Knowledge Management Systems For More Democratic Organizations

The case “Knowledge Management at Anderson Consulting” takes a broad overview of Anderson’s knowledge management system (Knowledge Xchange) from its initial conception through various stages of growth and finally presents several potential avenues that could be taken to improve the system. Anderson’s knowledge management system was initially created in 1991 as a basic Lotus Notes email system which allowed them to get information into the field quickly, and rapidly expanded into the Xchange system which consists of more than one hundred documents housed throughout the world. Its success was due, in part, to knowledge management being considered a key part of Anderson’s overall business strategy. However, with its rapid

As there is rapid growth in the business sector and information technology in the global market there are many factors which has to be managed and changed with the time in order keep up with the growing technology and knowledge management is one of those important factors. The term knowledge management throws light on the procedure of how knowledge is used in an organization. Thus it includes

Their solution was to develop a knowledge management portal on the company’s intranet. Good planning is important because the company is a large business. Logging in and inputting data can be challenging if everyone is out on the field gathering information then remembering to input what’s relevant to the current situation.

Like many emerging business processes rooted in technology, knowledge management is defined somewhat differently by different organizations, and by different individuals within those organizations. Some organizations see knowledge management as

KM is significantly important for organizations in modern economic system, it is also a form of expertise management to administer and incorporate subjective information such as thoughts, insights, ideas and experiences in order to enhance individual knowledge as well as organizational value and corporate culture. (StudyMode, 1999)

Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be tacit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic. Botha et al (2008) pointed out that tacit and explicit knowledge should be seen as a spectrum rather than as definitive points. Therefore, in practice, all knowledge is a mixture of tacit and explicit elements rather than being one or the other. The most important distinction within KM is between explicit and tacit knowledge. The overload of data is making knowledge management increasingly more important as it facilitates decision-making capabilities; builds learning organizations by making learning routine, and stimulates cultural change and innovation.

Hewlett Packard (HP) is a leading multinational organization providing products and services in many IT related technologies such as computer hardware and software, printers, scanners, storage devices etc. In 1995, the company decided to introduce knowledge management in its organization that will make its systems, processes, outcomes superior with organized and systematic knowledge handling and storage. HP faces severe competition and thus has to be ahead of the market using many strategies, one of which is application of Knowledge Management (KM). With over 600 business units located

The concepts of knowledge and management have been around for a while. However, the combination of “knowledge management” is quite contemporary (Alvesson, 2001). It is widely accepted that knowledge is the most valuable resources in the modern organizations. Therefore, the sharing of knowledge in organizations is regarded as a significant way of making knowledge play a greater role in organizations. As a result, the capabilities to capture knowledge and manage knowledge have gained a great amount of attention gradually (Geiger, 2012). Accordingly, the occurrence of modern communication technologies, such as internet, intranet, e-mail and the world-wide web, allows for real-time interaction despite the physical distance, laying the foundation for the rapid development of KM (Hanson, 1999).

Before diving into the KMS too much, it is necessary to detail it for the understanding of our process and the rest of this paper. The KMS that we chose was a simple repetitive process containing four steps: creation & acquisition, organization & storage, distribution & sharing, and application & usage (Abdullah, Ibrahim, et al., 2008). From this cyclical system we are able to manage knowledge in many different ways, all of which are beneficial in some way and contribute to the overall ease of use and efficient nature that defines the KMS. Here are each of the steps explained:

The term knowledge management has become common in businesses throughout the world. Despite its increased prevalence, there remains a large degree of confusion concerning the applied definition of what knowledge management is. Within the knowledge management community, attempts at defining this elusive term appear to be in constant flux. However, a basic description of what constitutes

Call, D. (2005). Knowledge management - not rocket science. Journal of Knowledge Management. (April) p.19-30. [Online]. Available from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.staffs.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1108/13673270510590191 [Accessed: 20 November 2016].

KM is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach for identification, capture, retrieval, distribution, sharing, use and reuse of information and knowledge assets. Through this discipline, staff, processes and technologies will be aligned to drive the realisable value and benefits of the information provided and knowledge assets and contribute to the organisational efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. Despite the continuing interest among researchers and practitioners on KM, however, KM still remains a mystic to senior executives in an organisation filled with obscure terminologies and often, treated as a marginal periphery.

Chapter 12 generally discusses the various processes that assist in managing business knowledge. The author of this chapter demonstrates clearly to the readers how knowledge management is closely related to information systems in three unique ways. The author also gives a clear explanation on why data, knowledge, and information should not in any way be viewed as interchangeable in any way. According to this chapter, knowledge is considered to be more valuable as compared to information that is more valuable as compared data due to the level of human contribution that is involved. The chapter on “managing business knowledge” elaborates on the two forms of knowledge that include explicit and tacit categories.

Knowledge management is a large term and can mean a number of things. For the purpose of this paper, the definition of knowledge management that I will recognize is the creation, development, and sharing of knowledge and information within an organization. However the problem remains, as well as the topic of this paper, exactly how effective is knowledge management in an organization. Furthermore, the key question that I hope to answer in this paper is how the use and development of knowledge can be managed in an organization. Although there are countless pieces of literature on knowledge management itself, and there have been proposals that link knowledge management to a company’s performance, to this date there are very few papers that attempt to measure the effectiveness of knowledge management within an organization. Overall, my objective of this paper is to compare two separate companies and first, find out how to measure the value of knowledge management, and second, find out how beneficial it is to the organization.

It has become explicit that knowledge management is not just another fad which has been hyped up by the management consultants and technology vendors. (Remenyi, 2004).It is not facile to implement knowledge management successfully; in as much as it offers. Knowledge management panaceas depending on technology have not produced convincing results considering that more money has been spent. Remenyi went on to say that knowledge management is far more than a technological issue and thus, what is really entailed is a rethink with a prominence on the people side of knowledge management and such approach is the use of a knowledge café.