Chapter 2

Knowledge
1 Management Foundations and Solution :
Infrastructure, Mechanisms, and Technologies

 Knowledge Management Foundations and Solutions

 Knowledge Management Infrastructure
 Knowledge Management Mechanisms
 Knowledge Management Technologies
 Knowledge Management Processes
 Knowledge Management Systems
 2.1. KM Solutions and Foundations
2

 Knowledge Management (KM) involves the organized and

strategic management of an organization's knowledge assets to
generate value and fulfill both tactical and strategic needs.

 strategy determines where you want to go.

 tactics determine how you’ll get there”

 Strategy is required to set the direction and destination of the

organization, and tactics are required to define the concrete
actions you’ll take to reach your destination.
 Knowledge Management Involves
3

• KM in organization is formed/designed via unique

patterns of interactions between people, technologies
and process.

• People, technologies and process are the three pillars

that support KM.
4 KM Involves :
 People, Technology and Processes that are
overlapping.
 It means interdependent parts of a whole.
 A change in one of the parts will result in an
effect on the others.
 Studies revealed that effective KM depends on:
 80% - Organizational processes and human factors
 20% - Technology
PEOPLE
ORGANIZATIONAL
OVERLAPPING PROCESSES
FACTORS TECHNOLOGY
5 The “People” factor
 KM relies on the active involvement and participation of
individuals within an organization.
 This includes employees, experts, managers, and other
stakeholders who possess valuable knowledge and
expertise.
 People play a critical role in identifying, capturing, and
transferring knowledge, as well as in using and applying it
to achieve organizational goals.
 People generate, share, apply knowledge and stimulate
knowledge sharing.
6 The “processes” factor
 Implementing effective processes is essential for the
efficient management of knowledge.
 This involves creating mechanisms and procedures for
identifying, collecting, validating, and organizing
knowledge.
 Processes may include creating communities of practice,
conducting knowledge audits, developing knowledge
repositories, and creating workflows for knowledge
creation and sharing.
 The process of KM involves various methods for
acquiring, creating, organizing, sharing, & transferring
knowledge.
7 The “Technology” factor
 Technology plays a vital role in supporting Knowledge
Management initiatives.
 It provides tools and platforms that enable the capture,
storage, retrieval, and sharing of knowledge.
 This may include intranets, databases, document
management systems, collaboration tools, social media
platforms, and search engines.
 Technology helps facilitate the seamless /continuous flow
of knowledge across the organization and makes it easily
accessible to the users.
 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
8 SOLUTIONS AND FOUNDATIONS
• Knowledge management depends on two broad aspects: KM
solutions and KM foundations.
• KM solutions refer to the ways in which specific aspects of KM
(discovery, capture, sharing, and application of knowledge) can
be accomplished.
• KM solutions include KM processes and KM systems.
• KM foundations are the broad organizational aspects that
support KM in the short- and long-term.
• They include KM infrastructure, KM mechanisms, and KM
technologies.
 Thus, KM solutions depend on KM foundations.
 2.2. KM Infrastructure (KMI)
9

 KM infrastructure reflects the long-term foundations for knowledge

management.
 Refers to the systems, processes, and tools that facilitate the
creation, sharing, organization, and retrieval of knowledge within an
organization.
 It includes both technological and human components that support
the knowledge management efforts.
 In an organizational context, KMI includes five major components:
 Organization culture
 Organization structure
 Organization’s information technology infrastructure
 Common knowledge, and
 Physical environment
 10 Organization culture
 Reflects the norms and beliefs that guide the behavior of
the organization's members.
 It is an important enabler of KM in organizations.
 Attributes of enabling organizational culture include:
 Understanding the value of KM practices
 Managing support for KM at all levels
 Incentives that reward knowledge sharing, and
 Encouragement of interaction for the creation and sharing of
knowledge.
 11 Organization structure
 KM also depends to a considerable extent on the
organization structure .
 Organizational structure determines the manner or way &
extent to which roles, power, & responsibilities are delegated,
controlled, and coordinated, and
 How information flows between levels of management.
 The most common organization structures are: hierarchical,
centralized and decentralized, flat and tall.
12
 Hierarchical Structure: The most common,

 Where there are multiple levels of management and employees

organized in a pyramid-like fashion.

 Decision-making authority typically flows from top to bottom, with

clear roles and responsibilities defined for each level.

 Centralized Structure: Decision-making power and authority are

concentrated at the top level of management or central authority or a small
group of top executives.

 This structure allows for greater consistency and control but may
result in slower decision-making and lack of responsiveness to local
needs.
13 
Decentralized Structure: Decision-making authority is dispersed among
multiple individuals or teams throughout the organization.

 Power and decision-making are delegated to lower levels, allowing for

faster decision-making and responsiveness to local needs. It promotes
employee empowerment and autonomy but may result in inconsistent
decision-making across units.

 Flat Structure: there are few to no layers of management between the top
executives and employees.

 It promotes open communication and quick decision-making, as there are

fewer levels to pass through.

 This structure usually exists in smaller organizations or startups, where the

emphasis is on collaboration and innovation.
 14 IT Infrastructure (ITI)
 KM is also facilitated by the organization's IT
Infrastructure.
 Used to support the organization's information systems needs, also
facilitates knowledge management.
15 IT Infrastructure
 The IT Infrastructure is the combination of data processing, storage, and
communication technologies and systems (databases, servers, computers,
information devices, etc.) and the processes that make it all work.

 It comprises the entire spectrum of organization's information systems, including

TPS and MIS.

 It consists of databases and data warehouses, as well as enterprise resource planning

systems.

 ERP a type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business

activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management
and compliance, and supply chain operations
 16 Common Knowledge
 Common Knowledge represents another important component of
the infrastructure that enables KM .

 It refers to the organization's cumulative experiences in

comprehending a category of knowledge and activities and

 the organizing principles that support communication and

coordination.

 Common knowledge provides unity to the organization.

 17 Common Knowledge
 It enhance the value of an individual expert's knowledge
by integrating it with the knowledge of others.
 Common knowledge includes:
 A common language and vocabulary,
 Recognition of individual knowledge domains,
 Common cognitive schema
 Shared norms, and
 Elements of specialized knowledge that are common across
individuals sharing knowledge
 18 Physical Environment
 The significance of the physical environment within an organization
is often overlooked/ often taken for granted, but it serves as
another crucial foundation for Knowledge Management.

 Key aspect of the physical environment include:

 The design of buildings and the separation between them;

 The location, size, and type of offices;

 The type, number, and nature of meeting rooms; and so on.

 19 KM Infrastructure: Physical Environment

 The physical environment can foster KM by creating

opportunities for employees to gather and exchange
ideas.
 Coffee rooms, cafeterias, water coolers, and hallways do
provide venues where employees learn from and share
insights/cognitive/vision/understanding with each other.
 2.3. KM Mechanisms
20

 KM Mechanisms are organizational or structural means

used to promote KM.
 They enable knowledge management systems, and they are
themselves supported by the knowledge management
infrastructure.
 KMM may (or may not) utilize technology, but they do
involve some kind of organizational arrangement or social
or structural means of facilitating knowledge management.
 Knowledge Management Mechanisms
21

 Examples of KM Mechanisms includes:

 Learning by doing,
 On-the-job training,
 Learning by observation, and
 Face-to-face meetings.
 More long- term KM mechanisms include the hiring of a Chief Knowledge
Officer, cooperative projects across departments, and employee rotation across
departments.
 2.4. KM Technologies
22

 KM Technologies are information technologies that can

be used to facilitate knowledge management.
 KM Technologies are intrinsically no different from
information technologies, but they can focus on
knowledge management rather than information
processing.
 KM Technologies also support KM systems and benefit
from the KM infrastructure, especially the information
technology infrastructure.
 KM technologies constitute a key component of KM
systems.
 23 Knowledge Management Technologies
 Technologies that support KM include artificial intelligence (AI)
technologies including those used for knowledge acquisition and
case-based reasoning systems, electronic discussion groups,
computer-based simulations, databases, DSS, enterprise resource
planning systems, ES, MIS, expertise locator systems, videoconferencing, and
information repositories including best practices databases and lessons learned
systems.
 KM technologies also include the emergent Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis and blog.
 A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate with each other through social media
dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community.
 A blog, short for weblog, is a frequently updated web page used for personal commentary or
business content. page that is a part of a larger website.
 A wiki is a web-based collaborative platform that enables users to store, create and modify content
in an organized manner.
 24 Knowledge Management Processes
 Knowledge Management processes refer to the ways that an
organization handles knowledge at various stages of its life in an
organization (KM cycle).

 There are four main KM processes, and each process comprises

two sub-processes:

 Knowledge discovery (Combination & Socialization)

 Knowledge capture (Externalization & Internalization)

 Knowledge sharing (Socialization and Exchange)

 Knowledge application (Direction and Routines)

 25 KM Processes: Knowledge Discovery
 Knowledge discovery may be defined as the development of new tacit or
explicit knowledge from data and information or from the synthesis of prior
knowledge.

 The discovery of new explicit knowledge relies most directly on combination,

whereas the discovery of new tacit knowledge relies most directly on
socialization.

 New explicit knowledge is discovered through combination, wherein the

multiple bodies of explicit knowledge (data and/or information) are synthesized
to create new, more complex sets of explicit knowledge.
 26 CONT..
 This happens through communication, integration, and
systemization of multiple streams of explicit knowledge.
 Existing explicit knowledge, data and information are
reconfigured, recategorized, and recontextualized to produce new
explicit knowledge.
 Example: Data mining techniques may be used to uncover new
relationships among explicit data that may be lead to create
predictive or categorization models that create new knowledge .
 27 KM Processes: Knowledge Discovery
 In the case of tacit knowledge, the integration of multiple streams
for the creation of new knowledge occurs through the mechanism of
socialization.

 Socialization is the synthesis of tacit knowledge across

individuals, usually through joint activities rather than written or
verbal instructions.

 Examples: By transferring ideas and images, apprenticeships help

newcomers to see how other think.
 28 KM Processes: Knowledge Capture
 Knowledge capture is the process by which knowledge is
converted from tacit to explicit form (residing/exist in within
people, artifacts or organizational entities) and vice versa through
the sub-processes of externalization and internalization.

 The knowledge being captured might reside outside the

organizational boundaries including consultants, competitors,
customers, suppliers, etc.
 29 KM Processes: Knowledge Capture
 Externalization is the sub- process through which an
organization captures the tacit knowledge its workers
possess so that it can be documented, verbalized and
shared. This is a difficult process because tacit knowledge
is often difficult to articulate.
 Internalization is the sub- process through which
workers acquire tacit knowledge. It represents the
traditional notion of learning.
 Knowledge capture can also be conducted outside an
organization.
 30 KM Processes: Knowledge Sharing
 Knowledge sharing is the process through which explicit or
tacit knowledge is communicated to other individuals.
 Typical Examples of Knowledge Sharing: (Writing books or
research, Delivering a lecture or making a speech, Participating in
Communities of Practice)
 Depending on whether explicit or tacit knowledge is being
shared, exchange or socialization processes are used.
 Exchange is used to communicate or transfer explicit
knowledge among individuals, groups and organizations.
 31 KM Processes: Knowledge Application
 Knowledge application is when available knowledge is
used to make decisions and perform tasks through
routines and direction.
 Both direction and routines are applicable to either tacit or
explicit knowledge.
 Application does not require the person applying the
knowledge to understand it.
 Routines involve the utilization of knowledge embedded
in procedures, rules, norms and processes that guide
future behavior.
 32 KM Processes: Knowledge Application
 Direction refers to the process through which the
individual possessing the knowledge directs the action of
another individual without transferring to that
individual the knowledge underlying the direction. It is
more that an individual who possesses knowledge advises
another.
 For example, direction is the process used when a production
worker calls an expert to ask her how to solve a particular
problem with a machine and then proceeds to solve the problem
based on the instructions given by the expert.
 33 Knowledge Management Systems
 Knowledge Management Systems are the integration of
technologies and mechanisms that are developed to
support the four KM processes (discovery, capture,
sharing, and application).
 Knowledge Management Systems can be classified into
four:
 Knowledge Discovery Systems
 Knowledge Capture Systems
 Knowledge Sharing Systems
 Knowledge Application Systems.
 KM Systems: Knowledge Discovery Systems
34

 Knowledge Discovery Systems support the process of

developing new tacit or explicit knowledge from data and
information or from the synthesis of prior knowledge.
 These systems support two KM sub processes associated
with knowledge discovery:
 Combination, enabling the discovery of new explicit
knowledge; and
 Socialization, enabling the discovery of new tacit
knowledge.
 35 KM Systems: Knowledge Capture Systems
 Knowledge Capture Systems support the process of
retrieving either explicit or tacit knowledge that resides
within people, artifacts, or organizational entities.
 These systems can help capture knowledge that resides
within or outside organizational boundaries including
within consultants, competitors, customers, suppliers,
and prior employers of the organization's new
employees.
 36
KM Systems: Knowledge Sharing Systems
 Knowledge Sharing Systems support the process through which
explicit or tacit knowledge is communicated to other individuals.
Knowledge sharing systems are classified according to their
attributes
• Incident report databases
• Alert systems
• Best practices databases
• Lessons-learned systems
• Expertise locator systems
KM Systems: Knowledge Application Systems

 Knowledge Application Systems support the process through which

some individuals utilize knowledge possessed by other individuals
without actually acquiring, or learning, that knowledge.
37

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