1.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT- AN OVERVIEW

1.1. INTRODUCTION

‘‘A little knowledge that acts is worth more than much knowledge that is idle.’’
Kahlil Gibran, the Prophet

Knowledge management is not a simple issue. It is not a technology, although technology should
be exploited as an enabler. It is not a directive, although strategic leadership is imperative to
successful knowledge management. It is not a business strategy, although one aligned with the
tenets of knowledge management must exist. It requires a culture that promotes faith in
collectively sharing and thinking. But, culture alone will not render a vital knowledge
management practice. It is perhaps the lack of a singular definition that has delayed the more
wide-scale deployment of knowledge management.
A common definition would be,
“Knowledge management is the leveraging of collective wisdom to increase responsiveness
and innovation. An effort to increase the useful knowledge within the organization. A
process through which organizations generate value from intellectual and knowledge based
assets”
Knowledge management (KM) or knowledge sharing in organizations is based on an
understanding of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. In implementation, KM is an
effort to benefit from the knowledge that resides in an organization by using it to achieve the
organization’s mission. The transfer of tacit or implicit knowledge to explicit and accessible
formats, the goal of many KM projects, is challenging, controversial, and endowed with ongoing
management issues.

1.2. OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS

The modern business world is characterized by dynamic, changing markets and continuous
technological advance. To cope with these trends, organizations must become more flexible and
one certain way for them to do so is to strengthen their potential to learn as organizations.

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Thus, “knowledge” becomes an essential organizational driver and a key factor in value creation.
Increased focus must be placed on expanding the organizational knowledge base, either by
learning from others (colleagues, partners, third party content, etc.) or by creating new
knowledge through innovation. Both processes help secure sustainable competitive advantage.

Knowledge management can be seen as an integrated approach to achieving organizational

goals by placing particular focus on knowledge, which was widely considered as the new
factor of production.

Knowledge management supports and co-ordinates the creation, transfer and application of
individual knowledge in value creation process. This can only be realized in a corporate culture
that promotes knowledge management and actively supports information and documentation
process (through the systematic application of innovation and quality management tools and
methods).

However, to manage an organizational knowledge base, it must also be measured. The inclusion
of intellectual assets in this measurement adds a further dimension to the assessment of
traditional factors of production. In this way, other factors become more readily available for
value creation processes.

Comprehensive knowledge management should ensure that knowledge is used as effectively and
efficiently as traditional factors of production in achieving organizational goals. Added benefits
include an improved capacity for organizational learning and a greater potential for action.

The major benefits of knowledge management for organizations include

• Greater transparency of knowledge potential and gaps

• Knowledge – based value creation processes

• Increased motivation through staff involvement

• Increased competitiveness

• Long – term security and survival.

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1.3. NEED FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

• Most of our work is information based.

• Organizations compete on the basis of knowledge.
• Products and services are increasingly complex, endowing them with a
significant information component.
• The need for life-long learning is an inescapable reality.
• 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.
• Early retirements and increasing mobility of the work force lead to loss of
knowledge.
• There is a need to manage increasing complexity as small operating
companies are trans-national sourcing operations.
• Changes in strategic direction may result in the loss of knowledge in a specific
area.

In brief, knowledge and information have become the medium in which business problems
occur. As a result, managing knowledge represents the primary opportunity for achieving
substantial savings, significant improvements in human performance, and competitive advantage.

1.4. BASIC CONCEPTS OF KNOWLEDGE

People use their memories to carry out physical and mental actions. They actively experience
their environment through sensory perception. The perception of individual stimuli continuously

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triggers off cognitive processes in the brain, which in turn result in changes to the memory. This
interaction between perception and action is known as individual learning, with the memory
acting as human cognitive subsystem.

Based on these assumptions, individual knowledge can be defined as the set of all possible
memory states an individual is able to perform at any given time. Knowledge represents an
individual’s potential for action and is thus always linked to people.

Organizations need to harness the individual knowledge of their members and apply it in
business processes to create economic value. Combining these individual memories to form a
collective organizational knowledge base plays a decisive role in this process. This is far more
than a corporate database: it represents the interaction and communication between individual
employees. Thus, organizational knowledge can be considered as the set of all possible actions
an organization can perform at a given time. This includes its ability to perceive its environment
and react to changes.

There are two essential parts to a collective knowledge base: the individual knowledge of the
members of the organization and the framework that connects them, with interaction and
communication structures also playing a decisive role. Consequently, one of the central tasks of
knowledge management is to shape an organizational culture that supports effective knowledge
exchange.

Organizational learning is the process of changing the organizational knowledge base and
typically refers to learning by individual members and groups. This involves continuous
perception of the environment (market trends, technology changes) and appropriate reaction to
changes (new strategies/improved processes). Despite its obvious advantages, the systematic
combination and transfer of this new knowledge can be time consuming and effective
information and communication infrastructure will be required to ensure all concerned have the
necessary time, space and tools to do so.

All members and groups in an organization contribute to the collective knowledge base. As a
result, the knowledge it contains comes from a wide range of different projects, tasks and
business processes. To accommodate this diversity, a knowledge base should be organized in
individual knowledge domains, each dealing with a specific subject or area.

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 Organizational Knowledge

1.5. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE

In general, the following characteristics can be attributed to knowledge:
• It is created dynamically (through changes to cognitive structures).

• It is intrinsically linked to people, and

• It is prerequisite for human action.

One possible and often useful – categorization of knowledge is by:

• Knowledge psychology

• Articulability

• Knowledge holder

Knowledge psychology differentiates between declarative and procedural knowledge. Whilst

declarative knowledge refers to facts (issues, processes etc.) and objects (persons, things, etc.)
Procedural knowledge concerns the way cognitive process and actions are performed.
Declarative knowledge is also described as knowledge of something (knowing) or knows what.
Procedural knowledge is also described as process knowledge, or knows – how.

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Structuring knowledge according to articulability focuses on whether or not the knowledge
holder is consciously aware of the knowledge and can thus articulate it. This results in a
differentiation between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that is
consciously understood and can be articulated. In other words, knowledge the knower is aware of
and can talk about. Tacit knowledge on the other hand, is knowledge the knower is not aware of.
It can only if at all be elicited, and thus articulated, with great effort and the use of special
observation or interview techniques.

A categorization according to knowledge holder differentiated between individual and collective

knowledge. Individual knowledge is knowledge held by one person. It is not dependent on a
specific context and is controlled by the individual concerned. Collective knowledge is
knowledge that is relevant in a specific environment. (e.g. company, club). It can include
individual knowledge that only reaches its full potential when combined with that of others (e.g..
an orchestral musician who plays better in a group than as an individual). It can also include
knowledge shared by everyone, i.e. knowledge common to all members of a collective (e.g.
everyone in the company knows who to contact if they have a problem with their PC.

Types of knowledge

Experience:

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The terms experience is often used in connection with knowledge and learning. Experience as a
state (having experience) is a subset of human knowledge and is referred to as experiential
knowledge. If on the other hand, experience is seen as a process (gaining experience) it must
then be seen as a learning process, namely experiential learning. The following central
characteristics of experiential knowledge are relevant for knowledge management.
1. Experiential knowledge is often created through observing or carrying out actions and
is therefore closely linked to procedural knowledge. Repeatedly carrying out a
particular action or actions will lead to a refining of procedural knowledge. For
example, the speed and accuracy of a particular skill is continuously improved. An
experienced grinder will make a far more sophisticated assessment of a cylinder’s
composition or differences in diameter than an apprentice. Experiential learning
processes also help us to structure and link existing knowledge. This is why
experienced employees are able to interpret new situations quickly, make appropriate
decisions and interpret new situations quickly, make appropriate decisions and initiate
any action required. A driving instructor interprets the overall picture in a particular
traffic situation, whereas a learner driver still notices the individual details
(pedestrians, traffic lights, car turning left…)
2. Experiential knowledge is primarily tacit and in most cases, transferring this
knowledge requires a huge amount of effort. Experiential knowledge comes from
personal experience of situations. It has far stronger links to a specific situation than
universally valid knowledge (e.g. a2 +b2=c2). The limited degree of universal
validity in experiential knowledge can, however, be meaningful in other situations.
No practical applications can be derived directly from universal knowledge.
3. Experiential knowledge is primarily individual knowledge since it is by nature
strongly linked to subjective feelings and emotions. We don’t experience objects,
people or situations simply as useful / impractical or new / familiar; we also
experience them as beautiful / ugly or pleasant / repulsive. Indeed, the phrase to act
on instinct clearly indicates the close links between experiential knowledge and
feelings.

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1.6. EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge management is the targeted coordination of knowledge as a factor of production and
the management of the organizational environment to support individual knowledge transfer and
the subsequent creation of collective knowledge, two essential factors in the value creation
process. Knowledge management is therefore not the management of knowledge itself, but rather
the management of the organization with a particular focus on knowledge.

To simplify this process, we differentiate between two fundamental levels; the data level and the
knowledge level. This is based on the traditional differentiation between knowledge on the one
hand and data and stimulation on the other.

There are three main aspects to knowledge: individual knowledge, action and data. The first,
individual knowledge (i.e. the sum of an individual’s capabilities and experience), determines the
possible actions open to an individual and consequently, the contributions they are able to make
to a particular project or task. The second aspect, actions, includes both physical and mental
actions (e.g. problem solving). The actions required to complete an individual task often result in
large amount of data, the third aspect to knowledge. This includes both internal data (e.g. from
other project) and external data sources such as libraries or online database.

These aspects form the operational layers in the knowledge management model illustrated in

• Knowledge level

• Data level

• Action level

The knowledge level is made up of the knowledge of the individual members of the organization
and their interaction with each other. The data level consists of all available documented
knowledge (e.g. in database or as printed documents). The knowledge and data level provide
input for the action level. This is where business processes are enacted and represents the
organization’s value creating processes.

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These three levels are linked with the five core knowledge processes (information,
documentation, communication, application and learning) to form a basic model of knowledge
management.

Knowledge Management Model

1.7. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY DOMAIN

Knowledge management draws from a wide range of disciplines and technologies.

o Cognitive science. Insights from how we learn and know will certainly improve
tools and techniques for gathering and transferring knowledge.
o Expert systems, artificial intelligence and knowledge base management
systems (KBMS). AI and related technologies have acquired an undeserved
reputation of having failed to meet their own — and the marketplaces — high
expectations. In fact, these technologies continue to be applied widely, and the
lessons practitioners have learned are directly applicable to knowledge
management.

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o Computer-supported collaborative work (groupware). In Europe, knowledge
management is almost synonymous with groupware .Sharing and collaboration is
clearly vital to organizational knowledge management — with or without
supporting technology.
o Library and information science. We take it for granted that card catalogs in
libraries will help us find the right book when we need it. The body of research
and practice in classification and knowledge organization that makes libraries
work will be even more vital as we are inundated by information in business.
Tools for thesaurus construction and controlled vocabularies are already helping
us manage knowledge.
o Technical writing. Also under-appreciated — even sneered at as a professional
activity, technical writing (often referred to by its practitioners as technical
communication) forms a body of theory and practice that is directly relevant to
effective representation and transfer of knowledge.
o Document management. Originally concerned primarily with managing the
accessibility of images, document management has moved on to making content
accessible and re-usable at the component level. Early recognition of the need to
associate "meta-information" with each document object prefigures document
management technology’s growing role in knowledge management activities.
o Decision support systems. According to Daniel J. Power, "Researchers working
on Decision Support Systems have brought together insights from the fields of
cognitive sciences, management sciences, computer sciences, operations research,
and systems engineering in order to produce both computerized artifacts for
helping knowledge workers in their performance of cognitive tasks, and to
integrate such artifacts within the decision-making processes of modern
organizations. That already sounds a lot like knowledge management, but in
practice the emphasis has been on quantitative analysis rather than qualitative
analysis, and on tools for managers rather than everyone in the organization.
o Semantic networks. Semantic networks are formed from ideas and typed
relationships among them — sort of "hypertext without the content," but with far
more systematic structure according to meaning. Often applied in such tasks as

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 textual analysis, semantic nets are now in use in mainstream professional
applications, including medicine, to represent domain knowledge in an explicit
way that can be shared.
o Relational and object databases. Although relational databases are currently
used primarily as tools for managing "structured" data — and object-oriented
databases are considered more appropriate for "unstructured" content — we have
only begun to apply the models on which they are founded to representing and
managing knowledge resources.
o Simulation. Knowledge Management suggests "simulation" as a component
technology of knowledge management, referring to "computer simulations,
manual simulations as well as role plays and micro arenas for testing out skills."
o Organizational science. The science of managing organizations increasingly
deals with the need to manage knowledge — often explicitly.

Other technologies include: object-oriented information modeling; electronic publishing

technology, hypertext, and the World Wide Web; help-desk technology; full-text search and
retrieval; and performance support systems.

1.8. BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after KM-related activities.
Different organizations have tried various knowledge capture incentives, including making
content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans.
Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no
consensus has emerged.

One strategy to KM involves actively managing knowledge (push strategy). In such an instance,
individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such
as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to
the repository .This is also commonly known as the Codification approach to KM.

Another strategy to KM involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated

with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis (pull strategy). In such an instance, expert

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individual(s) can provide their insights to the particular person or people needing this. This is
also commonly known as the Personalization approach to KM.

Other knowledge management strategies for companies include:

• rewards (as a means of motivating for knowledge sharing)

• storytelling (as a means of transferring tacit knowledge)
• cross-project learning
• after action reviews
• knowledge mapping (map of knowledge repositories within a company accessible by all)
• communities of practice
• expert directories (to enable knowledge seeker to reach to the experts)
• best practice transfer
• competence management (systematic evaluation and planning of competences of
individual organization members)
• proximity & architecture (the physical situation of employees can be either conducive or
obstructive to knowledge sharing)
• master-apprentice relationship
• collaborative technologies (groupware, etc)
• knowledge repositories (databases, bookmarking engines, etc)
• measuring and reporting intellectual capital (a way of making explicit knowledge for
companies)
• knowledge brokers (some organizational members take on responsibility for a specific
"field" and act as first reference on whom to talk about a specific subject)
• social software (wikis, social bookmarking, blogs, etc)

1.8.1. Motivations

A number of claims exist as to the motivations leading organizations to undertake a KM effort.

Typical considerations driving a KM effort include:

• Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision of

products and services

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 • Achieving shorter new product development cycles
• Facilitating and managing innovation and organizational learning
• Leveraging the expertise of people across the organization
• Increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals
• Managing business environments and allowing employees to obtain relevant insights and
ideas appropriate to their work
• Solving intractable or wicked problems
• Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the
expertise and know-how possessed by key individuals)

1.9. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

The term "knowledge management" is now in widespread use, having appeared in the titles of
many new books about knowledge management as a business strategy, as well as in articles in
many business publications. There are, of course, many ways to slice up the multi-faceted world
of knowledge management. However, it’s often useful to categorize them.

Basically there are two tracks of knowledge management

o Management of Information. To researchers in this track, knowledge = Objects

that can be identified and handled in information systems."
o Management of People. For researchers and practitioners in this field,
knowledge consists of "… processes, a complex set of dynamic skills, know-how,
etc., that is constantly changing."

This characterization is on target, but it may not capture the full flavor of the important
distinctions in approaches to organizational knowledge management. These two tracks
contain three basic approaches.

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1.9.1 Mechanistic approaches to knowledge management

Mechanistic approaches to knowledge management are characterized by the application of

technology and resources to do more of the same better. The main assumptions of the
mechanistic approach include:

o Better accessibility to information is a key, including enhanced methods of access

and reuse of documents (hypertext linking, databases, full-text search, etc.)
o Networking technology in general (especially intranets), and groupware in
particular, will be key solutions.
o In general, technology and sheer volume of information will make it work.

Assessment: Such approaches are relatively easy to implement for corporate "political" reasons,
because the technologies and techniques ,although sometimes advanced in particular areas are
familiar and easily understood. There is a practice of good sense here, because enhanced access
to corporate intellectual assets is vital. But it’s simply not clear whether access itself will have a
substantial impact on business performance, especially as mountains of new information are
placed on line. Unless the knowledge management approach incorporates methods of leveraging
cumulative experience, the net result may not be positive, and the impact of implementation may
be no more measurable than in traditional paper models.

1.9.2 Cultural/ behaviorist approaches to knowledge management

Cultural/behaviorist approaches, with substantial roots in process re-engineering and change

management, tend to view the "knowledge problem" as a management issue. Technology though
ultimately essential for managing explicit knowledge resources is not the solution. These
approaches tend to focus more on innovation and creativity (the "learning organization") than on
leveraging existing explicit resources or making working knowledge explicit.

Assumptions of cultural/behaviorist approaches often include:

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 o Organizational behaviors and culture need to be changed … dramatically. In our
information-intensive environments, organizations become dysfunctional relative
to business objectives.
o Organizational behaviors and culture can be changed, but traditional technology
and methods of attempting to solve the "knowledge problem" have reached their
limits of effectiveness. A "holistic" view is required. Theories of behavior of
large-scale systems are often invoked.
o It’s the processes that matter, not the technology.
o Nothing happens or changes unless a manager makes it happen.

Assessment: The cultural factors affecting organizational change have almost certainly been
undervalued and cultural/behaviorist implementations have shown some benefits. But the cause-
effect relationship between cultural strategy and business benefits is not clear, because the
"Hawthorne Effect" may come into play, and because we still can’t make dependable predictions
about systems as complex as knowledge-based business organizations. Positive results achieved
by cultural/behaviorist strategies may not be sustainable, measurable, cumulative, or replicable
… and employees thoroughly "Decentralized" by yet another management strategy may roll their
eyes. Time will tell.

1.9.3 Systematic approaches to knowledge management

Systematic approaches to knowledge management retain the traditional faith in rational analysis
of the knowledge problem: the problem can be solved, but new thinking of many kinds is
required. Some basic assumptions:

o Its sustainable results that matter, not the processes or technology … or your
definition of "knowledge."
o A resource cannot be managed unless it is modeled, and many aspects of the
organization’s knowledge can be modeled as an explicit resource.
o Solutions can be found in a variety of disciplines and technologies, and traditional
methods of analysis can be used to re-examine the nature of knowledge work and
to solve the knowledge problem.

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 o Cultural issues are important, but they too must be evaluated systematically.
Employees may or may not have to be "changed," but policies and work practices
must certainly be changed, and technology can be applied successfully to business
knowledge problems themselves.
o Knowledge management has an important management component, but it is not
an activity or discipline that belongs exclusively to managers.

Assessment: Unrepentant rationalists in the business world are taking a systematic approach to
solving the "knowledge problem." Systematic approaches show the most promise for positive
cumulative impact, measurability, and sustainability.

1.10. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS

The four key applications of knowledge management plays on a model that regards knowledge
management’s primary role as the sharing of knowledge throughout the organization in a way
that each individual or group understands the knowledge with sufficient depth and in sufficient
context as to apply it effectively in decision making and innovation.
These four applications of knowledge management are:
• intermediation;
• externalization;
• internalization;
• cognition.
These applications are affected across all bodies of knowledge, ranging from the explicit to the
tacit. Each application has a particular focus, but is in turn best realized through integration with
the other applications.

1.10.1. Intermediation
Intermediation is the connection between knowledge and people. Intermediation refers to the
brokerage function of bringing together those who seek a certain piece of knowledge with those
who are able to provide that piece of knowledge. It is a fundamental step in internal and external
responsiveness. Its role is to ‘‘match’’ a knowledge seeker with the optimal personal source(s) of
knowledge for that seeker. Two types of intermediation are common, asynchronous and
synchronous.

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Asynchronous intermediation occurs when externalization and internalization do not occur
simultaneously. An external knowledge repository stores the knowledge while it is in transit.
Knowledge is captured in the knowledge base, often before a specific need for that knowledge
elsewhere in the organization has arisen. When a knowledge seeker requires that knowledge, the
knowledge base can be searched and the relevant knowledge extracted. This approach is
typically best suited to explicit knowledge.
Synchronous intermediation occurs when externalization and internalization occur
simultaneously. Knowledge is not stored while being transferred. Knowledge provider and
knowledge seeker engage in direct communication. The challenge is to match knowledge
providers with knowledge seekers intuitively and in a timely manner. This approach is far more
common in tacit knowledge transfer.

1.10.2. Externalization
Externalization is the connection of knowledge to knowledge. It refers to the process of
capturing knowledge in an external repository and organizing the knowledge according to some
classification framework or ontology. A map or structure of the knowledge collection is provided
as a facilitator to knowledge discovery. It is focused on bringing order to internal and external
awareness. Far too many organizations focus their efforts on how to get knowledge out of their
knowledge management systems and too few, if any, focus on getting knowledge into the
system. A knowledge management system, like an ecosystem, cannot be constantly depleted of
its resource without constant replenishment. There are two fundamental components to
externalization: the capture and storage of the knowledge in a suitable repository, and the
classification or organization of the knowledge. Capture and storage can take the form of a
database, a document, or a videotape. The repository for this knowledge should be appropriate
for the kind of knowledge being dealt with. For example, highly numerate data may best be
stored in a structured database, while visual knowledge may best be captured using videotape.
Classification or organization of the knowledge is the more difficult of the two functions. It relies
on the knowledge possessed by the knowledge provider to shape the classification of the
information into the most usable form. The aim here is to make the knowledge digestible to the
knowledge seeker in the most efficient way possible.

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1.10.3. Internalization
Internalization is the connection of knowledge to query. It is the extraction of knowledge from an
externalized repository, and filtering it to provide personal relevance to the knowledge seeker.
Closely tied to an externalized knowledge base, internalization reshapes the knowledge base
specifically to address the focal point of the query issuer.

1.10.4. Cognition
Cognition is the linking of knowledge to process. It is the process of making or mapping
decisions based on available knowledge. Cognition is the application of knowledge that has been
exchanged through the preceding three functions. It is a highly proactive form of internal and
external responsiveness. In its simplest form, cognition is achieved by applying experience to
determine the most suitable outcome to an unprecedented event, opportunity or challenge.

2. THE ROLE OF HRM IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management has become a fashionable term in organizations today. HR defines
knowledge management as the discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying,
capturing, retrieving, sharing, and evaluating an enterprise’s information assets. These
information assets may include databases, documents, policies, and procedures as well as un-
captured, tacit expertise and experience resident in individual workers.

2.1. HR AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

There are several roles that can be played by HR in developing knowledge management system.

First, HR should help the organization articulate the purpose of the knowledge management
system. Investing in a knowledge management initiative without a clear sense of purpose is like
investing in an expensive camera that has far more capabilities than you need to take good
pictures of family and friends. Too often, organizations embrace technologies to solve problems
before they've even identified the problems they are trying to solve. Then, once they realize the
error, they find it difficult to abandon the original solution and difficult to gather the resources

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needed to invest in a solution to the real problem. Effectively framing the knowledge
management issue, before deciding on a course of action, is a crucial prerequisite for success.

Second, as a knowledge facilitator, HRM must ensure alignment among an organization's

mission, statement of ethics, and policies: These should all be directed toward creating an
environment of sharing and using knowledge with full understanding of the competitive
consequences. Furthermore, HRM must nourish a culture that embraces getting the right
information to the right people at the right time.

Third, HRM should also create the "ultimate employee experience." That is, by transforming
tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge through education, organizations must build employee
skills, competencies, and careers, creating "bench strength." This combines the traditional
training and development responsibilities of HRM with the new responsibilities of human capital
steward: using all of the organization's resources to create strategic capability. Disney's new staff
orientation, which emphasizes the firm's mission, values, and history within a context of the
"magic kingdom" experience, is an example of this process of making tacit knowledge more
visible.

Fourth, HRM must integrate effective knowledge sharing and usage into daily life. That is,
knowledge sharing must be expected, recognized, and rewarded. For many individuals and
organizations, this reverses the conventional relationship between knowledge and power. Often,
the common pattern was to hoard knowledge because it made the individual more valuable and
more difficult to replace. Effective knowledge management requires this trend to be overturned
and requires those with information to become teachers and mentors who ensure that others in
the firm know what they know. Teaching must become part of everyone's job. Clearly, for such a
cultural shift to take place, HRM must overhaul selection, appraisal, and compensation practices.
Human resource management has the capabilities for creating, measuring, and reinforcing a
knowledge-sharing expectation.

Fifth, HRM must relax controls and allow (even encourage) behaviors that, in the clockwork
world of industrial efficiency, never would have been tolerated. For example, conversations at
the water cooler were viewed in the past as unproductive uses of employee time-after all,

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employees were not at their desks completing specified tasks detailed in their job descriptions. In
the knowledge economy, conversations inside and outside the company are the chief mechanism
for making change and renewal an ongoing part of the company's culture.

As another example, consider individuals in organizations described as "gossips," who would

rather talk than work. Frederick Taylor's industrial engineers would have eliminated these
gossips from workplaces in the early twentieth century, since they did nothing that was
perceptibly valuable. However, in the knowledge economy, if the conversations are relevant to
the firm's strategic intent, these same people may be described as "knowledge brokers": those
individuals who like to move around the company to hear what is going on, sparking new
knowledge creation by carrying ideas between groups of people who do not communicate
directly. If the topics serve organizational needs, these individuals play a role similar to bees that
cross-pollinate flowers and sustain a larger ecosystem.

Organizations should selectively recognize and reward, rather than universally discourage and
punish, these types of behaviors. Clearly, not all conversation is productive and constructive.
Human resource management still must play a role in discouraging gossip that undermines,
rather than promotes, a learning community. Human resource management will need to adjust its
own perspective (from rule-enforcer) as well as that of managers and others who hold outdated
notions of what is "real work."

Sixth, HRM must take a strategic approach to helping firms manage email, instant messenger,
internet surfing, and similar uses of technology. Clearly, the Internet has a role in generating and
disseminating knowledge, and therefore is an integral part of knowledge management. But what
are the unintended effects of monitoring email, tracking employees' web searches, and similar
issues related to privacy? Certainly some control is needed, but the larger question for HRM is
determining appropriate boundaries. When does control become counterproductive? When does
excessive monitoring become an inappropriate invasion of privacy?

A related issue is HRM's role in helping firms manage the distancing consequences of electronic
communication. As employees increasingly rely on technology to communicate, they lose
opportunities to develop the rich, multifaceted relationships that encourage the communication of

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tacit knowledge. Human resource management can contribute to developing social capital by
sensitizing employees to the negative consequences of excessive reliance on electronic media
and by creating opportunities for face-to-face contact.

Seventh, HRM must champion the low-tech solutions to knowledge management. Although it
should not ignore the high-tech knowledge management tools, HRM contains the expertise to
develop low-tech knowledge management strategies. For example, when the team that developed
the Dust-buster vacuum tool was created, they were given a "war room" in which they could
spread out their materials and leave sketches, models, notes, and so on plastered on walls and
throughout the workspace. These visible outputs of their thinking processes helped create a
shared context for their efforts and turned the room into a truly collaborative workspace.

Some Asian firms, such as Dai-Ichi, create special rooms (with green tea and comfortable places
to sit), where researchers are expected to spend a half-hour daily, telling whomever they meet
about their current work. Neither of the two preceding examples requires large financial
investments in technology that will rapidly become obsolete. Yet both examples demonstrate
how HRM could help a firm orchestrate and facilitate knowledge sharing.

As can be seen from the previous discussion, the knowledge facilitator role cannot be easily
slotted into traditional HRM functions, such as training and development or compensation. The
knowledge facilitator role is much broader and requires creative integration across traditional
HRM activities. It entails both rethinking old ways of managing the workplace as well as using
innovative approaches outside the box of traditional HRM. Most important, becoming an
effective knowledge facilitator requires conceptualizing HRM as a vehicle for creating
capabilities and capitalizing on the human factor to create a community of knowledge workers.

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2.2. MAPPING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KM AND HRM

Roles
In the knowledge economy, organizations will need HRM that is characterized by a new set of
roles that can assist in generating and sustaining organizational capabilities. These new HRM
roles are those of human capital steward, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid

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deployment specialist. The human capital steward recognizes the value of intellectual capital,
must ensure that human capital is available, effective and that it will grow in value; this means
brokering the services of knowledge workers. The knowledge facilitator places emphasis on
learning and development, the effective management of knowledge, and creating environments
conducive to knowledge creation, sharing and dissemination. The relationship builder focuses on
creating and sustaining networks and communities of practice, of joining together people in
various parts of the supply chain in new ways. The rapid deployment specialist faces the
challenge of rapidly changing markets where information, business processes and organizational
design can be combined in different ways to meet ever changing dynamic environments
characteristic of life in the knowledge economy. KM has the capacity to significantly broaden
the role of the HRM professional.

Relationships
HRM in the knowledge economy should reflect a responsibility for developing and sustaining
organizational capabilities through activities that overlap with traditional business functions such
as strategy formulation and implementation, finance and marketing, as well as new functions
such as KM. This requires developing new relationships that reflect a shared responsibility
among managers, employees, customer and suppliers for HRM. KM can create a new role for
HRM that can provide the means by which to forge new relationships.

Strategic Focus
In the knowledge economy a primary focus of HRM should be the development of human capital
and the management of knowledge. Identifying a need for HR professionals to identify and
channel intellectual capital toward the development of a concise set of core competencies,
strengths and capabilities. An emphasis on traditional long term strategic development and long
range planning in HRM need to be complemented by a more short term strategic approach that
can be responsive to unpredictable, dynamic, fluid environments which characterize the
contemporary business world. In conjunction with a short-term strategic focus, organizations
need to be thinking about long-term sustainability as well as constant renewal and revitalization.
A rapid deployment specialist can respond to the need for business processes and teams that can
be rapidly mounted and then reconfigured to suit the changing needs of business environments
characteristic of the knowledge economy.

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In order to gain competitive advantage from KM, organizations need to identify core
competencies, or integrated knowledge sets, that distinguish them from competitors and add
value for customers. It refers to these knowledge sets as organizational capabilities, and suggests
that HRM can play an important role in creating and developing the organizational capabilities
required to compete in the knowledge economy. The role of the HRM professional will then
focus on integrating individual, team and organizational learning for the benefit of both
customers and shareholders.
HRM can play an important role in creating and developing the organizational capabilities that
form part of contemporary KM strategies geared to creating wealth from intellectual capital
while maintaining a commitment to sustainability imperatives.

Learning
A pivotal aspect of life in the knowledge economy is the need for learning. The emphasis on
discrete HRM practices is broadening to a focus on developing themes and creating
environments conducive to learning, as well as to the acquisition, sharing and dissemination of
knowledge within organizations. This includes creating and sustaining learning environments
and nurturing communities of practice. The new role for HRM includes managing intellectual
capital and developing human capital within the organization. There is the need for a strong
emphasis on constant renewal, or revitalization of the organization. It views human capital as the
only active asset within the organization. In referring to the four human capital domains of
acquiring, maintaining, developing and retaining, it also views the development aspect as unique
in the sense that only people can be developed. The development domain holds the key to
achieving organizational change, growing individual and team capabilities and creating value
while simultaneously attending to sustainability imperatives.
It further view employees’ collective knowledge as competitive advantage and suggest that the
HRM function is well positioned to ensure the success of KM programs which are directed at
capturing, using and re-using employees’ knowledge. Moreover, HRM can assist in employee
development, building quality, creativity, leadership and problem solving skills.
HRM can also make a significant contribution by developing expertise in how to manage
learning, reusing knowledge through lessons learned, and surfacing knowledge, know-how and
best practice behaviors. Seeing HRM as a pivotal in developing and sustaining a learning focus
through facilitating continuous learning, identifying sources of employee knowledge,

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understanding the mediators that facilitate knowledge sharing, and making information available
to employees.

3. CORPORATE EXPERIENCE RELATED TO KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT

3.1. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMET IN HINDUSTAN UNI-LEVER

In seeking to achieve its corporate purpose of meeting the everyday needs of people everywhere,
Hindustan Uni-Lever (HUL) seeks to derive its sustainable competitive advantage from what it
‘collectively knows’, how efficiently it uses what it knows and how readily it acquires and uses
new knowledge. In short, by becoming a knowledge driven organization.
‘Knowledge’ is the key asset of the company. A structured approach to knowledge management
(KM), through focus on knowledge creation, validation and sharing will increase organizational
capability for growth. HUL is therefore committed to creating systematic ways to manage
organizational knowledge. A key element of such an approach is stress on knowledge sharing
which can convert individual expertise, skills, experience and insights into organizational
knowledge. While KM seems largely commonsensical, it requires considerable planning and
organizing to effectively utilize its many initiatives. Such initiatives include culture change
initiatives, knowledge mapping and structuring techniques and processes, and information
technology.
EXAMPLES RELATED TO KNOWLEDE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN HUL
 Building communities of practice (CoP): A CoP is a team of practitioners of a knowledge
domain who come together to capture, create and share relevant knowledge and improve
the effectiveness of solutions offered. Such a team will also focus on developing best
practices, creating and maintaining knowledge repositories and developing and delivering
relevant training program to build the capability in the knowledge domain.
 IT interventions: Fundamentally, IT supports KM in two ways. Firstly by connecting
people to people, by providing ‘collaboration tools’ – which ideally are built on existing
e-mail, Internet and intranet systems. It systems also help the organization to connect
people to people in virtual communities by providing them a dialogue space for

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 conversations. Secondly, by connecting people to information and knowledge through
knowledge portals, which contain knowledge repositories and codified best practices.
Indeed, IT is a key enable for identification, codification and sharing of knowledge.
 Culture Change Initiatives: The company ability to effectively use ‘knowledge’ depends
on how enthusiastic people are about sharing it. Leveraging knowledge is possible only
when people attach value to building on each other’s ideas and sharing their insights.
Much of this is shaped by the culture of the organization. Our experience suggests that
some of the ways to create such a knowledge sharing culture would include:
 A system of reward and recognition for collaborative team effort, training and
performance development practices – activities that reinforce the discipline of sharing
and documenting knowledge to achieve business goals.
 Signaling the change to emphasize the core values of the company which underpin
knowledge sharing and winning culture. A common set of shared values is found to
be critical to guide the relationship within the company that wants pro-active
knowledge sharing.
 Knowledge strategies that encompass learning initiatives. KM cannot be practiced
without a clear focus on ‘learning’ within the organization since learning and
knowledge are interlinked.
 Key competencies linked to knowledge development and sharing need to be nurtured
and developed. These include: learning from experience, where people are actively
encouraged to search for new ideas, show willingness to discuss successes and
failures and be more open to feedback on lessons learnt; developing others through
commitment to shared insights as well as coaching; and promoting team commitment
which is based on co-operation and trust, open and active participation in team
projects including cross-functional teams, and communities of practice.

Packaging in HUL is very important for providing protection to the product in transit and storage
as well as its contribution to pack presentation/brand image. Total packaging cost is very
significant. Packaging professionals work very closely with different product categories. The
challenge is to deliver packaging and operational excellence right across all categories. The task
is to ensure that the collective knowledge of the packaging community irrespective of the

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category, to which they are linked, is fully leveraged for maximum, collective value addition.
The packaging team formed a knowledge community consisting of the packaging developing
managers and officers and packaging buyers of various businesses in the company. Some of the
key suppliers were also invited to be part of the community. This community developed a
charter. The charter included areas for improving speed and quality of innovations, identifying
opportunities for technology-led cost effectiveness and creating processes for achieving
packaging synergy through harmonization, exchange of best proven practices and cross-category
transfer of key insights obtained. The community is very focused on learning, sharing and
effective implementation of its charter. Knowledge is shared in a structured way with each team
member wearing two ‘hats’ – one of the business / category unit and the other of packaging. The
community meets periodically to share knowledge in a structured way and monitors progress on
implementation of the charter. This has enabled systematic implementation of packaging
innovation projects and preparation of best practice documents. The following approaches have
been adopted:
• Clarification of business objectives from the business team, understanding the packaging
skills chain and improving appreciation of consumer needs through participation in
‘consumer clinics.’
• The team effectively networks within HUL, as well as globally within Unilever.
• The team identifies well-defined knowledge blocks in the packaging area and appoints
sub-teams to specialize/lead in each of the knowledge blocks.
• The packaging community organizes ‘knowledge workshops’ to generate new ideas and
opportunities. It focuses on capability building through continuous skill-mapping, gap
analysis and need based training.
• The team has developed an intranet application with collaboration tools.

The case of the packaging community demonstrates that KM is essentially a process to increase
the capacity for energetic and focused action, by connecting people to people and people to
knowledge; that KM facilitates capability building; it raises the floor, raises the ceiling; that it
promotes a culture of faster transfer of best proven practices and insights; and that an organized
KM process reduces the scope for ‘reinventing the wheel’.

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3.2. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN WIPRO INFOTECH

Since its inception, Wipro InfoTech, with its open culture, has believed in cultivating knowledge
and with its business expanding, it has become all the more critical to get knowledge intensive,
and implement an enterprise wide KM system. Since there is no accepted standard framework
for KM, Wipro InfoTech has evolved a framework in accordance with its needs, to achieve its
business vision. It has been designed to build on the existing efforts in the organization and
enhance the culture of knowledge sharing and utilization. To build and sustain a KM system, a
cultural change in the propensity to share knowledge is fundamental, which is the most difficult
part of knowledge management. An organization should be able to induce the requisite
behavioral change among people who are the contributors and users of knowledge. It requires
strong leadership to bring in cultural changes, set the right direction, and continuously monitor
progress. Using appropriate rewards and recognition programmes is also necessary. This
framework encourages both bottom-up and top-down approaches to accelerate the culture
change.

Knowledge Management in Wipro InfoTech has three objectives.

 Mature the organization to a competency based and knowledge driven organization.
 Enable new technology/practices adoption for diversification and growth.
 Develop competency extension framework to create new business opportunities.

The Wipro InfoTech KM framework has three main frameworks.

 Learning,
 KEEP (Knowledge Enhancement, Extraction and Practice)
 CARE (Competency Augmentation with Research Excellence).

Learning
Learning ensures that people build their competency using a mix of tools and processes like E-
learning, competency assessment and competency development through specialized training and

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personalized instruction. Learning is based on the competency model which consists of
followings (1) Competency definition (2) Evaluation of current competency for existing
technology (3) Evaluation after developing the competency on newer technology. Competency
definitions based on proficiency and criticality exists for technical roles. Online evaluation and
assessment is used to identify current competency levels. E-learning and Instructor Lead
Training (ILT) are extensively used to bridge the gaps. E-learning includes workshops, online
mentoring and contact sessions to ensure complete learning.

KEEP
Through the KEEP (Knowledge Extraction, Enhancement and Practice) initiative, they ensure
collection of disparate knowledge and expertise within the organization into a central repository.
The knowledge is supplemented by gathering additional information from various external
resources. The four pillars of KEEP are taxonomy (a uniform structure through which knowledge
can be stored and accessed) IT enablers, practice based offering and knowledge channels.

CARE
Through CARE (Competency Augmentation through Research and Excellence), they leverage
on the expertise and knowledge built up in the organization to come up with innovative products
and services. They inculcate creative thinking within Wipro InfoTech that capitalizes on people
competency and expertise, supplementing it with a technology tracking activity, resulting in
higher intellectual property. This is done by facilitating a technology roadmap creation for
various business divisions, using external research resources and internal intelligence. This is
supplemented by a well-defined process for innovation that taps organizational creativity, and
funnels it into a rigorous engine that brings virtual teams together under an exclusive sponsor, to
take the idea forward. The organization provides a Centre of Excellence, Terra Nova, to try these
new technologies, services and products for customer effective solutions.

Effects of Knowledge Management system in Wipro InfoTech

Wipro InfoTech Services division decided to collect trouble shooting knowledge from engineers
through emails, categories it according to technical product line and make it accessible through
the web. It built thousands of technical tips and FAQ (frequently asked questions) over a period

29
of more than three years. Using this knowledge base, engineers were able to reduce the problem
resolution time. A Learning team and a KEEP team were then formed from the existing
workforce. The KM initiative began with an awareness programme conducted across Wipro
InfoTech, explaining the importance of KM at all levels. Before the KM initiative, technical
training was provided on the basis of the requirement of individual divisions, mostly through
instructor lead class room programmes. The KM Learning team worked out a common
framework of Access, Identify and Build, for the whole of Wipro InfoTech. Today technical
training is based on the centrally controlled competency model rather than division requirement.
Recently, an E-learning approach with the online portal Wisdom@ Wipro was introduced,
providing the learning resources, and this is reducing the training cost and increasing flexibility.
Competencies of all the employees are available and the competency map acts as a guiding force
for competency development.

The KEEP initiative started with the knowledge need identification workshop conducted for
business units, wherein groups of people performed an exercise and identified the critical
knowledge needs of their businesses. The seeds of an enterprise wide KM system were sown.
Road maps for individual business units were also drawn. Templates were created and used as
knowledge capturing mechanisms. Based on the initial study, the KEEP framework, unique to
Wipro InfoTech was evolved. Using the existing IT infrastructure and network, a web based KM
repository was introduced to store knowledge and enable people to have quick access.

Essentially, KM is about accessing expertise and enabling people reach experts from distant
places with ease. Managing organizational expertise through an expert system that enables the
right knowledge at the right time by connecting the knowledge need to the knowledge node is
valuable for KM. Channels were established for knowledge collection, through which
contributions from people started coming. (Generally, knowledge sharing is easier through
informal chats rather than formal rules. Efforts should be made to identify as many informal
channels as possible and make them part of the KM strategy.) Right at the beginning taxonomy
was created to store and access the content in a standard way across the business units. (Evolving
a standard and a stable taxonomy takes years of experience. Companies that have failed to do so
right at the beginning have run into difficulty later as maintaining thousands of folders become a

30
nightmare.) All employees were able to access the knowledge repository using their desktops and
laptops.

Top items of the knowledge repository were packaged and disseminated for immediate
consumption a frequent basis. The ‘Saint of the Month’ and ‘Miner of the Month’ programme
has made a great impact. People who have contributed the most are recognized as Saints and
those who use knowledge the most are recognized as Miners. More than the tangible value of
gifts given to people is the personal satisfaction that this brings to people. So far we have seen a
kind of a cultural transformation taking place within Wipro InfoTech, and KM being accepted as
vital work enabler, and the flow of knowledge collection and dissemination has started.
Knowledge Management is not an end but a journey in itself. As they progress, the need for an
advanced KM system is felt, and this is being evolved using the IT and e-business consulting
expertise available within the organization. The blueprint of a fully fledged KM system is in the
pipeline. This system will capture and reuse both explicit and tacit knowledge. Identification of
best practices in the field, a system of measurement and adequate security to protect knowledge
are also essential. To monitor and improve the effectiveness of KM, a pilot measurement is also
being started. The CARE initiative, which is the highest in the chain, is still in its infancy and
there is a growing awareness about its importance. But due to the environmental pressures, the
divisions are moving slowly. Even though the debate on knowledge management goes on, as to
whether knowledge can be managed, Wipro InfoTech has accepted the challenge on KM, and is
driving hard to become a knowledge intensive organization. They have seen initial success in our
approach and have derived benefits by deploying channels and technologies at a synchronized
speed with people involvement at the grass root level.

3.3. MAJOR OBSTACLES /BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

There are many barriers on the individual, organizational levels for knowledge management
systems. Some of the barriers related to organizational aspects are as follow:

 Top Management Involvement: In a dynamic, turbulent and uncertain environment,

members of the top management in an organization get busy managing and exploiting
marketing opportunities in the global village. When top management does not invest

31
 enough time in educating organizational members, they cannot institutionalize values and
norms and create organizational culture. In the absence of any culture building initiatives
from the top management, knowledge workers also become market focused and try to
maximize their payoffs for the knowledge they have.
 Cross-functional Ownership: A good KM system should help an organization deliver
what its markets and its customers require. Hence it should have strong linkages with
organizational strategies. The HR department should be actively associated with its
design and management. Information and network technology should be effectively
utilized for knowledge sharing and knowledge generation. Thus different functional
specialists should be involved in designing and managing the KM system. However,
organizations are usually pressed for time and do not create process to institutionalize
cross-functional ownership for the KM system. In the absence of multi-functional
involvement and ownership, KM systems do not deliver what is expected of them.
 Obstructive Organizational Structure: In hierarchical organizations, information flow
from lower to higher levels is hindered. Hierarchies limit the contributions of people at
lower levels in knowledge sharing. Interestingly, even in flatter organizations, knowledge
sharing did not occur easily. It has been observed that knowledge workers were reluctant
to learn from and share their knowledge with their colleagues.
 Lack of Pull for KM System: An organization may initiate a KM system without
defining what useful or essential knowledge is for its employees. Having created a KM
system, and under pressure to show results, the concerned authority may deposit
whatever knowledge is easily available rather than ensuring that only relevant knowledge
is incorporated in the KM system. When organizational members find that the knowledge
in the system is not relevant, they lose the motivation to use it again.
 Dysfunctional Reward System: Organizations are increasingly using big discretionary
rewards to motivate their employees for excellent performance. This makes every person
in the organization mindful of the decisive performance criteria, which again leads to
organizations using performance criteria that are tangible, visible, involving short
duration and which appear to be objective. Some of the KM processes being long-drawn,
subjective and not easily measurable, such performance criteria and reward systems
become dysfunctional for knowledge generation and knowledge sharing.

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Similar findings were reported by other studies on knowledge transfer. Ernst and Young found
that culture was the biggest barrier to knowledge transfer (54%). The other major factors that
were perceived to be barriers to knowledge transfer were top management failure to signal
importance (32%), lack of shared understanding of strategy of business model (30%),
organizational structure (28%), and lack of ownership of the problem (28%).

3.4. ADOPTING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - A CHALLENGE FOR MANAGEMENT

KM is a necessity for any organization that wishes to remain competitive, and/or the competition
has allocated budgets and personnel to develop an internal KM program.

KM has emerged as a key lever in strategic planning. KM results in the creation of an

information infrastructure providing solid, measurable benefits to the organization and has
experienced an increase in their ability to influence strategic decisions. KM has provided a
quantifiable method of measuring the contribution of performance to the entire organization.

Knowledge management continues to gain popularity in many companies as a corporate strategy;

the acceptance of standardized KM approaches has been of gaining importance. Developing
metrics to assess a corporate KM is inherently difficult due to the intangible nature of the
knowledge resources. The key to maximize the contribution of KM to an established
management practice such as HRM is to promote awareness and understanding, concerning the
implications of the essential things in approaches to KM. This requires an understanding of
deeper values and assumptions, coupled with an appropriate alignment between overall strategy
of KM and HRM. The challenge for management is to find the right mix for each specific
company or program.

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 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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4. Barnes, S. (2002) “Knowledge Management Systems: Theory and Practice”, Thompson

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