TERM PAPER ON

MANAGEMENT PRATICES &

ORGANIZATION BEHIVAOUR

Topic: - MANAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN
T
The term paper what I have presented is not the
made outcome of my own labour alone , there are
dozens of hands help’s me to complete all through
the program .
My sincere thanks to Miss Priynka chibber
Internal guide for guiding me to work on this term
paper.

SUBMITTED BY:-
 Sushil Kumar
Roll no. A-19
MBA 1st semester

Agenda

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

(KM)
DEFINITION(S)
HISTORY
KEY CONCEPTS
 FIRST, WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE
 In simplest terms, knowledge is the ability of an
actor to respond to a body of facts and principles
accumulated over a period of time

 One way to look at knowledge is as the apogee of

the following continuum –
datainformationknowledge
 Data=1 unit of fact; information=aggregation of
data; knowledge=potential for action on
information

 Data and information have intrinsic properties,

the quality of knowledge depends on the
properties of the agent

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?

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From tacit to articulate knowledge

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 Articulated
Tacit
High Low
At Knowledge Praxis, we define knowledge management as a
business activity with two primary aspects:
○ Treating the knowledge component of business
activities as an explicit concern of business reflected
in strategy, policy, and practice at all levels of the
organization.
○ Making a direct connection between an organization’s
intellectual assets — both explicit [recorded] and tacit
[personal know-how] — and positive business results.
In practice, knowledge management often encompasses
identifying and mapping intellectual assets within the
organization, generating new knowledge for competitive
advantage within the organization, making vast amounts of
corporate information accessible, sharing of best practices,
and technology that enables all of the above — including
groupware and intranets.

ArticulatedModifiability
 That covers a lot of ground. And it should, because
applying knowledge to work is integral to most business
activities.
Knowledge management is hard to define precisely and
simply. (The definition also leapfrogs the task of defining
"knowledge" itself. We’ll get to that later.) That’s not
surprising. How would a nurse or doctor define "health
care" succinctly? How would a CEO describe
"management"? How would a CFO describe
"compensation"? Each of those domains is complex, with
many sub-areas of specialization. Nevertheless, we know
"health care" and "management" when we see them, and
we understand the major goals and activities of those
domains.

There is no universal definition for knowledge

management

At its broadest, KM is the ‘process through which

organizations generate value from intellectual
and knowledge based assets’
KNOWLEDGE ASSETS

 There are two types of knowledge assets –

Motivation 7
Management
  Explicit or formal assets like copyrights,
patents, templates, publications, reports,
archives, etc.
 Tacit or informal assets that are rooted in
human experience and include personal
belief, perspective, and values
The value of KM
 It is important to manage knowledge assets
because –
 Organizations compete increasingly on the
base of knowledge (the only sustainable
competitive advantage, according to some)
 Most of our work is information based (and
often immersed in a computing
environment)
 Our products, services, and environment
are more complex than ever before
 Workforces are increasingly unstable
leading to escalating demands for
knowledge replacement/acquisition
The development of KM
 Today, KM draws from a wide range of
disciplines/practices –
  Cognitive science
 Groupware, AI, KBMS
 Library and information science
 Document management
 Decision support systems
 Technical writing
 Organizational science
 Many more

The knowledge
management challenge

The majority of a
company’s valuable
knowledge is tacit and
resists being articulated
11
KM TODAY (CATCH-ALL?)

 There is a great risk today of KM over-reaching

itself
  Everything from organizational learning to
business and competitive intelligence has
become fair game for KM
 There are KM components to each of these
but these spaces are however best left to
specialized practitioners

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT?
• Profitable growth through higher efficiency and
innovation
– Preventing the waste of valuable resources -
avoid reinventing the wheel
– Ensuring the use of leading-edge technology
and thinking across the firm 28
– Innovation
Increasing customer satisfaction through shorter
8
lead-times and consistent behavior Helping
– Creating a competitive cost structure Best-practice
– Facilitating breakthrough and incremental
innovations through combination of
technologies and ideasKnowledge management
from across and outside
the firm
• An attractive workplace that encourages cross-
functional co-operation across the globe
THE SCOPE OF KM
– Attracting and retaining key individuals 21

21
Today, most companies define the scope of KM as –
 KM mechanics (tools for information
management)
 KM culture (knowledge as a social activity)
 KM systems (knowledge sharing as part of
an organization’s DNA)

WHY WE NEED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT NOW

Why do we need to manage knowledge? Ann Macintosh of the
Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (University of
Edinburgh) has written a "Position Paper on Knowledge Asset
Management" that identifies some of the specific business
factors, including:
○ 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.

KM MECHANICS
 Information management may well be
considered the first wave of KM (and is still
often considered synonymous with KM)
  Information management tries to make the
right information available to the right person
at the right time though a variety of database
driven information applications
 Information management tools try to capture
the human experience of knowledge through
the collecting, classifying, disseminating,
searching, indexing, and archival power of
technology

Limitations of mechanical KM
 Reliance on technology produces consensual
knowledge (over-reliance on best practices for
instance) and may stifle innovation
 The notion that ‘right information’ is
predictable and flows from historical data may
be flawed
 Making information available in not enough;
getting people to use it is more critical

KM culture
 All knowledge has a social and evolutionary
facet
  There is a crying need to continuously subject
knowledge to re-examination and modification
 It is important to keep the human and social
elements of organization involved in all stored
knowledge
KM culture through CoP
 Communities of practice (or thematic groups)
are a popular way of injecting KM culture in an
organization
 CoPs are fora where members share
information and experiences, develop new
insights, assimilate and transform knowledge
 CoPs emphasize shared interests and work
across locations and time zones (often using
technology developed during KM’s first wave)
Information technology for KM

1)Stocks of knowledge: Database and

database management systems to collect
and hold information
2)Flows of knowledge: Communication
channels to connect individuals
independent of location

IT is an enabler! 14
KM systems
  KM succeeds fully when it is woven into the
fabric of an organization and becomes intrinsic
to an organization’s processes
 Common practices include –
 Formal KM leadership
 Formal rewards and recognition for KM
oriented work
 Tools and mechanisms that encourage
knowledge sharing
 Development of knowledge bases
 Intellectual asset management
 Metrics to evaluate KM initiatives

KM systems today
  In many ways, the systemic approach is the
logical culmination of KM mechanics and KM
culture
 Many KM systems are however not yet robust
enough –
 KM metrics (surveys, benchmarking,
cost/benefit studies, service evaluation) are
still an inexact science
 Knowledge workers are often KM resistant
(KM is frequently considered an oxymoron)
KM – the report card
 Clearly, the jury is still out on KM though there
is increased acceptance that KM can be central
to organizational success
 The key achievements of KM have been in
emphasizing that –
 There is a tacit dimension of knowledge
creation which must be recognized and
valued
 Knowledge is subjective and interpretative
and distinct from raw data or information
 Meaning is central to knowledge creation
  Knowledge is social and interactive in
nature
 Technology is an inalienable aspect of KM

PHYSICAL LAYOUT

AN ORGANIZATION’S OFFICE LAYOUT

REFLECTS A COMPANY’S KNOWLEDGE FLOWS

IN FUTURE-KM
In the future each one of us will be able to understand and argue for the
benefits of Knowledge Management (KM).
 Everybody does not have to 'know' everything as long as they know
where to instantly get the knowledge.
Things that look futuristic today will be part of the everyday life of the
future. In the future each one of us will be able to understand and argue
for the benefits of knowledge management. The focus of the skills and
experience for managers at every level, sought for by future employers,
will be dramatically different. Instead of asking for the actual knowledge
of being able to perform work, the employer will more and more ask for
skills in handling and managing such knowledge. Everybody does not
have to 'know' everything as long as they know where to instantly get
the knowledge. The word instantly is very important - if knowledge
cannot be obtained instantly, the 'knowledge' does 'not exist' and is
therefore useless.
A few years ahead, we will be looking back and wonder why we did we
not do things differently and ask ourselves:
• How many problems did we not see, because we were
too busy handling data instead of knowledge?
• How many opportunities did we miss, because we did
not have tools that supported us to be pro-active?
• How could we accept doing those boring and frustrating
tasks?
• How little did the people and organizations actually
know about their network and organizations?
Imagine the following future scenario: A KM-tool has been
implemented at a mobile operator. Most types of knowledge can be
expressed in the tool. The organization consist of a knowledge managers
and experts in each field (department), e.g., planning, optimization,
marketing, IT and service introductions.

CONCLUSION
 Where do we stand at the moment, and where do we go
from here? We conclude with a thought from Bo Newman,
via email:
  As attested to in numerous articles in the popular press,
knowledge management has already been embraced as a
source of solutions to the problems of today’s business.
Still it has not been easy for this "science" to construct for
itself that royal road of self validation. On the contrary, I
believe that it is still, at least for the majority of the
practitioners and their customers, in the stage of blind
groping after its true aims and destination.
 Enough said … for the moment. Let’s change the end of
this story.

KM READINGS/REFERENCES
 Good sources on the internet include
 The KM forum (http://www.km-forum.org/)
 The CIO magazine’s knowledge
management research center
(http://www.cio.com/research/knowledge/)
 The KMNetwork (http://www.brint.com/km/)
 The KM resource center
(http://www.kmresource.com/exp.htm)

KM READINGS/REFERENCES – CONTD.
 The KM literature is vast, but good starting
points include –
 Nonaka, Ikujiro, and Hirotaka Takeuchi.
The Knowledge-Creating Company.
 Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The
Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization