Knowledge can be managed. But there should be a way to manage the knowledge. If there is a model for knowledge management, that will be easy to understand.
Organisations apply these models to create potential energy of the knowledge. Concerning definitions of organisation wiki, (2009), Ho, (1999), encyclo, (2008) it is an entity that more that one person working within the certain boundaries that was being define themselves in order to achieve common goal but Sustainable Development International (2008) said organisation definitions not practical.
I am totally agreed with the Sustainable Development International (2008) because according to my experience in large organisations there is no theory in practice. Even though headman has the organisational goals, strategies and all employees were not working up to headman’s expectation.
Applying a Knowledge management model for those kinds of organisations is not an easy task. Actually I fell it is better to create a model organisation itself. Before do that lets have an idea of existing KM models and short comes of those models
When researched on KM models SECI model comes on top which was introduced by Nonaka(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). That model consists of three elements and it was emphasis on knowledge conversion within the organisation tacit to tacit, explicit to explicit, tacit to explicit and explicit to tacit read more
Even though may identify it is a good knowledge management model some verify that the model could not be applied to each and every organisation. Gourlay(2002) says that there is no enough evidence to prove that knowledge creation is different from information creation and also he mentioned Combination and internalization not described clearly. read more
Samara(2007) has implemented SECI model in different way and said that with his alternative, it is facilitated to interact diverse and unconnected knowledge and also highly tacit knowledge can access by other domains within the organisation. read more
Nonaka's model has been criticized by the people because it was mainly focused on the japanese organization. It was being implemented for Japanese organizations and employees because they usually works their whole life in one company which is uncommon in western countries. It was highlighted in house knowledge very much. Those kinds of organisations depend on knowledge that creates among them selves and converts their knowledge in between tacit and explicit since they have long term employees.
As an Asian I also have the same experience. When I was working at government department, there are people who work plenty of years in same position or same subject areas. Those employees have huge knowledge about their subject area and that knowledge could be categorised as tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. I was new to that department and was trained me but sometimes I can not understand what were the short cuts they were using and there were some theories that only they know which make their lives easy. Now I can understand that was tacit knowledge. In my department there were no external knowledge flows, everything growing inside the department because of that Knowledge sharing within the department. Nonaka also focuses on internal knowledge flow that is inside the organization rather than external knowledge.
Other than the SECI model Boisot's knowledge category model was implemented in 1987 and it was modified in 1998 as this(Ticha & Hron, 2006). It was used different terms codified, un codified, undefined and diffused. He is focus about the knowledge transmitting and the knowledge sharing among the personal knowledge, common sense, public knowledge and proprietary knowledge. click here for more details.
When I try to apply same experience in to Boisot knowledge category model, I have found out that it is much like SECI model but only few things being changed. I feel that Boisot redefine tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge as un-codified and codified because experinece counts as un-codifined in this model which came under tacit knowledge in SECI model.
Intellectual capital model of knowledge management was concern knowledge as assets and came up with a hierarchical model. It is divided organizational capital in to two parts that equity and intellectual capital. Second part consider as the knowledge (McAdam & McCreedy, 1999). This is a different view on knowledge and it was only concentrate you on organisations asset.
After concerning several models of Knowledge Management I have a question that can we apply these models in real world? In real world it is hard to capitalise on this definitions. Even though Nonaka said tacit knowledge transferred to explicit knowledge my experience is it depends on how clever employees work in the organisation (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). I believe that it is hard to explain tacit knowledge to others and transfer it as it is. Boiston's model he mentioned about knowledge sharing and defined it as easily share and not easily shares. Now it can easily share but who get this decision in organisation? Does it suit to the whole organization? Information can be shared by categorising them but I do not believe knowledge can simply be categorised and shared.
Using a Knowledge Management model is a real challenge. Even choose a correct model will be a huge risk. Even though it applies expected out come may not be the result. Then management will be more complex and also waste of time and money. It is very important to look at whether company can adopt to model and also outcome worth as investment.
References:
Gourlay S(2002),The SECI model of knowledge creation, some empirical
shortcomings, Last accessed 03 February 2009 at:http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/sngourlay/PDFs/Gourlay%202004%20SECI.pdf
McAdam, R. McCreedy, S. (1999), A critical review of knowledge management models, The learning organisation,6(3)
Nonaka tekeuchi(1995),SECI model, Last accessed 02 february 2009 at: http://www.12manage.com/methods_nonaka_seci.html
Samara, K.(March, 2007) The Fifth Element, A Framework for Discovering KM Forces, Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, Volume 8, No1, Last accessed 03 February 2009 at: http://www.tlainc.com/articl129.htm
Samuel K.M. Ho, K.M.S.(1999), Total learning organisation, The Learning Organization,6(3),116 - 120
Sustainable Development International.(July, 2008), An organisation is just like a second hand car. Last accessed 06 February 2009 at: http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/sustainable_un/article/an_organisation_is_just_like_a_second_hand_car/
Ticha, I. Hron, J. (2006),Knowledge in the business strategy context, Last accessed 03 February 2009 at:http://www.cazv.cz/attachments/AE_52_7-11.pdf
