Organization theory and design: Lecture 19

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Knowledge Management

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Knowledge Management – Some
Facts
• Knowledge Management is an area concerned with the
efforts to manage and leverage organizational
knowledge
• Traditional organizational resources are capital, labor or
natural resources
• Today it is knowledge
• Particularly for those companies which are striving to
become Learning Organizations.
• Knowledge Management is a new way to think about
organizing and sharing an organization’s intellectual and
creative resources
• A company’s intellectual capital is the sum of its
information, experience, understanding, relationships,
processes, innovations and discoveries
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What is Knowledge?
•
•

Knowledge is different from data and information

Data are simple, absolute facts and figures that, in and of
themselves, may be of little use. E.g. 30% products of a company
are sold to people in Lahore
• Information is data that have been linked with other data and
converted into a useful context for further use, e.g. in the above
example add that 60% of Lahori people buying that product are over
the age of 60.
• Knowledge goes a step further, it is a conclusion drawn from the
information after it is linked to other information and compared to
what is already known. Knowledge always has a human factor (as
opposed to data and information). It’s always used by a human
being, e.g. a book read by someone and then used in real life
• Knowledge is something stored collectively in the minds of
employees and not data alone stored in some database

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Types of Knowledge
1. Explicit Knowledge
2. Tacit or Implicit knowledge

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Types of Knowledge
•
•

Differences between Explicit and Tacit

Knowledge
Learning methodologies of Explicit and
Tacit Knowledge

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Explicit Knowledge Management
Mechanisms
1. Datawarhousing and data mining
2. Electronic libraries

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Implicit Knowledge Management
Mechanisms
1. Dialogue
2. Sharing histories and storytelling
3. Communities of practice
•

people who are informally bound with each
other through exposure to a similar set of
problems and a common pursuit of
solutions.

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