Knowledge management

Knowledge management, often called KM, is a discipline focused on organizational awareness, learning, and innovation. It involves using and sharing knowledge to help an organization reach its specific goals. This field is not just about facts; it is about how groups use information to improve performance and gain a competitive advantage. Many different subjects contribute to KM research. These include business administration, information systems, management, and libraries. Other fields like computer science, public health, and public policy also play a role. Today, the discipline is so established that many universities offer master's degrees specifically in knowledge management.

To understand how KM works, we must look at the different types of knowledge being moved. One common way to categorize knowledge is by distinguishing between tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is internalized. It is the kind of knowledge an individual uses to complete tasks without being consciously aware of it. Explicit knowledge is the opposite. It is knowledge that a person holds in their conscious mental focus. Because it is conscious, it can be easily communicated to others.

A researcher named Ikujiro Nonaka proposed a model to show how these two interact. He called it the SECI model, which stands for Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination, and Internalisation. In this model, knowledge follows a spiral. Implicit knowledge is extracted to become explicit knowledge. Then, that explicit knowledge is re-internalized back into implicit knowledge.

There are several different schools of thought regarding how organizations should approach KM. A techno-centric approach focuses on technology. It looks for tools that enhance the creation and sharing of knowledge. An organizational approach focuses on how to design a company to facilitate knowledge processes. There is also a social-psychological approach. This view looks at how social networks contribute to a transactive memory system. Finally, an ecological approach views the interaction of people, identity, and knowledge as a complex adaptive system. This is similar to how a natural ecosystem works. Regardless of the approach, most KM programs rely on three core components: people and culture, processes and structure, and technology.

Knowledge management has a long history of helping people learn. In the past, people used formal apprenticeships, mentoring, and on-the-job discussions. As computers became more common in the second half of the 20th century, new technologies were introduced. These include knowledge bases, expert systems, and information repositories. Intranets and computer-supported cooperative work also helped people share information more easily. In 1999, the term personal knowledge management was introduced. This refers specifically to managing knowledge at the individual level rather than the organizational level.

The discipline gained significant prominence in the 1990s. This growth was centered on the concept of "knowledge workers." This term was first identified by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book, "The Practice of Management." As the field grew, specific roles emerged. In Sweden, the company Skandia hired Leif Edvinsson as the world's first chief knowledge officer (CKO). The goal of a CKO is to manage and maximize the intangible assets of an organization. Other important researchers include Ikujiro Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi, Thomas H. Davenport, and Baruch Lev. In 2001, Thomas A. Stewart published a famous cover story about the importance of intellectual capital.

Organizations generally use two main strategies to manage their knowledge: codification and personalisation. A codification strategy is a system-oriented method. It is a "people-to-document" approach. This method focuses on collecting and storing explicit knowledge in electronic databases. It relies heavily on information infrastructure so that knowledge is easy to retrieve. In contrast, a personalisation strategy is human-oriented. It focuses on improving knowledge flows through networking. Instead of looking at documents, individuals make knowledge requests of experts on an ad hoc basis. In this method, information technology only serves to facilitate communication between people.

Applying knowledge management can be difficult in certain settings. For example, a supply chain can be a very challenging environment for KM. This is because a supply chain involves several different businesses. These businesses often lack a single hierarchy or a direct ownership tie. In these cases, researchers sometimes call the information "transorganizational" or "interorganizational" knowledge. Modern challenges like Industry 4.0 and digital transformation also add complexity. These trends create massive volumes and high speeds of information flows. This makes the generation and management of knowledge even more complex for modern organizations.