knowledge management

Question 1 – What is Knowledge Management?

The purpose of this question is to demonstrate understanding of the many-sided nature of knowledge management.
It addresses the broad learning objectives of:
Critically discuss the role and importance of knowledge management in today’s organisations
Critically discuss the issues raised by language and cultural diversity in shared knowledge systems

There are many definitions of knowledge management. Four are given below. The purpose of this question is for you to evaluate these definitions, and to reflect on your own interpretation of the subject.

• A good operational definition of knowledge management is the deliberate introduction of an improved and more effective information environment (Koenig, 1999, p. 77)

• [KM is] the capability of an organization to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization and embody it in products, services and systems. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 58)

• Knowledge management is the behaviors and processes by which a group of people maintains and increases their personal and collective actionable knowledge to compete, to increase performance and innovation, and to decrease risk. (Parsons, 2004, p. 26)

• Knowledge Management is about creating an environment that encourages people to learn and share knowledge by aligning goals, integrating bits and pieces of information within and across organizational boundaries, and producing new knowledge that is usable and useful to the organization. (Corso et al, 2006, p. 210)
(a) Briefly evaluate EACH of the definitions listed above for its usefulness to knowledge management, by considering the underlying assumptions of the definition and its scope.
You should consider such issues as: does it assume a particular view of knowledge (such as subjective/objective)? Is it more relevant to practice, or to theory? Is it relevant to a specific field (for example, business) or more generally applicable? Is it more applicable to a particular culture (for example, Western culture)? In your opinion, what are the most useful aspects of the definition, and why?

(b) Which of these definitions of KM best fits the way in which YOU view the world? Consider your background and study/work experience before this unit, and any other factors that might influence your perspective. How do you think that this viewpoint would affect the way in which you would approach a KM investigation? Would this be a problem? (Note: there is no ‘correct’ answer here – the aim is for you to reflect on what you consider knowledge management to be about from your own perspective, and what implications this may have for practice.)

You will be marked for this question on the following criteria:
• Clearly expressed discussion of the definitions in (a)
• Clearly expressed discussion of your personal reaction in (b)

Question 2 – Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques

The purpose of this question is to demonstrate understanding of the appropriate use of KM tools for organisational needs.

It addresses the broad learning objective of:
Analyse a knowledge management problem and recommend appropriate tools and techniques for its solution

This question relates to Topic 3: Knowledge Sources and KM Tools. In that topic’s lecture slides and associated reading we discussed knowledge tools under 4 categories of processes:
• creating and discovering
• explicating and externalising
• communicating and sharing
• internalising and assimilating

In this question you are to describe how different KM tools and techniques could apply to the (hypothetical) organisation described in the case study below:

Tatra are the world’s third oldest car company, which produced a number of rather advanced streamlined cars during the course of its production run. Because spare parts and manuals are hard to find for these cars, a group of amateur enthusiasts has formed the ‘Tatra Owners Spares Club’ to pool their resources. They have hired a shed to hold all the spare parts and charged a joiner’s fee for new members to defray costs. Members can get photocopies of technical documents, or buy spare parts such as bearings and seals from the Club when they are needed. A serious problem they face is that the organisers of the Club are getting older, and want to take a less active role in running the Club, while the newer members (despite their enthusiasm) are not as knowledgeable about what model of what car needed what part. In addition, the mechanics who have worked on the cars are all retiring, so the Club organisers are very keen on making videos of them doing standard overhauls of the motors, gearbox, steering, brakes and suspension with a view to making the knowledge more widely available. They have a large number of photographs, and they also have schematics that have come from the manufacturer. All of this information is being kept on a spreadsheet, which is maintained by the founders of the Club in rotation on their different computers. They have often had a problem working out which one is the latest version, and this has caused problems with lost parts etc in the past.

The Tatra Owners Spares Club want to make an inventory system that ties together the car parts, the documentation and the videos (which are not yet made). They also want to make the entire resulting system searchable from the Internet, and link up with other groups who are interested in the Tatra marque around the world.

(a) Briefly summarise the main features of the ‘Tatra Owners Spares Club’ in terms of (for example) its structure, membership, business model, topics they are concerned with, technological infrastructure, legal obligations, external organisations, and the likely “organisational culture” you might expect to find inside the organisation. This is to clarify the context for your answer to part (b), as the tools you recommend will need to fit the organisation’s needs and habits of working.

(b) Select four KM tools from the list below, and briefly describe how they might be used to help the organisation. Be as specific as you can, based on the case study description. You may need to do some research of your own into the tools. State which category (‘creating and discovering’, etc) each tool falls into. You don’t have to have one tool from each category (although you can if you like).

(c) For each of the four KM tools/techniques you identified in (b), locate an actual product/technique/standard that would address the requirements of the case study. Give the reference for the product, and briefly highlight the features of it that would be of use to the organisation. Do NOT copy and paste directly from the website.

Blogging
Database management system
Whiteboard
Lessons Learned
Expert system
Metadata scheme
Decision support system
Workflow modelling
Mind mapping
Data warehousing
Data mining
Social networking
Controlled vocabularies
Expertise locator

You will be marked for this question on the following criteria:
• A good summary of the organisation’s needs and culture in (a)
• A good description of how the tool/technique supports organisational needs in (b)
• Appropriate products, correctly referenced and usefully summarised in (c)

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