Knowledge Management in Organisations

Knowledge Management

• A framework for improving the organisation’s knowledge infrastructure.

● Identification of needs

● Identification of knowledge resources

● Acquisition, creation, or elimination of knowledge related resources/processes/environments

● Retrieval, application and sharing of knowledge

● Storage of knowledge

• A tool set for getting the right knowledge to the right people in the right

form at the right time.

Knowledge Management Cycle

• A process of transforming information into knowledge within an organisation.

• Several models exist including by Wiig (1993), Meyer and Zack (1996), M. McElroy (1999), Bukowitz and Williams (2000).

Knowledge Management Modes

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) propose four modes of knowledge transfer and creation (known as the SECI model):

1. Socialization Tacit to tacit. Knowledge is passed on through practice, guidance, imitation, and observation.

2. Externalization: Tacit to explicit. is the process of articulating tacit knowledge in the form of explicit concepts, taking the shapes of metaphors, analogies, concepts, hypotheses, or models.

3. Combination: Explicit to explicit. is the process of systemizing concepts into a knowledge system by combining different bodies of explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is transferred through media such as documents, meetings, and e-mail and/or phone conversations. Categorization of this knowledge can lead to the generation of new knowledge.

4. Internalization: Explicit to tacit. is the process of converting explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and is closely related to learning by doing.

These four modes or processes show that the transfer of knowledge is dependent upon the transfer of a common understanding from the knower to the user of the knowledge. Common understanding consists of the context (the story behind the knowledge, the conditions and situations that make the knowledge understandable) and the experience (those activities that produce mental models of how the knowledge should be used) expressed in a culturally understood framework.