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BIS201: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND
INFORMATION GOVERNANCE
Week 1 Webina
Introduction To Knowledge Management
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TEACHING TEAM
Assoc. Prof. Andrew Levula
Unit Coordinator and
Director of Academic
Program
Email:
XXXXXXXXXX
Consultation Time: Friday
10am to 12pm
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mailto: XXXXXXXXXX
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TOPICS FOR THE WEEK
• Introducing Knowledge Management
• Knowledge, Information and Data
• Defining Knowledge, Information, Data
• Perspectives on Knowledge, Information, Data
• Defining Data, Information, and Knowledge
• The Different Types of Knowledge
• Explicit Knowledge
• Tacit Knowledge
• Embedded Knowledge
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• To explain the diversity of disciplines that constitute the field of
knowledge management
• To be able to differentiate between data, information and knowledge?
• To distinguish between different perspectives in knowledge management
• To assess the differences in the management of knowledge from ancient
to modern times
• To distinguish between the different types of knowledge?
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INTRODUCTION
• Knowledge management is essentially about
getting the right knowledge to the right person
at the right time.
• It implies a strong tie to corporate strategy,
understanding of where and in what forms
knowledge exists, creating processes that span
organizational functions, and ensuring that
initiatives are accepted and supported by
organisational members.
• Knowledge management may also include new
knowledge creation, or it may solely focus on
knowledge sharing, storage, and refinement.
Figure 1.1 Knowledge Management
Source: (Hajric, E., 2018)
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IMPLEMENTING KM
• It is important to remember that knowledge management is not about managing
knowledge for knowledge's sake (Hajric, E., 2018).
• The overall objective is to create value and leverage and refine the firm's knowledge assets
to meet organizational goals.
• Implementing knowledge management thus has several dimensions including:
• Strategy: Knowledge management strategy must be dependent on corporate strategy. The
objective is to manage, share, and create relevant knowledge assets that will help meet
tactical and strategic requirements.
• Organizational Culture: The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the
context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain
changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge.
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IMPLEMENTING KM CONT.
• Organizational Processes: The right processes, environments, and systems that enable KM
to be implemented in the organization.
• Management & Leadership: KM requires competent and experienced leadership at all
levels. There are a wide variety of KM-related roles that an organization may or may not
need to implement, including a CKO, knowledge managers, knowledge
okers and so on.
More on this in the section on KM positions and roles.
• Technology: The systems, tools, and technologies that fit the organization's requirements -
properly designed and implemented.
• Politics: The long-term support to implement and sustain initiatives that involve virtually all
organizational functions, which may be costly to implement (both from the perspective of
time and money), and which often do not have a directly visible return on investment.
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KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
• Driven by knowledge intangibles rather than natural resources, capital or
low skilled labou
• Economic performance based on knowledge, technology and learning
• Mobilising knowledge to add value to goods and services
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KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY (CONTINUED)
• Knowledge added to products and services in West and built in low wage
economies
• India & China developing highly educated labour force
• Recent survey showed 80% of new corporate R&D sites and personnel of
top firms are in India and China
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WHAT’S ALL THE KM FUSS?
• KM started around the mid-1990s
• Knowledge seen as the most important source of competitive advantage
• Came from consultant beginnings
• Some strongly into IT, some strongly into HR and some into strategy
• Academic roots in organisational learning, information systems, strategy
and finance
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TREE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Figure 1.2 Tree of knowledge management – disciplines, content and activity
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GROUP DISCUSSION
• Which aspect of knowledge management are you good at?
• How would you go about managing knowledge in an organisation given
your own bias or leaning?
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DEFINITIONS OF KM
Table 1.1 Representative sample of knowledge management definitions
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DIMENSIONS OF KM
Figure 1.3 Dimensions of knowledge management
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GROUP DISCUSSION
• Do you think information systems can provide the solution to most
organisational problems? If not, why not?
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DATA, INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE
Figure 1.4 Data, information, knowledge and purposeful action
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DATA, INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE
• Theirauf XXXXXXXXXXdefines the
three components as follows:
• data is the lowest point, an
unstructured collection of
facts and figures;
• information is the next level,
and it is regarded as
structured data;
• finally, knowledge is defined
as "information about
information".
Figure 1.5 Data, Information and Knowledge (Source: Hajric, E., 2018)
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INFORMATION
• Information: For data to become information, it must be
contextualized, categorised, calculated and condensed (Davenport
& Prusak XXXXXXXXXXInformation thus paints a bigger picture; it is data
with relevance and purpose (Bali et al 2009).
• It may convey a trend in the environment, or perhaps indicate a
pattern of sales 16 for a given period of time. Essentially
information is found "in answers to questions that begin with such
words as who, what, where, when, and how many“ (Ackoff 1999).
• IT is usually invaluable in the capacity of turning data into
information, particularly in larger firms that generate large
amounts of data across multiple departments and functions. The
human
ain is mainly needed to assist in contextualisation.
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KNOWLEDGE
• Gamble and Blackwell (2001), based closely on a previous definition by
Davenport & Prusak:
• "Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual
information, expert insight, and grounded intuition that provides an
environment and framework for evaluating and incorporating new
experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the mind of
the knowers. In organizations it often becomes embedded not only in
documents or repositories, but also in organizational routines, practices
and norms."
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GROUP DISCUSSION
• What is the best way of memorising
something?
• What are the problems of using
memory for knowledge sharing?
Figure 1.6 Scribe comparing two texts in a monastery (© The British Li
ary Board (Lansdowne 1179 f34v))
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ANCIENT TIMES: KNOWLEDGE & ORAL
TRADITIONS
• Utilises natural human memory
• Requires prolonged contact between two or more individuals
• Lengthy process spent memorizing information leaving little room for
critical evaluation
• Recited traditional rituals, myths, legends, music and epic poems
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SUMERIANS & CUNEIFORM
• Sumerians emerged in Mesopotamia
around 3500 BC
• Developed writing system called
cuneiform
• Three-corned stylus cut different
combination of wedges (‘cunei’) into
damp clay tablets
• Early tablets mainly contained
numbers – precursor to money
• Used for land management, bills, taxes
and contracts
• Developed ‘archive mindedness’
Figure 1.7 Example of cuneiform writing (this records the allocation of beer) (© The Trustees of the British Museum)
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KING ASHURBANIPAL’S LIBRARY
• Writing becomes an artificial memory with an objective
existence
• Training required many years of arduous study under
headmaster or ummia in ‘tablet houses’
• House of Knowledge (bit mummi) contained around 1200
distinct texts
• Omen texts predominate
• Includes literary and archival material and horoscopes,
incantations, prayers, hymns, fables, prove
s and poetry
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WRITING DEVELOPMENT
• Different technology used to make knowledge more
transportable than clay or stone tablets
• Wood, bamboo, bark, palm leaf, bone, ivory, leather,
metal, cloth, silk, Papyrus (Egyptian) and Chinese pape
• Thought writing – transmit ideas visually through
objects and human representations such as 50,000
Chinese characters and 700 Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Sound writing – phonetics can manage with
20–50 signs
• More information can be stored in less space
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ANCIENT GREECE
• Books written on papyrus rolls or parchment
• Aristotle’s Lyceum and Plato’s Academy possessed a
li
ary
• Pergamum li
ary in Asia Minor housed around
160,000 rolls
• Collection had some 200,000 books and a catalogue
• Possibly seized by Mark Anthony in 41 BC and
presented as a gift to Cleopatra but scholars are divided
as to the accuracy of this information
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RISKS TO KNOWLEDGE IN ANCIENT
ROME
• Li
aries vulnerable to fires
• Damage to texts by insects or frequent handling
• When Ovid fell from favour with Augustus, his works
were removed from li
aries in 8 AD
• Triumph of Christianity over paganism in 4th century
led to decay of traditional culture
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MEDIEVAL LIBRARIES
• Adherents of Latin Christendom preserved recall of the
past
• Scrolls changed from papyrus to parchment
• Books invented as practical information conveyance
and valued commodity or revered object, art and
artefact simultaneously
• Table of contents and indexes first appeared
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GROUP DISCUSSION
• Why was print seen as a threat to knowledge sharing in the 15th century?
• What are the limitations of print?
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PRINTING & KNOWLEDGE SHARING
• In 1455 Johann Gutenberg invented printing with movable
type and printed 42-line Bible
• 16th century – new technology of copperplate engraving
improved quality
• 1545 – as books proliferated Conrad Gesner published
Bibliotheca Universalis
• Literacy rose as a result of printing press with Protestanism
emphasis on private reading of Bible
• 18th century – introduction of newspapers, mechanisation
of bookmaking process and cheap wood pulp
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IT & KNOWLEDGE SHARING
• Computers leading to ‘paperless’ society but increased
paper to be stored as printout backups
• ‘Information explosion’ leads li
aries to share
esources
• Print has limitations – learning based on dialogue
• Dialogue through email, groupware and video
conferencing systems
• Can store vast amounts of data into data warehouses
for store, analysis and retrieval
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ROOTS OF MODERN-DAY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
• Organisational learning
• Psychology
• Information systems
• Strategic management
• Culture
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TIME FOR REFLECTION
What lessons can we learn from history to improve the
quality of knowledge management within organisations?
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