How Knowledge Management is used in an Organisation

It has become more and more apparent how important knowledge as an asset is to an Organisation. In the highly competitive economic climate we currently find ourselves in, an Organisation that has used this asset in the most efficient manner is the organisation that has achieved competitive advantage. The issue is that Organisations know, but don’t know they know. The challenge is to tap into the inherent knowledge of the resources within your Organisation.

Little surprise then that Knowledge management, though not so old a concept is being embraced by organisations even irrespective of their size. Managers worldwide have realized that they can use knowledge in the organisation to build on core competencies and achieve competitive edge.

Numerous surveys carried out (Dilnutt, R. 2002, Squier & Snyman 2004 and Delphi group, 1998) on the adoption and implementation of knowledge management by organisations worldwide all suggest the importance of KM for the attainment of competitive advantage. Also common amongst European and US organisations was the use of document management (repositories) as a technology that supports KM in their organisations. This was found to also be the case in the US.

The case of British American Tobacco Company (BAT co)
In 2004, the UCSF Library and Centre for Knowledge Management commenced on a four-year project to enable the British American Tobacco Co (BAT co) manage its knowledge better. The BAT due to its line of business is involved in numerous litigations, a lot from the United States of America and all internal corporate documents from litigations brought against several tobacco companies were previously stored in a central depository located near London. The problem was the difficulty involved in accessing the over 1 million documents, because researchers had to travel to the depository in London each time information was needed. As such new litigations could not be managed properly even though there was knowledge that could be gained from previous and similar litigations.

UCSF library and Centre for Knowledge Management then integrated data in the depository into a digital archive, which provides access to over 2 million digital surrogates of BAT co’s documents. All records were integrated into what is now called the Legacy Tobacco Documents library.

This singular project has tremendously improved the response to litigations on BAT co and has provided a means to capture knowledge on any tobacco case involving the BAT co.

The case of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
In implementing a knowledge management system in an organisation, the knowledge of individuals within that organisation may be tapped using a Community of Practice.

Etienne Wenger (2004) suggests that knowledge management in an organisation is actually the business of the practitioners and not the managers as may be perceived by some. He relates this to a donut with an empty hole which represents the management. Based on this suggestion, one can state that where there is no practice and no sharing, then there can’t be knowledge management. Communities of practice (CoPs) have been known to target the social/cultural problems encountered in knowledge management in an Organisation.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) under the US department of Transportation adopted the use of CoPs. Mike Burk (2009) gives a step by step description of measures taken to define and implement its knowledge management system. The FHWA already had a basis for a CoP as they had some formal or inform networks of staff meeting and sharing ideas. What needed to be done then was just to foster and support these communities with improved tools. An electronic CoP called ‘rumble strips’ was then created (Rumble Strips). The website features types of products used in the transport sector, examination of drawbacks recorded in the use of products, a library featuring research papers on these products, and a resource page to cater to specific questions. The general idea was to store ideas of users and use the stored ideas to create new ideas and solutions which in turn are stored.

Conclusion

By improving the way an Organisation creates, shares, stores and provides access to experiences, knowledge can be gained and this knowledge, if managed efficiently with the use of knowledge-based approaches such as Cops, Web 2.0 technologies etc, would enable that organisation raise it’s expertise and consequently build on its core-competence to emerge as a top player in its industry.

References

Delphi Group (1998), Survey of KM practice in USA, available at: http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/UvA/Kmsurvey/default.html (accessed 21 March 2009).

Dilnutt, Rod (2002) Knowledge Management in practice: Three contemporary case studies. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems
Volume 3, Issue 2, Pp 75-81

Mike Burk (2009) Knowledge Management: Everyone Benefits by Sharing Information. Available at: http://www.about-goal-setting.com/KM-Library/knowledge-management-case-study-federal-highways.html (accessed 02 April 2009)

Squier, M. & Snyman, R. (2004) Knowledge management in three financial organisations: a case study Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives approach. Emerald Group Publishing Limited Vol. 56 No. 4 pp. 234-242

UCSF Library and Center for Knowledge Management, (2009) Available at: http://www.library.ucsf.edu/about/projects#batda (Accessed 02 April 2009) University of California, San Francisco

Wenger, Etienne (2004) Knowledge management as a doughnut: Shaping your knowledge strategy through communities of practice, Ivey Business Journal, available at: http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=465 (accessed 21 March 2009).

Knowledge Management Systems

Most Organisations have information systems in place (with or without IT support) that are designed to disseminate information within their Organisations. These systems were generally referred to as Management information systems (MIS). However, in the late early 90’s more and more Organisations adopted Information technology to achieve competitive advantage and so specific information systems emerged with focuses either on management activities or business processes. Such Information Systems are the Decision support systems (DSS), Executive support systems (ESS), Executive Information Systems (EIS) and Enterprise Systems. An emerging need for Organisations to capture and retain its knowledge, which forms a large part of its intangible assets, has given birth to a line of systems referred to as Knowledge management systems (KMS) (Alavi M. & Leidner D.E. 1999).

A Knowledge Management System is one that enables an Organisation to efficiently manage its processes for capturing and applying knowledge and expertise (or forte). This system should be able to capture all essential knowledge that may be used to improve the organisation’s business processes and make it available as and when needed. The system should also have a link to other sources of knowledge which may be external. (Laudon K.C. & Laudon J.P., 2007)

Laudon & Laudon (2007) categorised KMS into three broad categories which can be further broken down into specialized types.

• Enterprise-Wide KMS
• Knowledge work systems
• Intelligent techniques

KMS in the Organisation

Several research and studies have been carried out on the use of knowledge management systems in an Organisation. Alavi M & Leidner D.E. (1999) carried out a survey on over 190 companies some of who already had KMS and others who were still developing their KMS. The study showed that when asked what they want Knowledge to do for them, their responses could be categorized into three broad groups namely:

Information based knowledge: Internal (clients, competitors and suppliers) and External (financial, HR, product information)

Technology based Knowledge: Intranets, internets, e-mail, Global IT infrastructure etc.

Culture based Knowledge: (also termed organisational/Structure) Includes; Team work, ethics, organisational culture etc.

The survey although carried on a sample that is arguably narrow, represents the opinions of more than three prominent industries (Manufacturing, Financial and retail). Managers within these sectors, the survey shows, believe that in developing a KMS, all three classifications must work together. Some managers had the opinion that the technology component makes up for 20% of the whole KMS, focusing on cultural learning within the Organisation.

Organisational knowledge is viewed as a key resource and a tool to gain advantage. Therefore, the general objective of KMS is to help an Organisation achieve competitive advantage. An Organisation that is able to create transfer and store its knowledge and operational efficiencies, ensuring competitors cannot easily emulate them, would achieve competitive advantage within its industry

Role of IT in supporting KMS

The act of knowledge management in Organisation is not a new concept. Manufacturing companies in the past practised this by people applying new knowledge to manufacturing processes. What is new is the use of IT in Knowledge management? Going by the three broad categories identified in the last section, we see that IT has a part to play in Knowledge Management.

The common technologies being used in KMS today are: Browser, Electronic mail (e-mail), search/retrieval tools, information repositories, videoconferencing, external server services and WWW server. For now, the intranet seems to be the most used technology in knowledge management, followed closely by e-mail and search/retrieval tools (Alavi M. & Leidner D.E. 1999).

The Knowledge management value chain by Laudon & Laudon (2007) shows a flow of knowledge which includes information systems activities in addition to management and organisational activities. This value chain says that the activities within a KMS can be categorised into four: Acquire, Store, Disseminate and Apply. It further breaks downs those business activities and processes that make up the 3 broad categories (see table 1)

Table 1

	Acquire	Store	Disseminate	Apply
IT/IS activities	Data mining, Knowledge workstations, Knowledge discovery, Expert knowledge networks	Document mgt sys, Knowledge database, Expert systems	Intranet, Push e-mail, Search engines collaboration	Decision support systems Enterprise application
Organisational activities	Communities of practice, Personal networks (Blogs), Organizational practice/routines, Knowledge culture	Organisational routines, Organisational culture,	Training, Informal networks, Organisational culture	New IT-based business processes, New products, New markets,

Adapted from Laudon & laudon (2006)

References

Alavi M. & Leidner D.E. 1999. Knowledge Management Systems: Emerging Views and Practices from the Field. Proceedings of the 32^nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE

Laudon K.C. and Laudon J.P. (2006). Management information systems: managing the digital firm (10^th edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall pp436

Using Web 2.0 in an Organisation to support KMS

Introduction

It seems there is no universally agreed explanation of Web 2.0, a termed coined by Tim O’Reilly (2005). He however, defined it simply as a 2^nd generation of the World Wide Web (www). Web 2.0 focuses on web-based communities, collaboration and information sharing and is said to be more dynamic than the static html platform. Technologies such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis and web services are regarded as components of the Web 2.0 platform (Web 2.0., 2008)

In 2005, a year after the coinage of the term Web 2.0 and also following its continuous misuse and some referrals to it as nothing but a buzzword, Tim O’Reilly (2005), gave the following as the core competencies of a web 2.0 technology. These competences were outlined to serve as Show Alla guide in determining a Web 2.0 technology:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

The more of these competencies a certain Technology has, the more it can be described as a Web 2.0 technology.

Web 2.0 for Knowledge Management in Organisation

A wiki is a link or collection of WebPages that is created by collective effort and that is designed to enable contribution and sharing of knowledge by its participants. The Wiki is referred to as a Web 2.0 technology (with the ability to possessing all of the above mentioned competencies) and its use is becoming increasingly popular by Organisations to build their corporate memory. This is due to the fast (Wiki means fast in Hawaiian) and dynamic nature of the Wiki, and its collective feature which is ideal for large groups i.e. in Organisations. Cerny J, (2008) referred to a prediction by a technology analyst firm which stated that by the end of 2009, half the Organisation in the United states will have one form or the other of a wiki.

An organisation will use a wiki to leverage on the expertise and knowledge of its staff. A wiki will harness the collective knowledge of the people and make it easily available. This process will reduce its time to competency levels. It will maximize the utilization of new staff faster. Ordinarily, a new staff may take up to six months before they can start to actually add value to an Organisation and a Wiki will make such staff productive faster. A wiki provides a means to create open, easy and ongoing collaborative discussions between staff and this creates a more trusting business environment, which in turn creates a more productive organisation.

Another web 2.0 technology used in an Organisation to support Knowledge management is the blog. A blog is a personal diary that is maintained by an individual and to which readers can comment. A CEO of a company who maintains a blog which can be viewed and commented on by staff in the Organisation will be using it to transfer, as well as store knowledge within their organisation. A blog is an informal way of communication and its use creates the feeling of equality or flat hierarchy and thus encourages an easier contribution of knowledge especially from junior staff. A good example is given by Schopen, F. (2009) of GE, an American technology and services company, where its chief marketing officer writes and constantly updates a blog which is accessed by GE’s 300,00 staff spread across 100 counties.

Enterprise 2.0, according to Levy, M., (2009) symbolizes the implementation of any WEB 2.0 technology and/or tools by an organization.

Theory to practice

My organisation, Albion Fabrics Ltd (Eagles Blog, 2009) due its unique peculiarities, needs a web 2.0 technology that is cheap to acquire and maintain, and that can create a friendlier working environment, which would make the Organisation generally more productive, help build its corporate memory and also help acquire new knowledge.

After a close study of the current situation in Albion fabric, my team and I noticed a problem which was that teams within AFL were not collaborating efficiently thus dealings between a team and factories abroad were not being passed on to other teams. We therefore opted for a wiki, (as one of the Web 2.0 technologies) which would be easy to set up and at the same time take Albion to the envisioned situation.

The wiki will be made available to all staff of Albion and would be accessed via the staff intranet. For the wiki to be effective, we found the need to encourage users. We put in place a process of evaluation that would have a chief knowledge management officer monitoring the use of the wiki. Some form of remuneration or recommendation would be put in place for staff with the most useful posts, best post for the week and best comment for the week.

References:

Cerny, J. (2008). Use wiki-based runbook automation to promote a collaborative capture of best practices. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=455

Cronin, J. (2009) Upgrading to Web 2.0: An Experiential Project to Build a Marketing Wiki

Journal of Marketing Education, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury OnlineFirst, published on January 6, 2009 Sage Publications.

Eagles Blog, (2009) The Eagles, Knowledge Management from a new perspective. Available online at: http://thekmeagles.blogspot.com/. [Accessed on 02 April 2009]

Levy, M. (2009) WEB 2.0 implications on knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 13 No. 1 pp. 120-134, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270

O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0? O'Reilly Network. Retrieved on March 10, 2009 from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.

Schopen, F. (2009). How businesses can get the most out of Web 2.0. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article5798111.ece

Web 2.0. (2008) In Webopedia Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_2_point_0.html

Wiki. (2008). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki