the discovery of new explicit
knowledge
 socialization, enabling the discovery of new tacit
knowledge
Knowledge Capture Systems
 Knowledge capture systems support the process of
retrieving either explicit or tacit knowledge that
resides within people, artifacts, or organizational
entities
 Technologies can also support knowledge capture
systems by facilitating externalization and
internalization
Knowledge Sharing Systems
 Knowledge sharing systems support the process
through which explicit or implicit knowledge is
communicated to other individuals
 Discussion groups or chat groups facilitate knowledge
sharing by enabling individuals to explain their
knowledge to the rest of the group
Knowledge Application Systems
 Knowledge application systems support the process
through which some individuals utilize knowledge
possessed by other individuals without actually
acquiring, or learning, that knowledge
 Mechanisms and technologies support knowledge
application systems by facilitating routines and
direction.
KM Technologies for Routine and directions
 Technologies supporting direction include experts’
knowledge embedded in expert systems and decision
support systems, as well as troubleshooting systems
based on the use of technologies like case-based
reasoning
 Technologies that facilitate routines are expert
systems, enterprise resource planning systems, and
traditional management information systems
KM Mechanisms
 KM mechanisms are organizational or structural
means used to promote KM
 Examples of KM mechanisms include learning by
doing, on-the-job training, learning by observation,
face-to-face meetings, standard work practices,
policies, etc
Mechanisms for Direction and Routines
 Mechanisms facilitating direction include traditional
hierarchical relationships in organizations, help desks,
and support centers
 Mechanisms supporting routines include
organizational policies, work practices, and standards
KM Processes, Mechanisms, and Technologies
KM Infrastructure
 Organizational Culture
 Organizational Structure
 Communities of Practice
 Information Technology Infrastructure
 Common Knowledge
Organizational Culture
 Organizational culture reflects the norms and beliefs
that guide the behavior of the organization’s members
 Attributes of an enabling organizational culture
include understanding of the value of KM practices,
management support for KM at all levels, incentives
that reward knowledge sharing, and encouragement of
interaction for the creation and sharing of knowledge
Organizational Structure
 Hierarchical structure of the organization affects the
people with whom individuals frequently interact, and
to or from whom they are consequently likely to
transfer knowledge
 Organizational structures can facilitate KM through
communities of practice
 Organization structures can facilitate KM through
specialized structures and roles that specifically
support KM
KM Infrastructure
 The IT infrastructure includes data processing,
storage, and communication technologies and systems
 One way of systematically viewing the IT
infrastructure is to consider the capabilities it provides
in four important aspects:
 Reach
 Depth
 Richness
 Aggregation
Common Knowledge
 Common knowledge also refers to the organization’s
cumulative experiences in comprehending a category
of knowledge and activities, and the organizing
principles that support communication and
coordination
 It is also called organizational memory
 Common knowledge helps enhance the value of an
individual expert’s knowledge by integrating it with
the knowledge of others
Physical Environment
 Physical environment includes the design of buildings
and the separation between them; the location, size,
and type of offices; the type, number, and nature of
meeting rooms
 A 1998 study found that most employees thought they
gained most of their knowledge related to work from
informal conversations around water coolers or over
meals instead of formal training or manuals
KM Infrastructure
Overview of KM Solutions
Knowledge
Discovery
Knowledge
Capture
Knowledge
Sharing
Knowledge
Application
KM Processes
Combination Socialization
KM Systems
Knowledge
Discovery
Systems
KM Mechanisms
KM Infrastructure
Internalization Externalization
Knowledge
Capture
Systems
Analogies and metaphors
Brainstorming retreats
On-the-job training
Face-to-face meetings
Apprenticeships
Employee rotation
Learning by observation
….
Organization
Culture
Organization
Structure
Exchange
Direction
Knowledge
Sharing
Systems
Knowledge
Application
Systems
Decision support systems
Web-based discussion groups
Repositories of best practices
Artificial intelligence systems
Case-based reasoning
Groupware
Web pages
…
IT
Infrastructure
Common
Knowledge
Routines
KM Technologies
Physical
Environment
Limitation in KM implementation
 Enterprise invested in KM-relevant technology
 Intranets
 Groupware
 Data warehouses
 Data mining
 Enterprises forgot the non-technical work
 Aligning knowledge to business goals
 Mapping knowledge content
 Creating networks of knowledge users
 Changing culture and defining KM role
Conclusions
 Described the key aspects of knowledge management
 Provided a working definition of knowledge
management
 Examined knowledge management solutions at four
levels
 KM processes
 KM systems
 KM mechanisms and technologies
 KM infrastructure
Review Questions
 What is KM
 What is KM mechanisms
 What are the components of KMS infrastructure
 Describe KM cycles?
 What is the implication of KM cycles for knowledge
management?
 Explain the difference between routine and directives?
 What is the limitation in the KM implementation