ABSTRACT:
The concept of knowledge management is becoming increasingly interested to both academia and practitioners. The aim of the research is to answer a question ‘the role of computer technologies in knowledge acquisition?’ A comprehensive review of literature covering the topics of knowledge management and the organizational knowledge was conducted to answer this question. This literature review seeks to establish the nexus between computer technologies and knowledge management. To achieve this, thorough reviews of articles are done in a number of areas and a significant body of literature on knowledge management is summarized. Based on the review of the literature it has shown that there is a connection between the computer technologies and their role in knowledge acquisition in an organizational setting.
Keywords: Knowledge management, Knowledge creation, Knowledge sharing, computer technology
1. Introduction
People are living beings, therefore our
knowledge is alive. We are constantly creating a reality that makes us feel
positive about ourselves. The organizational learning system is an endless
cycle that sustains success for business organizations. When an individual
produces an innovative work and creates a new idea based on new learning, the
successful entrepreneurs acquisition that innovation immediately by cycling it
back into market by creating a product or a service using this knowledge.
According to Alavi
and Leidner (2001), data is the representation of raw
numbers and facts. Once the data is systematically processed, organized, or
given structure, it turns into information. When individuals posses such
information into their brain and apply it to take actions or make decisions
then it will be considered as knowledge. There are abundant studies on the
knowledge sharing (KS) and knowledge management (KM) field. However, there are
still opportunities for research on what is the role of computer technology
(CT) in KM? Even though the CT has established itself as a very important tool
for information exchange between people, the knowledge is highly dependent on
our experience, beliefs, and values (Van Der Velden, 2002). Can CT enable the knowledge creation and
sharing the same way it does with information sharing? This researcher will
provide findings from literature review and impressions of the emerging debate
around KM and the role of CT.
The structure of this paper will consist
of several sections. The first, second and third sections will introduce the
knowledge and knowledge management. The fourth section will focus on major
approaches to KM. The fifth, sixth and seventh sections will concentrate on
defining knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, and the knowledge sharing
components of KM respectively. The eighth and ninth sections will compare and
contrast the knowledge acquisition with knowledge creation and knowledge
sharing. The tenth section will describe the organizational knowledge and how
they are connected with the knowledge acquisition. The eleventh section of this
paper will examine the role that computer technology plays in acquiring
organizational knowledge. The last section of this paper provides the
conclusion.
2. What
is Knowledge?
Knowledge management has received
widespread attention in recent years.
Companies and academics have highlighted the importance of knowledge as
the basis for competitive advantage (Teece, 1998), hence it is very important to define the ‘knowledge’
first. Knowledge is defined as the
ability to remember previously learned material or information which range from
interpreting specific facts to analyzing complete theories. When an organization is able to maximize and
leverage their technical and business development resources, it will enhance
the company’s competitive advantage.
Nonaka (1994) suggested, based on Polanyi’s (1966) conceptualization, that knowledge can be classified as explicit and tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge deals with an individual’s experiences and know-how. This type of knowledge is increasingly considered as an important type of information. This intangible resource is difficult to acquire and imitate. Therefore, it is regarded as the most important source which could be within an individual or group, or an organization. In contrast, the explicit knowledge comes in the form of books, documents, white papers, databases, standards and policy manuals (Nonaka, 1994). Explicit knowledge also called leaky knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001) because this explicit knowledge can leave an individual or an organization very easily.
3. What
is Knowledge Management?
Knowledge management in general tries to
organize and make available important know-how’s. The data represents a basic
raw form of observations or a fact from a context; therefore, it will not
provide a direct meaning. Where as information in the other hand, will provide
results if data is placed within some meaningful context. This is often
achieved after analysis or synthesis of the data; hence one has to understand
the difference between data, information, and knowledge.
Rastogi (2000) defined the knowledge management as a
systematic and integrative process of coordinating organization wide activities
of acquiring, creating, storing, sharing, developing, and deploying knowledge
by individuals and groups in pursuit of organizational goals. Von Krogh (2000)
suggested that knowledge management in an organization must be considered from
three different perspectives and they are: a business perspective, a management
perspective, and a hands-on operational perspective. These three practically
cover all the facts of the organizational knowledge needs.
A more general approach to the analysis of knowledge management strategies is the one introduced by Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney (1999), who distinguished between a codification strategy and a personalization strategy. Procedures to elicit knowledge from employees, converting it into a systematized form, and storing it in a company wide repository are core activities in this codification strategy. However, knowledge is often very implicit and tacit; it is built upon personal experiences and reflected in skills. In contrast, the personalization strategy focuses on the exchange of tacit knowledge and mostly emphasizes on people meetings, which is interpersonal knowledge sharing. This strategy enforces a philosophy in the knowledge sharer as it enhances ones status and position when others consult for his/her expertise.
4. Major
Approaches to Knowledge Management
4.1. Overview
Wang (2005) has identified two major
approaches to knowledge management and they are the codification strategy and
the personalization’s strategy. The codification strategy focuses on the
codification, storing and subsequent re-use of knowledge, and relies heavily on
information technology. The personalization strategy, however, encourages a
more creative approach to the application of knowledge and thus allow for
deeper understanding (Wang, 2005). This distinction is helpful, as implications
can be drawn, in particular where these strategies are related to the
individual working in organizations in the aspects of knowledge management.
Manuel (2008) suggested three main
approaches for knowledge management and they are: 1) Mechanistic Approach,
focusing on use of Information Technology (IT) in the management of knowledge
resources, 2) Cultural / Behavioral Approach, focusing on work culture and
organizational behavior to encourage people to share, transfer and preserve
those resources and 3) Systematic Approach, focusing on ongoing processes of
refining and updating knowledge resources and rational analysis of knowledge
related problems and resolving techniques.
Knowledge management programs rely to a
large extent on the ability and willingness of employees to share knowledge
appropriately and freely in an organization. The staff will have to let go of
the long-established philosophy that "knowledge is power,” (Hargadon, 1998, p. 211) and embrace in its place the view
that "knowledge sharing is power.” In order to achieve this, trust is
required between the staff. Without trust, knowledge management initiatives
will fail, regardless of how thoroughly they are supported by the management or
technology.
Two fundamental approaches to knowledge
management defined by Hansen et al. (1999) are the process approach and the
practice approach. The process approach predominantly focuses on how to codify
organizational knowledge. This can be done by applying computer technologies
such as data warehousing, decision support tools, intranets, knowledge
repositories, and groupware. This will not only enhance the speed and quality
of creation of knowledge, but also the distribution of this knowledge within
the organization. More over it forces individuals to think in a fixed pattern
(Brown & Duguid, 2000; Hargadon,
1998; Von Krogh, 2000). The main weakness of this process approach is that it
fails to acquisition much of the tacit knowledge embedded in firms.
In contrast, the practice approach to knowledge management assumes that more of the organizational knowledge is tacit. This suggests that the formal processes, controls, and computer technologies are may not be suitable for this type of knowledge transfer. Instead, the practice approach focuses on how to build social environments to collaborate the tacit knowledge sharing (Brown & Duguid, 2000; Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000; Hansen et al., 1999). These communities could be informal social networks or groups they meet regularly to share insights, ideas, and best practices, hence successful KM initiatives ideally will include both process and practice approaches as these two complement each other. The common theme from the above literature review is pointing to three core fundamental approach components and they are knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge sharing in the knowledge management space.
4.2.1. Knowledge Creation
Scholars, managers, and strategic policy
makers have recognized the importance of knowledge and its creation with
greater frequency over the past decade. However, the specific factors
associated with the process of knowledge creation in research and development
(R&D) are yet to be fully elucidated and examined (Johnson, 2002). This
paper stems from research that utilized Nonaka and
Takeuchi’s (1995) theory of organizational knowledge creation as the reference
framework.
Organizations acquire knowledge from both
external and internal sources. The ways to acquire information from external
sources are: 1) best practices and benchmarking information from other
organizations, 2) attending conferences, 3) hiring consultants, 4) monitoring
economic, social and technological trends, 5) collecting data from customers,
competitors and resources, 6) hiring new staff, 7) collaborating with other
organizations, 8) building alliances, 9) forming joint ventures, and 10)
establishing knowledge links with business partners. At the same time,
organizations acquire knowledge internally by tapping into the knowledge of its
staff, learning from experiences and implementing continuous process
improvements.
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) introduced four patterns of
knowledge creation in organization which are: 1) Socialization, tacit knowledge
created from tacit knowledge (from tacit to tacit), 2) Externalization,
explicit knowledge created from tacit knowledge (from tacit to explicit), 3)
Combination, explicit knowledge created from explicit knowledge ( from tacit to explicit), and 4) Internalization, tacit
knowledge created from explicit knowledge ( from explicit to tacit).
There are also two more different
paradigms in the knowledge creation. The first one is a scientific view of
knowledge. In this paradigm, the knowledge is considered as a canonical body of
facts and rational laws. The second is referred to as a social paradigm of
knowledge construction (Burgoyne & Reynolds, 1997). In this paradigm, the
knowledge can be socially constructed through employee interchange. This
process will be feeding to the next two processes and they are knowledge
acquisition and knowledge sharing. The next big question is how to acquisition
this knowledge.
4.2.2. Knowledge Acquisition
One of the biggest problems in KM is to
effectively acquisition or to collect the vital information. There are many
cases in which knowledge is simply not recorded. Feliciano (2007) describes knowledge
acquisition as the process of extracting knowledge from experts and structuring
this knowledge into a readable form. He goes on to say that the techniques
utilized in doing this are interviewing, observations, protocol analysis and
brainstorming (Feliciano, 2007).
The inductive theory of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) describes the processes of
interplay between explicit and tacit knowledge structures that lead to the
creation of new organizational knowledge. Nonaka and
Takeuchi (1995) argue that intention is necessary for successful knowledge
creation in a single organization situation. As discussed earlier, the
knowledge may be tacit or explicit, requiring different means to acquisition
it. Knowledge acquisition is ideally driven by strategy: an organization
determines what knowledge is needed, what it has, and then fills in the gap by
developing new knowledge or acquiring it.
Organizations need an inexpensive and
quick means to find and correctly use internal or external knowledge. Knowledge
acquisition has several roles: to codify explicit knowledge, to convert tacit
knowledge to an explicit form and codify, and to acquisition tacit knowledge as
explicit meta-knowledge (knowledge about knowledge). This is generally a
directory of “who knows what” and how to contact them. The purpose of the
codification is to make it easy to organize, locate, share, store, and use the
knowledge (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Common materials containing codified
knowledge are manuals, spreadsheets, decision support systems and procedures (Zollo & Winter, 2002).
However, the codification process is generally expensive and it is
difficult to code for universal understanding too. All these codified materials
exist within the organizations memory only. So, in order to overcome this
deficiency, the organizations need to use the information technologies to
acquisition and share the knowledge.
4.2.3. Knowledge Sharing
Sharing knowledge among members of an
organization is a pivotal component of effective management of organizational
knowledge. Individuals in any organization do not share their knowledge freely
under all circumstances. These individuals need to be somehow motivated to
create, share, and use knowledge (Davenport & Prusak,
1998). This is the key factor for a successful knowledge sharing as the
knowledge itself does not flow or grow on its own.
Alavi and Leidner (2001)
consider this knowledge sharing as one of the key processes in the overall
knowledge management framework. Also from the literary review, this researcher
identified that there are several organizational factors that will contribute or
affect knowledge sharing in an organization such as organizational culture,
organizational structure, leadership, and information systems. Knowledge
sharing is similar to organizational citizenship behaviors that occur in
organizations mainly because it is voluntary. Even the informal knowledge
sharing in organizations can be very effective (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). That is why Knowledge sharing is essential
for organizations and should be encouraged and rewarded.
Knowledge sharing is part of the KM system
of an organization and the operational objective of KM as to ensure that the
right knowledge is available to the right processors at the right time for
performing their knowledge activities (Manuel, 2008). That is why one must
understand that knowledge sharing and KM are not equivalent. Additionally,
knowledge sharing can save time and improve quality by providing appropriate
solutions to organizations.
5. Discussion
5.1. Comparing
Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Acquisition & Knowledge Sharing
Organizational IT project success and
failure can often depend on knowing which of them you need, which you have, and
what you can and can’t do. Understanding what the organizational IT project
success needs and the basic knowledge ingredients, such as data, information,
and knowledge are essential to perform the knowledge work successfully. There
are several commonalities between the knowledge approach components such as
knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge sharing. The first and
fundamental common aspect is, all these three will
assist in IT project success in an organization.
As discussed earlier, there are two
major approaches to knowledge management and they are 1) the process approach
and 2) the practice approach. The process approach adopts the codifying
organizational knowledge approach using formalized processes, controls, and
computer technologies (Hansen et al, 1999). In contrast, the process approach
adopts explicit policies such as, how explicit knowledge is acquisitioned,
stored, and shared across the organization. The process approach adopts a heavy
IT for connecting people with reusable and codified knowledge. On the contrary,
the practice approach uses moderate IT infrastructure. Having discussed these
foundations, now let us discuss the infrastructure and management tasks.
Many managerial tasks cannot be learned
from a book; they take years of trial and error experience to learn. Valuable
sharing of knowledge occurs in managerial staff meetings where younger managers
reap the benefits of watching and learning from other, more experienced
managers. This is also true for knowledge workers since much of the sharing of
knowledge occurs by watching others execute their tasks. Knowledge sharing
works more efficiently when the receiver and giver of knowledge are actively
involved in the task of knowledge sharing. This requires a willingness of both
parties to be both students and teachers of knowledge, regardless of employee
age, to benefit from everyone’s knowledge.
One needs to identify the kinds of
knowledge that will create the most value for an organization and create ways
for increasing that knowledge using the computer technology. Once that
knowledge is identified then one can come up with ways to acquire or generate
knowledge (Cummings & Worley, 2005). One can acquire the knowledge by using
strategic alliances, joint ventures, and social relationships by using the
people, process, and technology.
Normative motivation is seen to be
essential in knowledge sharing and creative activities. This has been examined
at an organizational level and these levels could be are different motivators
at different levels. The researchers are challenged with a common question.
What motivates an employee to share the knowledge? This question brings us to the
realm of motivation theories and their implications for the area of knowledge
sharing. Perhaps the best-known motivation theory is Maslow's needs hierarchy
(Maslow, 1954). Maslow's theory indicates the motivation for knowledge work
comes from his three highest hierarchical levels. Their implication is that
knowledge workers, for instance, do not share knowledge because of money or to
improve their relations with their co-workers. Their motivation rather comes
from their desire for self-actualization. This motivation theory to share the
knowledge is also applicable to the other two components, the knowledge
creation, and acquiring.
The knowledge acquisition does not,
however, manage tacit knowledge because tacit dimensions of knowledge are
revealed only in social interactions. The aspect of social interactions and
tacit knowledge sharing are reflected in the overall knowledge management. The
previous knowledge management activities are also affected by organizational
learning processes, which can be influenced by organizational characteristics
such as cultural and leadership drivers (Cummings & Worley, 2005). These
characteristics remain important in all the three components such as knowledge
acquisition, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing.
5.2. Contrasting
Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Acquisition And
Knowledge Sharing
Nonaka (1994) suggested that the creating a new
knowledge requires the participation of front line employees, middle managers,
and executive leadership. They continued arguing that, everyone in a knowledge
creating company is a knowledge worker. But why should an employee share his /
her knowledge? What are the motivational factors we need to see is a big
question in this approach. At the same time, the managers are challenged with a
question: how do we make this newly acquired knowledge in an organization
sharable with other members of the organization?
As discussed earlier the four patterns
of knowledge creation by Nonaka (1994), are the first
patterns of knowledge creation is socialization. In this pattern the tacit
knowledge is directly shared from an expert to another person who learns it
through observations, imitation, and practice. Since this type of knowledge can not be made explicit, it may be time consuming, costly,
and uncertain to share the knowledge from one person to a larger group of
people. Thus, the knowledge is not
easily shared by the whole organization and can prove to be a more challenging
task then knowledge acquisition or knowledge creation.
Knowledge sharing takes place when
knowledge is documented and stored for reuse at a later point in time.
Recently, Carlesen and Gottschalk (2009) discovered
in their empirical research, that there is a significant correlation between
the extent of knowledge sharing and the IT projects success rate. Additionally,
Sai Ho and Sheng (2005)
have investigated an individual’s behavior of knowledge sharing with respect to
information systems/information technology (IS/IT). The authors found that the
extrinsic motivation imposed no impact on an individual’s attitude towards
knowledge sharing. Leibowitz (2002) had identified in
his study the combined use of virtual communities or practice and face-to-face
meetings was recommended for better knowledge sharing. Zairi
and Al-Mashari (2005) recommended an effective
benchmarking and implementation will provide for a better knowledge transfer
practices in an organization. McNeish and Mann (2010)
reviewed the trust in terms of interpersonal and inter-group relations in
knowledge sharing situations within organizations. They have concluded that the
knowledge sharing has a path through knowledge transfer to consequences
including improved group performance, business decisions, competitive advantage
and financial success. Adekunle and Helena (2002) identified
variations in factors such as the local cultures and beliefs, the persistent
underfunding, and the operating environment influences the knowledge sharing.
Lorenz (2008) referred to knowledge
sharing as that related to the creation, transfer, and integration of
knowledge. The implication drawn from this statement is that the process of
knowledge sharing involves both the creation and transfer of knowledge though
different artifacts, such as documentation or communication, among entities.
This may prevent knowledge to be shared effectively. In addition to acquiring,
creating, and sharing the organizational knowledge, an organization must take
steps to ensure that its knowledge is not stolen or used inappropriately (Gold,
Malhorta & Segars,
2001). Otherwise the organization will loose their
competitive advantage which was envisaged by implementing knowledge management
initiatives.
As per Nonaka
(1994), the organizational knowledge is created through four modes where
interaction and conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge takes place and
they are socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization
(SECI). Again these four modes fall into the three major categories of
knowledge acquisition, create, and share. All these three have a common
organizational objective, which is competitive advantage of using the KM. But
one of the main differences is the process of developing a new content and
replacing existing content within the organization’s tacit and explicit
knowledge base (Pentland, 1995). Nonaka
(1994) suggested that the essential question for knowledge acquisition is
establishing an organization’s “ba” (defined as a
space for creating knowledge). According to Watson and Hewett (2006) “knowledge
intensive industries” (p. 141) rely heavily on their capacities to produce and
share knowledge, to perform well, and to remain competitive. So this is another
common objective of the approaches to the knowledge management.
According to Lorenz (2008), informal
learning is necessary to deal with the constant changes that organizations must
endure. Extinct are the days where employees learned a singular, focused
specialty that carried them through to retirement Lorenz (2008). This
essentially means that knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition and knowledge
sharing are complimenting each other in an integrated way to achieve the
organizational knowledge goals. Consequently, a deeper understanding about the
organizational knowledge must be achieved.
5.3. Organizational
Knowledge
Organizational knowledge has knowledge
as its key asset and its competitive advantage comes from having and
effectively using that knowledge. Popper (1963) stated there is always an
increasing need for knowledge to grow and progress continually, whether tacit
or explicit. Knowledge grows like any other organism, with data service as food
to be assimilated rather than merely stored. Penrose (1959) identified
knowledge as part of human resources of an organization. As an organizational
resource, individually held knowledge, which is the combined knowledge of all
of the organizations employees, become organizational knowledge for sure.
Organizations wishing to manage their
knowledge so that it will be accessible in the future must master at least two
basic processes in knowledge management space (Probst,
Raub & Romhardt, 2000).
First, they must filter from the many events, persons, and processes and decide
the ones that are worth retaining. Second, they must be able to store their
experience in a suitable form. From a practical point of view much of what is
considered organizational knowledge is only on loan to the organization as long
as that individual that holds it remains as an employee and so long as it has
not been acquisitioned and codified. In
other words, this migratory knowledge only truly becomes organizational
knowledge (Badaracco, 1991) when it is acquisitioned,
codified, and made available for dissemination by the organization itself.
5.4. Examining
The Role That Computer Technology Plays In Acquiring
Organizational Knowledge
The computer technology has been
recognized as an enabling tool in facilitating knowledge acquisition in
knowledge management. The computer technologies are capable of assisting
knowledge seekers and experts engaged in different types of knowledge
acquisition process such as socialization, combination, externalization, and
internalization (Apostolou, Mentzas
& Sakkas, 1999). For the socialization process
(where tacit knowledge is transformed to tacit knowledge) the computer
technology used as e-mails, discussion lists, bulletin boards, collaborative
hypermedia, multimedia conferences, and brainstorming applications. These
computer technologies enable user interactions by assisting them to communicate
with one another by making the organizational knowledge to be spread across the
entire organization.
For the combination process (explicit
knowledge is transformed to tacit knowledge), decision support systems and
workflow applications are typical supporting tools in this category. For an
externalization process (tacit knowledge is transformed to explicit knowledge),
organizational memory or repository has a significant role in organizing and
structuring knowledge to make it available to other individuals in the
organization (Apostolou, Mentzas
& Sakkas, 1999).
For the internalization process (where explicit knowledge is transformed
to tacit knowledge) involves computer technologies such as data warehousing,
data mining, and computer based training to assist novices to re-experience
what the experts have done in similar situations.
Hargadon (1998) referred to technology as the presence of
computer technology support within an organization. The computer technology
plays a crucial role in eliminating boundaries to communication that often
inhibit the interaction between the different parts of the organization. The
important role of computer technology is its ability to support communication,
search for knowledge, and will enable collaborative learning. The following are
the computer technologies that have and are being used for acquiring
organizational knowledge.
Intelligent
agents are software programs or
code that accepts input in the form of a user profile indicating the
information that is deemed significant in a particular job or in a specific
working environment and produces the information in an easy-to-understand
manner. Agents are rarely stand-alone programs; rather, they are embedded in
other applications programs such as e-mails, word processors, or scheduling
programs (Petter, 2000). A simple example of an agent
is software that allows users to develop rules for automatically handling
e-mail messages, based on subject matter, source, or other characteristics.
Groupware is software that supports collaborative work and
sharing of information in the pursuit of company goals and objectives.
Groupware such as the popular Lotus Notes, provide tools to enhance the
communication between work groups and keeps everyone up to date on what has
transpired (Vail Iii, 1999). Groupware can provide an effective means to put
the action into the definition of knowledge, which is, turning information into
actionable knowledge.
Electronic
networking, in this context, the
KM needs to produce information, acquisition data at the source, transmit it to
the data warehouse, analyze it with data mining, and finally transmit the
information to the needed entities (Vail Iii, 1999). These knowledge management
processes and activities are based on electronic networking architecture,
including the Internet, intranet, and extranet, etc.
Knowledge
mapping, Vail Iii (1999) defined
a knowledge map as the visual display of relationships of acquisitioned
information which will provide a vehicle for the communication of knowledge in
an organization. This is a collection of relevant knowledge that is
continuously evolving in all its forms (text, pictures, stories, data, and
models) in an organization. There are two basic types of knowledge maps,
static, and dynamic (Vail Iii, 1999) that can be used to acquisition the organizational
knowledge.
6. Limitations
And Directions For The Future Study
There are two limitations that need to
be acknowledged and addressed regarding this conceptual paper. The first
limitation is it has only considered few roles of computer technologies in
knowledge acquisition. The second limitation has to do with the extent to which
this is a literature review and a conceptual approach and no study was
conducted to evaluate its effectiveness yet. Therefore, a suggested future
study would be to apply this conceptual theory and conduct a research and
evaluate its effectiveness and application.
7. Conclusions
The implementation of knowledge
management approaches and strategies discussed in this paper can comprise all
person-oriented, organizational, and technological instruments suitable to
dynamically optimize the organization wise level of competencies. This
researcher would like to take one practical example to conclude this paper. The
financial markets provide a good example of the differences between data,
information, and knowledge. Due to the availability of financial data such as
real-time stock prices of companies the financial managers have computer
technologies to turn this data into information, such as whether a particular
stock price is on an uptrend or downtrend. Because every manager is acting on
the same information, we would expect every one of them to have a similar level
of performance. However, in the real world, we find a few financial managers
outperforming the industry average for long time periods of time. This superior
performance can only be ascribed to the financial manger’s knowledge, their
unique experience, values, and insight which were brought to bear in
interpreting the same information available to all of their competitors. What
happens when this outperforming financial manager leaves one organization and
joins another?
As discussed earlier, the computer
technologies have acted as a catalyst for KM, but that alone can not deliver the KM (McDermott, 1999). At the same time,
one has to recognize that computer technology is a facilitator of KM, or a tool
to assist individuals and groups in acquiring organizational knowledge.
Ultimately, managing knowledge has become a prominent concern in many
organizations as more and more employees leave organizations either because of
retirement or for new opportunities. To help ensure a successful knowledge
management initiative, the organizations should ensure that they have a
supportive learning culture, coupled with processes of acquiring knowledge,
knowledge acquisition, and knowledge sharing. Organizations should take
knowledge management seriously and begin managing their organizational
knowledge as a strategic capability to get a competitive advantage.
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About
the Author:
Dr. Rao Nemani is an
Adjunct Instructor at
Dr. Rao R. Nemani,
University of Minnesota, Carlson School of
Management, 321 Nineteenth Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; Tel:
952-412-9277; Fax: 952-412-9277; Email: Neman017@UMN.Edu