understanding knowledge enabler : a literature revie · understanding knowledge enabler : a...

International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management Vol.21 No.2 (May-August, 2013) pp 40-45

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Understanding Knowledge Enabler :

A Literature Review

Verathian Khianmeesuk

Department of Creative 3D-Design, Siam Technology College, Bangkok, Thailand

Ph.D. KIM, Bangkok University, Bangkok, Thailand

[email protected]

Abstract: This paper is a review of

literatures on Knowledge Enabler in

various terminologies and the exploration

of the set of Knowledge Enablers that

influence to Knowledge

Management(KM) in general, alongside

with the current status of Knowledge

Enabler in KM, agreements and

disagreements on Knowledge Enablers in

KM field among researchers and

practitioners. This literature based article

provides historical background of KM

Enablers in comprehensive, analyse

concepts and results from different

researches, to understand KM Enablers in

the large scale fundamentally; There are

summarised of KM definitions, found KM

Enalers and KM Enabler benefit(s). At the

end, this article aims to analyse the

current and short future trends of

investigating KM Enablers in current

decade based on literature survey. The

main contribution of this study is the

compilation of literatures which related to

KM Enablers for understanding basic

concept, different views of experts and

important research contributions in KM

Enabler history. This paper provide the

overview of key terms, concepts,

definitions and theories that support

Knowledge Enablers in KM field.

Keywords: Knowledge Enabler;

Knowledge Management; KM Literature;

KM Success Factors; Benefits of KM

Enabler

*This is a literature based article which

focuses on theories and models, and the

combination between conceptual and

academic characters.

I. INTRODUCTION

Knowledge Management(KM) is a semi-

modern field, started from around 1990.

Although It is adopted to use as a part of

organisations internationally more than 20

years, It is still complex to understand. From

the beginning until now, there are hundreds

of KM definitions published [16] in English.

This is because it can play multidisciplinary

in various field [16]. This is the reason why

it is mostly integral to business activities

[16], and other fields willingly such as

engineering, software developing and

academic fields.

From the widely use of KM in numerous

fields which have different factors and

environments to support KM success in

groups or organisations. KM Enabler is

identified as an organisational factor that

foster the development of knowledge

through a typical KM process[8] or the key

factors that determine the effectiveness of

knowledge management within an

organisation[7]. Even KM enabler was

identified from 1997, there are a lot of

specific factors which influence to KM

success in various fields, are not yet be

identified as KM enabler, not ranked from its

importance and not set as a group for

specific fields.

From the reasons above, understanding the

KM enablers that affect to knowledge

management success is the key point to

mailto:[email protected]


41

develop the felicitating factors in different

environments and factors effectively.

II. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

In this article, its theoretical perspective is

concerned with defining and describing the

fundamental of KM enabler. Upon the youth

of KM [6], KM Enabler is just at the

blossom time. To present KM enabler in

various and different views, and in different

fields, is what I believe that it will be better

than just select only one or two of them from

only narrow perspectives.

Definition of Knowledge Management

Definition of Knowledge Management began

from the term of Tacit Knowing or Tacit

Knowledge, It was firstly introduced in

public by Michael Polanyi in 1958 as the

knowledge that cannot transfer by only

verbal way. However, the perception of

knowledge can be investigated back to

ancient Greeks. Socrates, in Theaetetus by

Plato in 369 BC, conceptualised knowledge

as a true belief with an account commonly

identified as concept of justified true belief

but then indicated this definition remained

inadequate(Anand and Singh, 2011).

In 1987, Chorafas termed Knowledge

Management as managing the knowledge

and encouraging people to share the same to

create the value adding product and services

(Chorafas, 1987; Malhotra, 1998; Bhatt,

2011; Anand and Singh, 2011)

However, the new concept shown that KM

cannot be applied to only single definition.

Different researcher have used different

approach to define KM in their

literature(Anand and Singh, 2011).

Singh et al. (2006) classified KM definition

by their theoretical perspectives, Need of

KM, What KM Demands, KM Practices,

KM and IT, KM Processes, and Holistic

Nature of KM.

Anand and Singh (2011) classified KM

definition into 8 group from their research on

the present study of KM in 2011 by added

more 3 categories, KM and Strategy, KM

and Intellectual Capital, and What KM can

do , to the previous concept of Singh et al.

* The full paper and table 1 to 5 can be

found in http://www.inrit2013.com or

http://www.charm.siamtechu.net/

Types of Knowledge

Types of Knowledge are commonly

classified by its accessibility, Nonaka and

Takeuchi (1995) initially divided Knowledge

into two categories by its accessibility: Tacit

and Explicit. This two categories concept is

still widely used nowadays. Besides, after

Nonaka and Takeuchi termed this two

categories, Liebowitz and Beckman (1998)

argued that Knowledge should be divided to

three categories instead: Tacit, Implicit and

Explicit. This three categories concept is

widely accepted in KM as well.

* The full content of this topic, the full paper

and table 1 to 5 can be found in

http://www.inrit2013.com or


Definition of KM Enablers

The idea of KM Enablers was initially from

Socio-Technical Theory in 1977 which

assume that there are two interacting factors

within Knowledge Management, The

Technical System, The Social

System(Bostrom and Heinen, 1977; Heeseok

and Byounggu, 2000). From 1997, there has

been various definitions of KM Enablers in

different aspects from different practical and

conceptual of investigators. KM Enablers

has been defined its meaning for almost 40

years, however, KM Enabler is not be able to

defined in one best definition in KM field;

this is because there is no single best

definition in KM, different researcher have

used different approach to define KM in their

literature (Anand and Singh, 2011). In 2002,

Chauvel and Despres firstly claimed that KM

Enablers not only be in positive influence but

also become negative factors as KM

Barriers. Then, Wong (2005) defined KM

Enablers in alternative view, he identified

KM Enablers as activities and practices that

need to be nurtured or developed depend on

its existent and its place. One of the most

favorable definition of KM Enabler is "KM

Enablers are organisational factors that foster

the development of knowledge through a


Understanding Knowledge Enabler : A Literature Review


42

typical KM process" from Anderson (1997),

IT has been confirmed and applied to use in

various researches and articles (i.e. Aurum et

al.(2008) and Iuliana(2009) research

articles). Table 1 presents the definitions of

Enabler(s) that had been relevant to the topic

of KM.




Groups of KM Enablers

* The content of this topic, the full paper and

table 1 to 5 can be found in



III. KEY TERMS RELEVANT TO

KM ENABLER

From this literature survey, it was found that

KM experts widely use 5 terms of KM

Enablers (KM Enabler, Influencing Factor,

Critical Factor, Key Success Factos, Success

Factor) from 18 terms of KM Enablers from

this KM literature survey. The term KM

Enabler is the term that use in KM literature

the most, It would be because it is the term

that represent its definitions from people's

perceptions easiest.





IV. THE LIST OF FOUND

ENABLERS

From this literature survey, the idea of

investigating KM Enablers can be divided to

3 groups, Investigating All KM Enablers,

Investigating New KM Enablers, and

Investigating Key KM Enablers. Table 3

demonstrates that KM researchers had been

focusing on finding the best all KM Enablers

in their aspects until the end of 2000s. The

trend of investigating new KM Enabler(s)

arose from mid 1990s together with the trend

of investigating key KM Enabler(s); In

1990s, these two trends were new and

similar in their favouring. The trend of

investigating all KM Enablers was

continuing stably in demand by KM

researchers in 2000s. All of the trends were

increasing from 1990s, nevertheless, only the

trend of investigating Key KM Enablers was

rising up remarkably in that decade.

After 2000s, in the current decade, the trend

of investigating all KM Enablers is less in

researchers' interest significantly, the number

of researches focused on the three trends is

currently not distinct.

This is possibly because, after 2005, the

trend changed to emphasize on KM Enablers

or Key KM Enablers in specific field (i.e.

SMEs, Large Companies, Software

Engineering Companies, Engineer Industries,

Semiconductor Manufacturing Firms,

Software Engineering Students, Universities)

and different/distinct location (i.e. Australia,

Malaysia, South Africa, Romania, Iran,

Greece, India). After 2000s, the trend has

been changed to focus more on investigating

KM Enablers in specific factor(s), almost a

haft of the KM Enabler researches now focus

on KM Enablers or Key KM Enablers in

specific factor(s). From the reason above,

experts are currently interested in KM

Enabler in specific factors because the three

trend has been investigated for more than 2

decades, there are various of KM Enablers

found, but not all of them can be applied in

every specific situation. That is possibly the

reason why experts are now focusing on KM

Enablers in specific factors that can be

applied or practically used in specific

situation efficiently, which will make more

profits, organisational perfomance or KM

success for the one who adopt the specific

KM Enabler(s).





V. DEVELOPMENT OF

KM ENABLER From this investigation based on literature

survey, this article was decided to divide the

generation of KM Enabler from the trends of

Investigating KM Enablers that is described

on The list of found Enablers topic above




43

(main topic number 4), with the information

in the table 4. There are 3 divided

generations of KM Enabler in this literature.

The first generation is from 1977, when the

first KM Enablers were identified by Socio-

Technical Theory (Bostrom and Heinen,

1977; Heeseok and Byounggu, 2000). The

second generation is between 1995 to 2004,

began from when the new additional Enabler

and Key Enablers were first investigated

(Pentland, 1995; Nonaka and Takeuchi,

1995). The third generation has been since

2005, when researchers changed their

interest to KM Enabler(s) in specific

factor(s).





VI. KM Enablers in different fields





VII. THE IMPORTANT RESEARCH

CONTRIBUTIONS TO KM ENABLERS





VIII. KM Enabler Benefits





IX. Conclusion

Knowledge Management has been a key

interesting area of researchers and

practitioners from different field. The

interest in KM make people investigate the

factors that can support KM in one way or

another. Literature review shows that KM

Enablers has been developed in its terms and

its categories by investigating over three

decades, however, the KM Enablers are still

being investigated. This is not the final stage

of KM Enablers yet, there has been no

consensus in the definition, categories and

benefit(s) of KM Enablers among experts,

researchers and practitioners. This is because

KM Enabler is the part of KM which does

not belong to only one area; It has been

investigated from people with different

disciplines. The main aim of this study is to

track historical background of KM Enablers

in comprehensive, analyse concepts and

results from different researches, to

understand KM Enablers in the large scale

fundamentally. Another benefit is to

acknowledge the current and short future

trends which is found based on literatures

that are the trend of investigating KM

Enablers in the specific field or/and location

that has never been investigated before.




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