Knowledge Management.

Here's a short literature review I did for a course I'm taking... Hmmm... It's a course in Knowledge Management in UBD. And while I was writing this out, I remember thinking, wow, this was my actual first real essay/assignment... why is this semester's workload so... little? Although, the tutorials have been quite intensive *shrug* Anyways... I was reading through... and I've come to realise that I NEED TO CHANGE my style of writing... it seems so... nyeh... I don't know, I wouldn't take me seriously! XD lols. But really, anyone care to teach me how to write better in a more academic way? I'm pretty much stumped in that area *sigh* Anyways, content might be crap cause this was all done within 15 hours -- yes, that includes research, reading and writing time... The hours was spread out between two days, heh... Plus, I remember being a total grouch doing this - half asleep too!


Anyways! I'm not looking for you to judge on the content -- but yeah, the style of writing? Yes, please... :( HALP.

Traditional to Modern Methods of Knowledge Management and issues involved in KM

Davenport and Prusack defined knowledge as something that “is a high value form of information that is ready to apply to decisions and actions.” The history of managing knowledge dates back to even the earliest years of Before Christ (B.C.). Although much is to be argued about such claims; however, recorded history indicates that people back then have also taken the initiative to store information, or rather-- knowledge that they have accumulated. An example of this is the famous library of classical antiquity, Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Although, it is said that the data or information that was stored within the walls of the Library of Alexandria held over half a million documents from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India and many other nations. The insurmountable amount of information, although stated to be a rough estimate, is quite overwhelming. Moreover, not only did the library store (a shocking amount of) information, it was said that scholars gathered there to do research, discuss findings and also give lectures. In a sense, the library itself was an organization or entity, that has obviously pertained to the characteristics which defines 'Knowledge Management' (KM) or managing knowledge. 

During the early years, information was stored in a significantly different way as opposed to how it is being stored today. Back then, before alphabets came to fruition, humans used symbols to convey the information they possessed, it was recorded on various things like leaves, cloth and even ceramics. After that it improved to paper with inks in quills and decades after that, with the arrival of printing news (papers); which accelerated the rate of the quantity of information was being circulated and with it the technology for creating and storing said information has been steadily increasing too. As thus, the Internet was created - till this day it remains as one of the biggest force that affects the managing of knowledge, what with all its' abundance in readily accessible information that can be found globally.

The advancement in technology and the need to capture, store and distribute knowledge are somewhat related to one another. Throughout the course of history of mankind, we could evidently see that the invention of alphabetic writing together with the expansion of more and more new information was accompanied by developments in technologies of the recording of media and devices which would help in the managing of knowledge. In recent years however, the much more widely known form of technological advancement that has effectively change the course of how Knowledge Management is perceived in today's Modern Era, is the arrival of the Internet, as has been mentioned before this. One could actually say that Knowledge Management has become more advanced and more "technology-based", it is said that in the late 1990s - was when the initial interest in Knowledge Management for Business began, a lot of Business Services and large-scale IT-based Knowledge Management systems was adopted by a lot of organizations. With that said, although Knowledge Management is often facilitated by IT, it does not mean that technology itself is a form of Knowledge Management.

Now, with regards to the newfound interest during the late 1990s, it's safe to say that this was the tipping or rather, starting point of which Knowledge Management was starting to be perceived as a useful tool. The attention and amount of keen interest generated at the time could have may well been the trend of the new economy! With it a lot of organizations and businesses started incorporating Knowledge Management into their system. The big question is, why do these entities use Knowledge Management as a "managing tool"? To put it succinctly, the use of KM can and has potentially provide benefits to these organizations; in today's world where intellectual asset has a far greater value compared to physical assets, KM is very useful. Practitioners of KM are able to play their intellectual assets to the greatest advantage in a way that by using the concept of KM, it serves as a way to share, collaborate and disseminate knowledge.

More importantly, the end result of a well-designed KM program is that everyone wins, due to the free flow of ideas people can be more innovative, respond time of service providers to their customers is improved since information or knowledge is readily available, which would also mean time is also managed properly as they do not have to go through unnecessary steps thus boosting process time. It also provides as a means of incentive for individuals if they are rewarded or acknowledged for their contributions and lastly, if a case of mass retirement were to occur, the experienced workers' knowledge would have still be retained, thus saving a lot of costs. 

All in all, the essence or the major idea of how Knowledge Management had come about is due to the attempts of organizing and storing records of important processed data, i.e. information that is of high or great value for future references; a way of guiding new transactions of information and a way to prevent the loss of knowledge for future generations.

However, there are still certain issues that need to be looked at with regards to matters of Knowledge Management:

The problem of organizing explicit and tacit knowledge:

With the initial problem of not all information is valuable or can be considered as 'knowledge', there is another problem related to it and that is the way in which knowledge can be acquitted. In general, anything intellectual or knowledge-based, is classified into either two categories, namely whether the knowledge is explicit or tacit in nature. As the name itself suggests, explicit knowledge would be relatively easier to acquire compared to tacit knowledge. Anything that can be documented, coded, recorded or archived is considered to be explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge on the other hand is a whole different thing; it is basically knowledge that an individual possesses, it is the intellectual capacity within a person's head that he or she has stored due to their own personal experience, deduction or understanding. The greatest challenge or issue for KM is trying to grasp these tacit knowledge and being able to recognize, to share and to manage it.

Hierarchical vs. Organic KM:

One of the major issues in KM is the debate on whether it should be hierarchical or organic in nature. As the name of the latter term implies, the school of thought that Knowledge Management should be "natural", is called the "Knowledge Ecology" approach. This approach was a derivative from the scientific research on Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) in which it supports the idea that there is a Natural Knowledge Management System (NKMS). It is thought that amy organizations that is comprised of autonomous individuals, teams and groups, each with their own self-organized that produces knowledge would then naturally be adapted within the organizations themselves in order to adapt to their environments and also as a means to maintain their identity. They believe that without the interference of management knowledge would sufficiently function on its' own in performing and managing knowledge. 

Unlike that of the Newtonian approach, that supports the idea of a hierarchical nature, which relies on creating and implementing a well articulated form of governing of knowledge production and knowledge integration by the designated knowledge managers. However, another observation that can be made regarding the claims of the NKMS, is whether or not they are "natural", or is it also primarily because of the previous management that have intervened in the organizational system? In which case, reverts back to the point that perhaps to a large extent Knowledge Management should be hierarchical and governed by a manager of sorts.

Knowledge Management and Culture:

Another issue in KM are the barriers that Culture poses on the transferring and sharing of knowledge within an organization. Culture here has a broader meaning, which therefore means that there are a few definitions of culture that we need to look at, which would affect the effectiveness of knowledge management. In order for KM to function well, a culture would have to first be revised or changed.

Culture in terms of historical definition; culture is a social heritage or tradition that is passed on to future generation. As it is, this is applicable to KM in a way that organizations have their own 'corporate culture', which means that there are certain traditions or values that may prove to be difficult to change as it's existence could have surpassed the coming of a knowledge management system. 

Another is the behavioral definition of culture; culture is a shared, learned human behavior - it is a way of life. This kind of cultural concept is much easier to mould as one can distinguish learned or shared behavior from an organizational socialization standpoint rather than one that is resulted from general socialization (which was introduced since birth). 

The structural definition on the other hand, is; culture consists of patterned and inter-related ideas, symbols or behaviors. Quite a broad meaning, in a sense that it basically sums up that culture is part of our everyday life and that it exists in every aspect of it. 

Therefore, to understand what is meant by there exists a barrier when it comes to knowledge being transferred or shared due to culture; one would first have to clarify the exact term that they are referring to as to effectively go about solving the problem of cultural barriers.