Is Technology Changing The Way We Read And Obtain Knowledge?

The superior capabilities of knowledge management systems provide an opportunity for the business to engage the most effective components and recognize the importance of communication to make informed, accurate decisions (McGrath, 2001). This system can organize the company’s knowledge resources, knowledge obtaining, organizing, and applying to make a sound routine the will enforce effectiveness (Niu, 2008). The dynamic function of knowledge management to create, capture, and apply knowledge to achieve an organization’s objective will allow them to be more profitable and successful (Zucker, 1986). In addition to increasing profits, the system can be also used to reduce costs and enhance research and development (DeTienne & Jackson, 2001). With all of these advantages, it would be wasteful for a company to not employ knowledge management. As seen in the Discovery Communications, Inc. example, the company can attribute their new productivity levels and increase in ease of securing documents to the knowledge management system that put into place by Carefree Technology. Like Discovery Communications, Inc., knowledge management is so popular today because companies can collect, process and share knowledge to ignite employees ' creativity which in turn will make the business grow. Wenhong and Jianhua (2009) explained the core of knowledge management is to convert company’s knowledge resources into an increased company

While Knowledge Management (KM) is important in any business however, there is no real agreed upon definition. KM is a concept that includes the

Knowledge is defined as “an understanding and one that gains knowledge through experience, reasoning, intuition and learning” (Cong, & Pandya, 2003, p. 2). Individuals can inflate their knowledge when they share their knowledge with others, and when knowledge is combined with other people’s knowledge they will begin to build new knowledge. It is also considered as a mixture of values, experience, background information, grounded intuition and authority insight that offers a framework and environment for integrating and gauging new information and experiences. It “is applied in the minds of knowers and in organizations, where it is often embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices and norms” (Cong, & Pandya, 2003, p. 2).

Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be tacit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic. Botha et al (2008) pointed out that tacit and explicit knowledge should be seen as a spectrum rather than as definitive points. Therefore, in practice, all knowledge is a mixture of tacit and explicit elements rather than being one or the other. The most important distinction within KM is between explicit and tacit knowledge. The overload of data is making knowledge management increasingly more important as it facilitates decision-making capabilities; builds learning organizations by making learning routine, and stimulates cultural change and innovation.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is apparent that in the knowledge era, creating and leveraging knowledge is the business of business. By all available measures, the stock market is already providing handsome rewards to companies that successfully leverage their knowledge--a phenomenon that will almost surely grow in significance as knowledge-based organizations increase in size and number. A number of firms are anticipating this and looking to knowledge management to enhance, measure, and manage the knowledge of their employees and organizations more effectively.

Knowledge in organizations is classified into two types, tacit and explicit. Knowing the differences between explicit and tacit knowledge is key to understanding how knowledge is shared. Explicit knowledge is

Call, D. (2005). Knowledge management - not rocket science. Journal of Knowledge Management. (April) p.19-30. [Online]. Available from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.staffs.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1108/13673270510590191 [Accessed: 20 November 2016].

Knowledge can be viewed and approached in different ways. Personal, social, artefact, framework are some of the approaches of knowledge management. In today’s world the ability to manage knowledge is very crucial, more so in organisations where proper knowledge management can lead to growth and profits (King, 2009).

Abstract - knowledge management is a discipline that seeks to improve the performance of individuals and organizations by maintaining and influencing the present and future value of knowledge resources. It is an amalgamation of plentiful endeavors and fields of study. This paper provides a framework for distinguishing the various tools like methods, practices and technologies available to knowledge management practitioners. It includes a summary of a number of key terms and concepts, illustrates the framework, imparting examples of how to use it and searching a variety of prospective areas.

According to Lynch (2011), knowledge is known as a resource of the organization which has to be analyzed. The exploration of knowledge, helped in the creation of new knowledge, which opens up new opportunities for the organization. Knowledge does not only include data and information. It includes recorded information messages and discrete, observable facts about events that occur in an organization.

There are two dominant streams of research on knowledge management in modern academic literature: the resource-based and the process-based. The first stream focuses mainly on the increase of knowledge stock and there use of knowledge repositories (Barney, 1991; Kamara et al., 2002). Knowledge management is viewed as a developing system of techniques and values by the means of which organization effectively acquires and uses its intellectual assets (Snowden, 1999).

Chapter 12 highlights the different reasons for managing knowledge that include the need to respond accurately to globalization as well as rapid change, the need to manage communication and information overload, organizational downsizing, leveraging knowledge in order to gain competitive advantage as well as controlling knowledge embedded within different products in an organization. The author also elaborates how knowledge management can be viewed as a dynamic process, which involves the transfer, capturing, generation, and codification of knowledge. The chapter also asserts that business intelligence utilizes technologies and data to understand business performance.

In a knowledge organization, defined by Bergeron (2003) as “corporations that take a systematic approach to capturing information”, knowledge and knowledge workers are treated as the organization’s most valuable asset. Therefore, the sharing of knowledge between employees is essential in knowledge management. But how does an organization make this work? In order for a knowledge management program to be successfully applied, several key factors must be considered: employees, leadership, application of information technology (to be discussed in later section), and most important of all, knowledge.

Like many emerging business processes rooted in technology, knowledge management is defined somewhat differently by different organizations, and by different individuals within those organizations. Some organizations see knowledge management as

A knowledge is defined as a valuable intangible resource that need to be managed properly in order for an organization to gain advantage over their competitors, Birkinshaw and Sheehan (2002); Zyngier (2006). Knowledge transfer emphasized as “the movement of knowledge within the organization, it is a distinct experience not a gradual process of dissemination, and depends on the characteristics of everyone involve”, Szulanski (1996).