Owing to changes in the business practices of organisations, there is increased interest in `Knowledge Management'. The latest business practice is to downsize and create lean organisations where fewer employees do more work. Mergers and acquisitions are adding their pressure on enterprises to reduce work force. Consequently, knowledge gained and developed by seasoned employees who are leaving organisations under the `Downsizing Scheme' or `Voluntary Retirement Scheme' is being wasted. Hence, many business enterprises have started realising the importance of creating an organisational knowledge base.
Organisational knowledge base
It is generally perceived that knowledge management is the key to preserving and enhancing the knowledge base of an organisation. But after a close look at organisations may reveal that many elements of knowledge management are already available within the existing set-up. The elements of knowledge source in any organisation can be classified as explicit, embedded and tacit.
Knowledge represented through documents, manuals, emails and databases is "explicit". On the other hand, knowledge found in business processes, products and services is "embedded". Undocumented knowledge that is captured during discussions, meetings and interaction with persons inside and outside the organisation is "tacit".
These elements, either in the form of electronic or paper documents, make up only a small portion of corporate knowledge that is shareable. The rest, which resides in the minds of the employees, is often not easily shared. The challenge that many organisations face today is identifying where such knowledge resides and how to communicate it across their employees.
Most of the popular conceptualisation of knowledge management is narrowly focused on using information technology to physically codify knowledge from the minds of employees to databases.
Codification of tacit knowledge
Many business enterprises feel that they can install an information system to extract and codify experts' knowledge in explicit forms which can be widely shared. They think that knowledge can be extracted (mined) from the people (repositories) and packaged as a "commodity".
However, what they seem to forget is that tacit knowledge cannot be communicated, without knowing the subject. It is not simple to codify because that knowledge is context specific. That plus the possibility that it could be politically sensitive are reasons why most valuable tacit knowledge in a firm may not lend itself to recording via information technology. Therefore, attempts to codify tacit knowledge only result in creating a knowledge base that will either be redundant or irrelevant to a wide audience.
Role of information and telecommunication
The convergence of information technology and telecommunication has replaced paper-driven processes with electronic methods. Consequently, business requirements are changing at an exponential rate.
Likewise, information and telecommunication technologies have advanced with the exponential increase in computing power and communication capability. Sophisticated data warehouses and text databases are being used to store information in the form of text and quantitative data. Software tools such as data and text mining provide information on patterns in the vast amount of data.
The above technologies are the various information tools that will be the base for the creation of knowledge base systems. These are communication systems designed to facilitate the sharing of knowledge rather than just information. Business success lies in making use of knowledge base systems for valid action.
However, knowledge base systems created through the convergence of information and telecommunications technologies will be ineffectual unless accompanied by a significant shift in the way people work.
It will not help to merely graft knowledge management tools onto existing work practices. This is because the change of roles and tasks are not incorporated in these tools. Moreover, knowledge management tools are exclusive to the business enterprises that implement them.
Knowledge harvesting
The greatest challenge in implementing effective knowledge management is helping employees make the transition from knowledge hoarders to knowledge sharers. With knowledge comes power and influence in organisations, and today's business scenario finds most employees working in a knowledge hoarders' environment. Many of them also follow the practice of a selective distribution of knowledge.
Because young executives do not intend remaining with an organisation for long, they do not recognise the value of accumulated knowledge. All they focus on is completing the tasks assigned to them as quickly as possible in order to move onto to other assignments or leave the organisation.
This is one reason why they are unable to adapt to the new knowledge management environment. They need to realise that they have to work under competitive pressure in the globalised scenario.
The role of a knowledge management environment is to manage carefully "Human centred assets" in business enterprises. What is required is a change in mindset among managers.
Managers are expected to act as mentors to help employees change their role from traditional information gatekeepers to knowledge workers to make use of the organisational knowledge base. As Peter F. Druker observed: "Now the definition of a manager is somebody who makes knowledge productive".
MZA
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