KM*1 KM*1
1995 Nonaka
(Book)
*1:The purpose of knowledge management is to facilitate organizational knowledge process;
furthermore, achieving firm’s performance.
Book
The chronology of the important KM studies
2000
2.1.1 The evolution of KM
With the advent of knowledge economy, enterprises emphasize the importance of product innovation, process improvement, and value creation through knowledge accumulation and application. Thus, KM has recently been recognized as a significant means to manage organizational assets and capital. Several scholars have characterized the evolution or the related activities of KM through a few descriptions which exactly elaborate the development of historical events from different views. For example, Tiwana (2002) explored the evolution of KM based on the relationship of important managerial tools (see Figure 2.1).
1950s PERT
1960s
Centralization / Decentralization Focus shift toward distributed expertise and knowledge
1970s The Experience Curve Tacit knowledge becomes a part of the picture
1980s Corporate Culture Culture specificity is recognized
1990s The Learning Organization Learning, unlearning, and experience are taken into account
2000s Knowledge Management KM emerges as the unifying corporate goal
Figure 2.1 The evolution of knowledge management
(Source: Tiwana, 2002)
Knowledge management, drawing from the requirement of project management in the
1950s and drastically increasing since 1996, is a gradual evolution whose focuses shift from disseminating expert knowledge, perceiving tacit knowledge, recognizing corporate culture, conducting organizational learning, to integrating business goal. Notably, leveraging knowledge, experience, and intellectual assets is the key thread of the KM development.
Another example, Beckman (1999) recorded the KM related activities from 1980 to 1996.
XCON, the first commercially expert system, was designed by Digital Equipment Corporation and Carnegie Mellon University as the origin of KM. The development of KM concept later spread broadly in multiple sources, including research scholar (Dr. Karl Wiig), journal publication (Harvard Business Review), academy conference (Knowledge Management Network), and enterprise involvement (Price Waterhouse). Besides, the consulting firms offer knowledge services to their customers in 1994. Like the tendency in the development of KM literature, the various firms and practitioners focus on KM investments and activities since 1996. The evolution of KM events is briefly shown in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Knowledge management activities
Year Entity Event
1980 Digital Equipment Corporation Carnegie Mellon University
One of the first commercially successful Expert Systems:
XCON: Configures computer components
1986 Dr. Karl Wiig Coined KM concept at keynote address for United Nation’s International Labor Organization
1989 Large management consulting firms Start internal efforts to formally manage knowledge 1989 Price Waterhouse One of the first to integrate KM into its business strategy 1991 Harvard Business Review One of the first journal articles on KM published 1993 Dr. Karl Wiig One of the first books dedicated to KM published 1994 Knowledge management Network First KM conference held
1994 Large consulting firms First to offer KM services to clients 1996+ Various firms and practitioners Explosion of interest and activities
Source：Beckman(1999)
Moreover, Alinda and Hasliza (2004) revealed KM efforts through technology perspective (see Table 2.2). In the early stage (1960s), KM belongs to a data-centric activity which emphasizes the knowledge storage and capture with forms, reports, and database by information technology. Following the technical development, MIS-oriented information quires and DSS-oriented information analysis are important phases to identify knowledge application from the 1970s to the 1980s. In the 1990s, Web-based technology supports a wide variety of knowledge activities through capturing, organizing, disseminating, and using web portal. Furthermore, the computation techniques including searching, clustering, networking,
and mining are needed to convert a variety of information into effective knowledge since 2000. To summarize, an organization need more latent unknown knowledge in a firm. That is, the more implicit knowledge firms reap, the more productive activities firms perform.
Table 2.2 KM efforts influenced by technology revolution
Period Orientation
1960s Data-centric, IT orientation
Knowledge captured in forms, reports and databases 1970s Information-centric, MIS orientation
Data converted to information via ad hoc database quires, graphics and presentations 1980s Decision Support System orientation
Knowledge encapsulated in models and simulations; more sophisticated statistical applications
1990s Web-based knowledge support
Capture, organization and dissemination of knowledge using web 2000s Advanced Computation Techniques
Convert information to knowledge using concept clustering, linking, searching, ontologisms, multimedia, AI and others
Source：Alinda and Hasliza (2004)
Consequently, there exist various perspectives to interpret the signification of KM and the evolution of KM will still sustained through more broadly exploration.
2.1.2 The main contributors of KM
The development of KM can be traced from Polanyi’s knowledge concept, including tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge, rooted in individual action and ingrained in mental models, beliefs, and perspectives, is harder to articulate than explicit knowledge. Based on the knowledge level from individual to inter-organization, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) proposed the renowned knowledge conversion and spiral model to discriminate the interplay between the tacit and explicit knowledge. The model consists of socialization (from tacit to tacit), externalization (from tacit to explicit), combination (from explicit to explicit), and internalization (from explicit to tacit). Moreover, compared the characteristics of knowledge creation in Japanese companies with those in Western organization, The authors believed that Japanese (Eastern) organizations focus on group autonomy, tacit knowledge interaction (socialization and internalization), and experiential accumulation. In contrast, Western organizations emphasize on individual autonomy, explicit knowledge interaction (externalization and combination), and analysis capabilities. The book
“The knowledge creating company” is written by Nonaka and Takeuchi in 1995, which has
been very influential (i.e. citation is number one) in the field of KM (Serenko and Bontis, 2004).
According to Beckman’s (1999) survey, Dr. Karl Wiig is the originator of KM concept for United Nation’s International Labor Organization in 1986. Dr. Karl Wiig, the main advocator in KM research, presented the term “knowledge management” formally in his book since 1993. KM is defined as the field of systematically analyzing, synthesizing, assessing, and implementing knowledge-related changes to achieve organizational objectives (Wiig, 1994).
Wiig proposed multiple issues in his three volume books. For example, in Volume I, he considered the substance of knowledge and the activities of knowledge in an organization, a knowledge management program to become intelligent-acting organizations is prepared in Volume II, and Volume III explores the KM approaches including knowledge survey, knowledge map, and knowledge flow analysis.
Many businesses desire to understand what kind of the means and methods of KM can be implemented into an organization in terms of a strategic perspective. Hansen et al. (1999) proposed two significant strategies, codification and personalization, to manage organizational knowledge. Normally, firms focus on different KM styles based on their competitive strategies. Codification strategy, which connects people to document, provides high-quality, reliable and fast information systems by reusing codified knowledge. On the contrary, personalization strategy links people with people by knowledge channel or network to share tacit knowledge and experience. The differences of strategy aspects are shown in Table 2.3.
Serenko and Bontis (2004) revealed that “working knowledge” written by Davenport and Prusak (1998) is the second essential work to interpret how well the successful KM project in an organization. The authors survey many cases to explore a few critical questions when organizational managers intent to implement KM. These key questions include the role of knowledge in a firm, the identification of knowledge owners and searchers, the cultural, behavioral, and technological issues in KM, and the effectiveness of knowledge transfer in an organization. Moreover, four broad types of KM objectives and nine successful factors in KM project are proposed (see also Davenport et al., 1998). The objectives of KM are to create knowledge repositories, to improve knowledge access, to enhance knowledge environment, and to manage knowledge as an asset. The successful factors of KM consist of linking to economic performance or industry value, technical/organizational infrastructure, standard and flexible knowledge structure, knowledge-oriented culture, clear vision and language, motivational practices, multiple channels for knowledge transfer, and senior management
support. To summarize, organizational knowledge moved by a variety of forces is highly dynamic; therefore, human characteristics, such as experience, intuition, and values, are more critical challenges to manage and maximize knowledge assets than tangible capitals.
Table 2.3 Knowledge management strategy
Strategy
Aspect Codification Personalization
Knowledge
Management • People-to-documents
• Develop an electronic document archive to codify, disseminate, and reuse knowledge
• Person-to-person
• Develop networks for linking people to share organizational and individual knowledge
• Tacit knowledge can be acquired Economic • Reuse economics
• Invest once in a knowledge asset; reuse it many times·
• Use large teams with a high ratio of associates to partners
• Focus on generating large overall revenues
• Expert economics
• Charge high fees for highly customized solutions to unique problems·
• Use small teams with a low ratio of associates to partners
• Focus on maintaining high profit margins
Information
Technology • Invest heavily in IT; the goal is to connect people with reusable codified knowledge
• Invest moderately in IT; the goal is to facilitate conversations and the exchange of tacit knowledge
Human
Resources • Hire new college graduates who are well suited to the reuse of knowledge and the implementation of solutions
• Train people in groups through computer-based distance learning
• Hire people with outstanding academic background who like problem solving and can tolerate ambiguity
• Train people through one-on-one mentoring
Application • Adopt when business dealing with similar and repetitive projects
• Adopt when primarily deal with unique and diverse problem-solving projects
The Incentives • Reward people for using and contributing to document databases
• Reward people for directly sharing knowledge with others
Source: Hansen et al. (1999)
An important milestone about KM is reviewed by Alavi and Leidner (2001). The authors provide an interpretation of KM and knowledge management system (KMS) in different fields with IT perspective. Three issues are explored in this article. First, knowledge which increases organizational capability for effective action is regarded as a state of mind, an object, a process, an access condition, or a capability from different viewpoints. The perceptions of KM and KMS depend on alternative knowledge view. For example, if knowledge is viewed as an object, then KM is considered as management of knowledge stocks. If knowledge is regarded as a capability, then KM focuses on building core competencies. Second, a systematic framework of organizational KM processes, including creation/construction,
storage/retrieval, transfer, and application, is developed for analyzing the role of information technologies in these processes. For example, computer networks and electronic bulletin boards construct a community forum to support contact between knowledge seeker and knowledge owner. Third, research suggestions in KM process are proposed. For example, the research questions of knowledge transfer concern four issues: the application of IT to knowledge transfer, the effective strategies of KM in enabling knowledge transfer, the important attributes to motivate knowledge transfer, and the integration of external knowledge sources. Alavi and Leidner (2001) examined KM themes by combining the perspectives with strategic management, organizational theory, and information system, which provided an excellent reference to explain KM phenomenon.
Moreover, both KM yearbook 1999-2000 (Cortada and Woods, 1999) and KM yearbook 2000-2001 (Cortada and Woods, 2000) collected some important literatures to exhibit KM concepts from five dimensions, i.e., the nature of knowledge, knowledge-based strategies, KM and organizational learning, KM technologies and tools, and KM useful resources. Both are good references for researchers to study the field of KM.
2.1.3 The research frameworks of KM
The studies of organizational theory and design have been developed for a long time. KM is regarded as a part of organizational activities; therefore, organizational performance or industrial value has to be considered. Handzic (2004) developed an integrated KM framework to connect the KM drivers and outcomes with organizational knowledge components (stocks, processes, and measures) and organizational environment (internal and external). As shown in Figure 2.2, most KM studies focus on exploring the relationships among three subsystems (influence factors, systems or processes, and organizational objectives).
Factors (Enablers / Drivers)
Factors (Enablers / Drivers)
Organizational Systems (Processes / Activities) Organizational Systems
(Processes / Activities)
Objectives (Partial / Holistic Outcomes)
Objectives (Partial / Holistic Outcomes) External Environment
Figure 2.2 The relationship of organizational constructs
Nemati (2002) provided a global KM framework for studying the organizational or industrial factors which influence KM processes, and in turn affect successful KM
effectiveness. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the KM and the complexity of the research variables involved, more studies in global knowledge initiatives are needed to explore related questions. For example, the author believed that the research hypothesis “cultural impediments to knowledge transfer can lead to poorly constructed knowledge repositories”
can be developed to examine the knowledge flow of global organization. The similar architecture of exploratory KM research is briefly depicted in Appendix A.