Archive for the ‘Knowledge Management’ Category

Knowledge & Knowledge management

Introduction

Knowledge is defined in many ways. The following are definitions of knowledge.

“Acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as form study or investigation.”

(Kmconnection, 2006)

There is another definition “Capturing, organizing, and storing knowledge and experiences of

individual workers and groups within an organization and making this information available to

others in the organization.” (Knowledge management online definition, 2006)

The third definition: “The real managerial challenge is enabling knowledge creation; capturing

is by-product, information, is the easy part” ( library. ahima, 2006)

Knowledge is either tacit (cannot be represented) or explicit (may be shared).

Explicit knowledge is defined as: “knowledge that has been or can be articulated, codified, and

stored in certain media. The most common forms of explicit knowledge are manuals, documents, procedures, and stories.

The tacit and explicit knowledge of the people in an organization should be managed through

making an effective and smart strategy. This management of knowledge in an organization is

called knowledge management.

Knowledge management helps an organization to act intelligently toward their strategic goal and be successful. The foundation of any organization is based on their knowledge and what kind of strategy they practice and follow up. Managing knowledge in an organization has a focus on relevant knowledge related aspects such as: computer based knowledge, economic aspects, and technology networks such as: e-mails, groupware, portals and the other tools. According to Karl Wiig ( 1997) there are four areas of knowledge management emphasis: