Knowledge Management Systems

Knowledge management systems (KMS) and Information management systems have close relationship. Especially in last decade people discuss KMS are almost same as information management systems but now KMS are far a way from information management systems but it influence by technology such as executive information systems, neural networks, multi agent systems, knowledge based systems, multimedia, web 2.0 and so on (Edwards et al., 2005).
KMS is created for knowledge management problems. What are knowledge management problems? It can be anything regards to knowledge such as people who work in the organisation are pessimistic about new ideas, they do not like to share what they know, management do not want to have close relationship with other workers, hierarchical structure claim to be the same by strategic level and they do not want to listen other workers and employees leave the organisation with their knowledge. KMS should answer all the questions that been mentioned above.
Organisational knowledge is collection of individuals’ knowledge. The most critical thing in knowledge management is connecting knowledge (O’Leary, 1998). This is where the information technology comes in to act because it connects the people. Web 2.0 technology is being done a serious contribution to knowledge management read more(Vidanapathirana, 2009). According to the Hahn and Subramani (2000) it is extremely difficult to built a KMS because of the difficulties of knowing “what information will be requested, who will request the information, who will supply the information, when and how the information will be used” (Subramani, 2000)
Is it that much difficult? No. For example as Middlesex University students we have academic knowledge management problems. Especially when a new technology introduces to university for academic purpose students suppose to know how to use the new technology and meanwhile they should have knowledge to use the technology such as podcasting, blogs and wikis. It has already been published wiki for BIS 4492 module which has information about the dissertation. In this example information is required by students, supplied by academic staff and it use when ever students wants the information via internet. It can be clearly identified the facts that has mentioned as difficult. KMS is difficult if it is going to be developed to whole Middlesex University but if we break down the problem into sub problems then it is possible to come up with solutions rather one solution.
Looking at above problems clearly been seen that there is a cultural issue. In large organisations there are different cultures and especially rather old organisations are adapted to certain culture. As been stated it is people to people so in order be success it should be motivated people to cooperate (Barachini, 2009). For example if organisation has common blog for all people who can post their innovative ideas it can be helpful for management for making decision. In current scenario management take decision by looking and graphs and charts which do not reflect current employees view point.
Considering the facts that have been mentioned above it can be seen that if organisation is small then it is easy to make a successful KMS. But in that case the knowledge that creates is less because of fewer employees which means less individual knowledge. If the organisation is large, system is complex but knowledge is huge when collecting that much knowledge it may subjected to “complexity”, “uncertainty”, “Ambiguity” and “Equivocality” read more (Zack, 1998).
I have worked in a large organisation which has around seventeen thousand employees and it was established over hundred years ago but the difficulty of this organisational knowledge management is that they don’t have the same knowledge about technology, vast number of cultures and politics among the organisation. Believe it or not it has one hundred and thirty seven unions (137). It is extremely difficult to apply KM system into this organisation because employees do not like to change the way they have been working for so many years.

Whole idea behind the KMS is knowledge harvesting of the organisation.

References

Barachini, F., (2009), “Culture and Social issues for knowledge sharing”, journal of knowledge managmet, 13(1), 98-110.

Edward, J. S., Shaw, D. and Collier, P. M., (2005), “Knowledge management systems: finding a way with technology”, journal of knowledge management, 9(1),113-125.

Hahn, J. and Subramani, M. R., (2000), “A framework of knowledge management systems: Issue and challenges for theory and practice”, Available at: http://publications.ksu.edu.sa/IT%20Papers/KM%20Papers/03.pdf, [Last accessed 02/04/2009]

O’Leary, D. E., (1998), “Knowledge management systems: Converting and connecting”, Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=00683179, [Last accessed 02/04/2009]

Vidanapathirana, T.K., (2009), “Role of IT in Knowledge Management” , Available at: http://thilinakm.blogspot.com/2009/04/role-of-it-in-knowledge-management.html, [Last accessed 02/04/2009]

Zack, M. H. 1998. “If Managing Knowledge is the Solution, Then What’s the Problem?” Available at: http://web.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/fourprob/fourprob.htm [last accesed 25/03/2009 ]

Role of IT in Knowledge Management

In the current industry everything comes with Information Technology (IT) because IT accelerates the industrial efficiency. When it comes to knowledge management again IT act a huge role. Knowledge management is based on people, culture and technology. Knowledge does not have any geographical barriers, it is world wide but there should be a way to spread knowledge.
Web 2.0 technology is one of the best practices in knowledge management. It was invented by Tim O’Reilly in 2004 (Levy, 2009)
What went before Web 2.0?
As I said before knowledge management is not only based on IT therefore it was spreading using existing technology. Before Web 2.0 it was Web 1.0 which does not have such functionalities as new web technologies but still they share the knowledge using e-mail, computer conferencing and networks (Banks, 1999). Also it was not clearly defined what is the different between information management and knowledge management. Even in 2003 they argued by sitting on the fence. Because they use databases, file servers, emails, messaging tools and so on those were used for information management systems as well (Lindvall et al., 2003). It was not real time because of that it was not much popular, people got boring using old technology and then new technologies been invented.
New Technology
After Web 2.0 technology been invented it is being widely use by one billion users all around the world and it becomes the dramatic change of dot com world (Levy, 2009). It is easy to use, real time and it is people to people so these features make users more attractive to use this technology because of that it supports knowledge management as well. Most popular Web 2.0 applications are blogs, wikis, podcasting, Rss and tagging (Anderson, 2007).
Technology affect on knowledge management
As far as we concern about knowledge management it is also growing with the help of technology because it allows you to sharing best practices, leading training programs and leading culture change much faster and efficiently. It makes sense that with the help of Web 2.0 technology Knowledge Management 2.0 is being grown up.
Let’s see what is fast in new technology. For example different BIS module leaders use different methods to submit coursework. One use burned CD and another method is using existing system of Middlesex University called OASIS plus while others use latest web 2.0 technologies which are blogs and wikis. Here we can see under same course called BIS have different knowledge stages that indicate knowledge is not been shared.
If academic staff uses a common wiki for them then they will update what ever the new things they are doing. So the other all academic staff will able to see what kind of knowledge that others have and then they can identify the best practice among them. While course is going on they can change the method of course work submitting rather wait till next semester comes. This is just a one example of what is fast in new technology effect on knowledge management.
Second life is another new technology which effect to the knowledge management directly (mack, 2007). This is more attractive because it is simply just a second life of you. Being in second life you can do two works simultaneously. For instance if you are a part time student and been invited for a special lecture that could not attend because you are working then you miss the lecture. But if lecture is conducted using second life they you also can attend to the lecture using your second life and even you can record the lecture.
With these new technologies knowledge is growing all over the world even beyond the world that can be called as virtual world. Role of IT in knowledge management is getting stronger and stronger it the technology is developed.

References:

Anderson, P., (2007), “What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education”, JISC Technology and Standards watch., avaliable at: What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education, [last accessed 22/03/2009]

Banks, E., (1999), “Creating a knowledge culture”, work study, 48(1), 18-20, available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=/published/emeraldfulltextarticle/pdf/0790480103.pdf , [last accessed 25/03/2009]

Levy, M., (2009), “Web 2.0 implications on knowledge management”, Journal of knowledge management, 13(1), 120-134.

Lindvall, M., Rus, L. and Sinha, S. S., (2003), “Software system support for knowledge management”, Journal of knowledge management, 7(5), 137-150.

Mack, E., (2007), “Second life for knowledge transfer and collaboration”, available at: http://www.ericmackonline.com/ICA/blogs/emonline.nsf/dx/using-second-life-for-knowledge-transfer-and-collaboration, [last access 01/04/2009]

Can Organisational Knowledge be managed?

Organisations have entered new context of knowledge. Since we are in knowledge age, organisations keen on organisational knowledge management to gain competitive advantage.
Organisational knowledge is not a set of information than can easily store but it is collection of all individual’s knowledge who works in organisation. According to Ticha & Hron (2006) knowledge can not be stored easily but in order to have long time success, knowledge should be stored. Organisational knowledge contributes all the stakeholders’ knowledge. Those stakeholders are not there forever. Especially workers, they are leaving the organisation with their knowledge. In order to prevent this incident organisation should identify where the knowledge is? And how continuously use existing knowledge?
In traditional organisations workers did not have any freedom to implement their ideas. In this case knowledge was not shared only the top of the hierarchy shared the knowledge and lower level should listen what ever top level said they did not had a chance to question back (Switzer, 2008)
According to my experience I totally agree with the Switzer because when I was working in the government organisation which had hierarchical structure there was no chance to come up with the new idea. More that 17,000 employees were there but only few decision makers. What a knowledge waste? They did not identify “knowledge workers” (Switzer, 2008) within the organisation and they did not have any freedom to do their task according to there knowledge. Instead of I questioned from management, they questioned me and asked why did you do in such a way without using traditional way?
Customer is also very important role in organisational knowledge management. Customers also have some knowledge which is important for the organisation. Organisation should understand which knowledge should transfer with whom. For example if it has frequent customer interactions like ATM machine in a bank so then organisation should know which knowledge should transfer to customers.
Even though knowledge management is complex (Zack, 1998) it can be decompose into simple fragments. Instead of saying tacit to explicit or tacit to tacit it is possible to identify which knowledge exactly to be transferred, and why that knowledge should transfer. According to above example because customers should know the use of ATM machine and from bank point of view in order have competitive advantage in market, customers should know how to operate ATM.
When consider about organisational knowledge management one can not forget culture which is act major role in context of management. NASA organisation’s procedure is ‘go ahead’ they take maximum risk without any hesitate if mission fail it will not effect to the operational people they still can make use of knowledge and oppose with new creative ideas (Balthazard and Cooke, 2004). Organisational culture affect when knowledge workers explicit their tacit knowledge. For example when we use one of the agile method call Extreme Programming, there is pair programming. In this case one look on the others coding in real time which is more effective in software product but some programs does not like have one colleague beside him and correct his errors.
Conclusion
Yes, Organisational knowledge can be managed. First should be identified individual’s knowledge about specific field that he is working. Workers have more freedom of doing the job in their own way then the tacit knowledge become explicit. Then it is possible to identify the best practice of each and every task of the organisation and convert into documentary format so called “knowledge repositories” (Rowley, 2002). Then it has become a tangible asset for the organisation. According to Moteleb and Woodman (2009) repositories or intranet is not the best way to store knowledge. Organisational knowledge management can not freeze it should be an iterative process because knowledge is being created all the time. The importance of this knowledge storing is that if current employees have resigned then the new employees can enhance the organisational knowledge with the past experience of the organisation because it can be stored not as documents but using web 2.0 technology such as wikis or blogs. Then it can be easily withstand with iterative change of knowledge.

References:
Balthazard, P. A. and Cooke, R. A., (2004), “Organisational Cultural and Knowledge Management Success: Assessing The Behaviour – Performance Continuum”, 37th Hawaii International Conference on system science – 2004. Available at http://www.thestep.gr/trainmor/dat/%7B8a7c6309-2338-4a07-b413-8854a235f4f8%7D/article.pdf [Last accessed 01/04/2009]

Moteleb, A. and Woodman, M., (2009), “Uncovering a KMSD approach from Practice”, International Journal of knowledge management, 1-14, Available at: http://xplore.k4b.net/_attachments/4111669/Moteleb%20%20Woodman%20Uncovering%20KMSD%20EJKM%20V3(MW).pdf, [last accessed 31/03/2009]

Rowely, J., (2002), “Eight questions for customers knowledge management in e- business”, journal of knowledge management, 6(5), 500-511. Availble at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet;jsessionid=1E22F4DF40739563AA658F8F232AF65F?contentType=Article&Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2300060508.html, [last accessed 26/03/2009]

Switzer, C., (2008), “Time change: empower working organisations to succeed in the knowledge management economy”, Journal of knowledge management, 12(2), 18-28

Ticha, I. and Hron, J., (2006) “Knowledge in the business strategy context”, 7-11, Available at: http://www.cazv.cz/attachments/AE_52_7-11.pdf, [last accessed 29/03/2009]

Zack, M. H., (1998), “If managing knowledge is the solution, then what is the problem?”, Knowledge Management and Business Model Innovation. Available at http://web.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/fourprob/fourprob.htm [Last accessed 27/03/2009]