Introduction to knowledge management

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 Gain an introduction to the field of KM.
 Understand Why do we have to manage
knowledge.
 Understand the role of KM in today’s
organization.
 Determine the different perspectives of KM.
 Define the classification of Knowledge
Management Systems
 Understanding the nature of knowledge
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Cases

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 In one company, the financial manager decided to reduce
the budget by laying off some employees . One of them was
the best maintenance engineer.
 After some months, one machine stopped working due to
damage of some parts
 the company tried many times to fix it, but it could not. So
it is forced to engage the engineer himself to repair that
machine .
 Actually the engineer installed that part using his hammer
for the convenience of the new part and put it in the right
position so he returned the machine to work in minutes.
 After that he made a repair bill of $ 1000. However , the
cost of the hammer by the engineer installed did not exceed
one dollar?
 Can you justify ($ 999)!...

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 One financial firm faced a complex problem due to the
mistakes of mathematical accumulated since the exit
of financial manager of retirement.
 After that; many problems had been happened
related to taxes and funded with many companies
and banks.
 For solving these problems, several committees had
been formed without any results, So the company
decided to outsource the financial manager himself
who had been able to solve the problem within three
days
 After that, he had submitted an invoice for resolving
these problems account in the amount of $ 5,000, and
when he asked about the actual amount used to
accomplish the work during Three days it was $ 500
only
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 Do you have any justification for ($ 4,500)! -5
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 According to the resource-based view of the firm
Knowledge has become the key strategic resource,
 This theory attempts to explain and predict why
some firms are able to establish positions of
sustainable competitive advantage and, in so
doing, earn superior returns.
 According to this theory; Knowledge can easily
meet the four conditions to be strategic assets
1. It is Rare
2. It can add value
3. It can not be replaced
4. It can not be imitated

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 Marketplaces are increasingly competitive
and the rate of innovation is rising.
 Reductions in staffing create a need to

replace informal knowledge with formal

methods.
 Competitive pressures reduce the size of

the work force that holds valuable

business knowledge
 The amount of time available to

experience and acquire knowledge has

diminished

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 Changes in strategic direction may
result in the loss of knowledge in a
specific area.
 Early retirements and increasing

mobility of the work force lead to loss

of knowledge.

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 (KM) may be defined simply as
doing what is needed to get the most
out of knowledge resources.
 (KM) focuses on organizing and
making available important
knowledge, wherever and whenever
it is needed.
 (KM) is highly related to the
concept of intellectual capital (both
human and structural. 0-
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 Increasing Domain Complexity

 Accelerating Market instability

 Intensified Speed of Responsiveness

 Diminishing Individual Experience

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 Knowledge management
provides benefits to individual,
to communities of practice, and
to the organization itself.

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 Helps people do their jobs and save time
through better decision making and
problem solving
 Helps people to keep up to date
 Provides challenges and opportunities to

contribute

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 Develops professional skills
 Promotes peer-to-peer mentoring
 Facilitates more effective networking and

collaboration
 Develops a professional code of ethics that

members can adhere to

 Develops a common language

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 • Helps drive strategy
 • Solves problems quickly
 • Diffuses best practices
 • Improves knowledge embedded in

products and services

 • Cross-fertilizes ideas and increases

opportunities for innovation

 • Enables organizations to better stay

ahead of the competition

 • Builds organizational memory

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 Theoretical roots of KM , there are a variety of areas
informed the field of KM for example:-
 Organization Science; There is a strong relation
between km and organization science through the
concept of learning organization (LO) which
introduced by (Senge, 90) he describe (LO) as
organizations where people continually expand their
capacity to create the result they desire, and where
people are continually learning to see the whole
together,. Another relative concept in KM is the notion
of communities of practice.

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 Accounting; A relationship between the KM
and accounting is determined by the
movement of intellectual capital (IC) which
focuses on the importance measurement of
knowledge .the strategic concern was
maximum return on investment in existing
knowledge assets, as well as protection of
intellectual property.

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 Human Resource Management;
 HRM is playing the important role in growing KM
field through the concept of knowledge works
and knowledge worker .
 Compared to traditional form of work,
knowledge work has a broader scope, and less
predictable Thus, it cannot be managed directly ,
also the knowledge worker as a new trend
with some special characteristics (will be
explained in details in the next chapter) requires
a significant degree of job autonomy and
flexibility, and need different incentive systems
to get committed. As a result there is a need for
different management provided by HRM.

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 Information technology ;
 KM is depending mainly on the new IT applications to
support the km processing .The most common type of
imitative was building repositories of specific type of
knowledge for use in particular business functions .
 Beside the implementation of IT application, there are
many specific roles and positions created to advance
KM agenda in organizations. As example designing
knowledge architectures, and redesigning knowledge
work process and activities. The following figure can
summarize the main root of KM.

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 Two fundamental shifts are essential for emerged KM;
[Link]
 During the 1980, downsizing was the popular strategy to reduce
overhead costs and increase profits; however, the downside to
being “lean and mean “soon became evident .Over time a
successful downsizing strategy led to important knowledge
has been lost , as employees left and took the knowledge that
they had accumulated over the years with them , this led
management to undertake a KM as a tool to retain and keep on
employees’ knowledge and experts for a long time. By the way
organizations have been more interested in using the more
advanced IT to capture employees’ knowledge and disseminate
it within and between organizational units to be more satisfied.

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 2- Technology development
 The technology development has highlighted the interest
in KM through two main sources; the explosive growth of
information resources such as (the internet) and the
accelerating pace of technological change.
 The recent IT development has affected both the lives of
people and organizations. Thus KM is an attempt to cope
with the explosion of information and to capitalise on
increased knowledge in the workplace.
 On the other hand, the emerging technological
development enables global sharing of information across
different countries, and can serve a tool within an
organization to use knowledge more effectively.

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Knowledge management systems (KMS):
the synergy between social/structural
mechanisms and latest technologies.

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Knowledge discovery &
creating systems
Knowledge capture
systems
Knowledge sharing
systems
Knowledge application
systems

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 80% - Organizational processes and
human factors
 20% - Technology

PEOPLE

ORGANIZATIONAL
OVERLAPPING PROCESSES
FACTORS
TECHNOLOGY

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Knowledge is first
created in the people’s
minds.
KM practices must
first identify ways to
encourage and
stimulate the ability of
employees to develop
new knowledge.

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 KM technologies must enable effective
ways to extract, create, represent,
organize, re-use, and renew this
knowledge
 KM should not distance itself from the
knowledge owners, but instead celebrate
and recognize their position as experts in
the organization

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lecture No (2)
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 As an essential part of KM is, of
course, knowledge , so
In order to comprehend knowledge
management, it is necessary first to
understand the concept of
?knowledge. What is knowledge

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
Figure 2.1 Idealist and empiricist perspectives on knowledge 0-
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 Addressed knowledge as

“Justified True Belief

“

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 Start with ‘appearances’ –
ordinary believes
 Work through puzzles
(contradictions and find
central beliefs)
 Come back to ‘appearances’
with better understanding

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 Lay aside things on common-sense
grounds that are doubtful
 Doubt you are recognizing or

perceiving anything at any moment

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 Which philosopher has the greatest influence
on your thinking?

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A great deal of conceptual
challenge derives from the
fact that a word such as
knowledge is necessarily
subjective in nature,
not to mention value in
interpretation.

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 The definition of knowledge is
extremely challenging :-
 Davenport & Prusak (1998 ) defined
A Mix of
knowledge as “
experiences, values , information
and expert insight that provides
a framework for evaluating and
creating new experience and
information”
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 Brooking (1999 ) defined knowledge as
“Information in context with
understanding on how to use
it”.

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Knowledge also defined as
 “ A meaning resulting from using the

available information in high

subjective context; that’s why the
variances in meaning among people on
the same things “

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How is knowledge different from
?information
and how is information different
?from data

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?
Data is Unorganized and unprocessed facts; it can
be considered as the basic or the raw material for
creating information ,it is a set of discrete facts
about events.

Data is a number, word or letter without any context.

For example, numbers like 5 or 100, without any
context, are mere data. these numbers or data are
meaningless points. It is called “out of context”.

 For example, movie listings; giving the times and

locations of all movies being shown today.

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 In contrast to data information ; refers to
a context, and considered as messages or
news created by the interpretation of data,
this information can be understood and has
meaning by the receiver .

 It can defined as aggregation of data

that makes decision making easier
 ex. most of the film movie listings are
drama films .

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 Is derived from information in the same
way information is derived from data; it is
a person’s range of information
 knowledge involving the processing,

creating, or use of information in the mind

of individual, which mean that information
has little value and will not become
knowledge until it is processed by human
mind.
 I'll watch a movie that I know heroes

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 Knowledge

Value
Zero Low MediumHighVery High
Data Information

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 Knowledge

pH = nH/(nH+nT)
Counting EV=pH RH+ pT RT
pT = nT/(nH+nT)

H THTT pH = 0.40

H HHTH nH = 40 pT = 0.60 EV = -$0.80
… nT = 60 RH = +$10
T TTHT RT = -$8

Data Information

Value

Zero Low Medium High Very High

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 
Knowledge
Knowledge

Knowledge
Data
Data Information
processing

Use of
information

Decision

Event
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As you are a traditional management
student, which of the following statements
would you describe as data, information or
knowledge?
 A report on career progression prospects of MBA
students.
 An Excel spreadsheet with questionnaire data on MBA
students
 Critical success factors on interview success with your
favored company
 A visit to an art exhibition
 The latest figures on unemployment
 The content list of your KM book.
 Travel to England at Christmas
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
Figure 1.4 Data, information, knowledge and purposeful action
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 knowing how to use information, it
presents an integration of all aspects of the
personality including affects, willing,
cognition, and life experience

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 Children have more need of models than of
critics (French)
 You can’t see the whole sky through a bamboo
tube (Japanese)
 There is plenty of sound in an empty barrel
(Russian)
 Trust in Allah, but tie your camel (Muslim)
 Wonder is the beginning of wisdom (Greek)

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Significant implication of this view of
knowledge is that for individuals to arrive at
the same understanding of data or
information they must share a history or
context.
 KM can play a collaboration role by which

employees can be able to assign meaning

to information and data they also can
capture and swap some of their knowledge
with each other.

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What happened
when you shared
your colleagues
knowledge
?
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Classification of
“knowledge”

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 Knowledge had been classified
according to its orientation into :

[Link]-what ……

It is related to having
information about facts and
state of things
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Itis related to causal
relationships between different
element, it depends on the ability
to articulate a conceptual
understanding of an experience,
it may called (conditional
knowledge)

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 know- how
 is related to how people understood and

how they learn including their physical

ability to produce some action, it is called
(procedural knowledge)
 know- who
 which related to who know- what and how.

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1. The core knowledge
2. The advanced knowledge
3. The innovative knowledge

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 “ We know more than we can tell”.
Polanyi 1966
 According to Polani 1966 and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)
identified the most famous categories of knowledge as
 Tacit knowledge & Explicit knowledge

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 Explicit knowledge
 Refers to knowledge that is transmittable

in formal, systematic language, which can

be captured and shared through
information technology so, it is easy to
transfer within and between people

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 Any organization supposes to obtain three
types of explicit knowledge;
 Cognitive knowledge ; the basic discipline

that professionals achieve through extensive

training and certification
 Advanced skills ; the ability to apply rules

of a discipline to complex real- world

problem.
 System understanding ; the deep

understanding of the web of cause – and

effect relationships underlying a discipline
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 Tacit knowledge; resides in
the human mind, behavior, and
perception
 It is derived empirically and

held by the organization's

employees
 It is hidden and refers to;

intuitions and insights

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 Although the view of knowledge as tacit and explicit is well
known to date and involved in the majority of current
literature on organizational knowledge
 Some scholars advocated that knowledge shouldn't seen as
two separate types of knowledge.
 They suggested that all knowledge has both tacit and
explicit components, and knowledge exists along a
continuum of tacitness and explicitness
 For this reason it is existed a middle ground between tacit
and explicit knowledge termed implicit knowledge that
refers to the subset of tacit knowledge that can be
transformed into explicit

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 Tacit Knowledge Explicit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is hidden and Explicit knowledge can be
refers to intuitions experiences articulated and codified items
.and insights
Tacit knowledge dissemination is Explicit knowledge dissemination
difficult and only happens is easy and can happen through
through people information technology
Tacit knowledge is personal, and Explicit knowledge is impersonal,
can be easily lost if the key so it can be stacked through the
people of organizations leave organizational memories.
them
Tacit knowledge can be found in Explicit knowledge can be found
the form of values, ideas, beliefs, in the form of rules, policies,
insight and innovation procedures, researches and
manuals
Tacit knowledge has more Explicit knowledge has less
significance as a potential source significance as a source for
for innovation and competitive innovation and competitive
advantage advantages 0-
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 An expert in a specialized
area masters the requisite
knowledge
 The unique performance of a
expert is clearly recognizes
in decision-making quality
 Knowledgeable experts are
more selective in the
information they acquire
 Experts benefit from the
knowledge that comes from
experience

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Reasoning by
analogy: relating one
concept to another
 Formal reasoning:

using deductive or
inductive methods
 Case-based

reasoning: reasoning
from relevant past
cases
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Deductive reasoning
Access to the
special cases of
generalities

 :Inductive reasoning
: Reasoning from
a set of facts or
individual cases to
a general
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A classic example of reasoning, given by Aristotle
, deductive is
All men are mortal. (major proposition ) 
Socrates is a man. (minor proposition) 
Socrates is mortal. (conclusion) 

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 Most wheels I have seen are round
Most birds I have seen could fly
We can infer general propositions like:
All wheels are round.
All birds can fly.

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 Learning by experience: a
function of time and talent
 Learning by discovery:
undirected approach in which
humans explore a problem
area with no advance
knowledge of what their
objective is.
 Learning by doing: the
most efficient model
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The End

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