KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - THE NEXT FAD TO FORGET PEOPLE?

- JACKY SWAN, HARRY SCARBROUGH, JOHN PRESTON

Introduction Defining Knowledge Management Review Of The KM Literature Conditions Of Successful Diffusion Of

Knowledge Management Conditions For The Effective

Implementation Of Knowledge Management

Conclusions: KM – The Next Fad To Forget People?

Agenda

Focus Of This Review

Conditions For Successful Diffusion

Of KM Conditions For Effective Implementation Of KM

Defining Knowledge Management

KM – Any process or practice of creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing and using knowledge, where ever it resides, to enhance learning and performance in organizations.

- (Quintas et al., Prusak)

To Mobilize Knowledge Base

To Ensure Continuous Innovation in Projects

Context for KM

Ris

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Man

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Review of KM Literature

KM Literature

Biased Towards

Moving Away

Organizational Issues

KM is in danger of becoming the next “fad to forget people” It is a re-labelling of information management

rather than a genuinely innovative attempt to leverage knowledge in the organization

Literature Review Methodology

Review was conducted for

Quantitative

Analysis

• was conducted in PQD and BIDS ISI for core search items (KM)

Additional Sources

• Web sites, book listings

Categorization

• Based on themes, topics

Review covered “Learning Organization” as well as KM literatures

Review adopted three

approaches

Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis

Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis

Learning Organization

KM

Has KM taken over the learning organization baton?

Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis

Literature Review Methodology – Quantitative Analysis

70%

Conditions for the Successful Diffusion of Knowledge

Management• Conventional diffusion studies emphasize the

portability and testability of new ideas and their fit with existing practices.

• Diffusion inevitably implies the shaping and repackaging of ideas, re-defining or selecting out some critical elements and amplifying others.

KM as Knowledge Technology and the Neglect of People

KM articles focus on developing and implementing KM databases and tools.

KM is treated as implementation of new IT systems for knowledge sharing.

To become accessible and portable, ideas on KM have to be extracted from their local context.

Incentives for intermediaries and firms to engage in diffusion and adoption of these ideas.

Black-boxing KM as technology addresses this need.

This depends on establishing a new, globalized relationship between tool and context.

Socially and culturally embedded knowledge is typically re-presented within the technology as an epistemic hierarchy.

Heterogeneous human commitments and interactions which contribute to organizational knowledge in practice are sublimated into discrete, universal categories.

Much of the richness if human relations is lost in repackaging of KM as technology.

The implications of this bias in KM is clear in the literature’s treatment of tacit knowledge.

Emphasis on codification in KM reflects the harder edge of the IT/IS lens on KM.

Incorporation of KM in Managerial Fashion Cycle

Majority of KM articles are practice rather than theory driven.

Widely argued that KM is more than just a new fad.

Role of Professional Networks

IS/IT and Computer Science community provides an important professional sponsor for the diffusion of KM.

KM literature focuses mostly at the level of specific KM projects rather than at the level of broader organizational change initiatives.

The advantage is that the practical implications and outcomes of KM projects are relatively easy to see.

Codified systems in KM means the responsibility for KM has fallen to those experts who are well equipped to develop IT strategy.

Colonization of KM is another explanation for the marginalization of employees and people management concerns.

This literature highlights attitudes to knowledge formation and sharing within organizations.

Acknowledging these issues is the key for the likely success/failure of attempts to implement KM.

Conditions for the Effective Implementation of Knowledge

Management• Based on research largely stemming from organizational

theory some key concerns have been identified.• This has several implications on KM like:• Multifaceted, multilayered, distributed, situated and

subjective nature of knowledge.• Different kinds of organizations have different

manifestations of knowledge.• Core assumption of literature on KM is that technology

enables effective KM.

Overstate the codifiability of knowledge

Overemphasize the utility of new ITs for delivering organizational performance improvements

Make unjustified assumptions about the willingness of employees to use

such IT systems

Codification of tacit knowledge into formal systems may generate its own

pathology

Problems with pre-occupation

of tools & techniques

Solutions to KM practice are offered in the form of ever-more sophisticated technologies.

Critics argue that there is far too much reliance on the idea that KM has to do with IT systems.

Dominant values among people management professionals appear to fit much more comfortably with the earlier LO literature than KM.