Knowledge Management And The Construction Industry

Every project generates project knowledge that is new knowledge or existing knowledge. However, that project knowledge is not always fully captured, transferred, and disseminated during a project. Due to the nature of projects, this implies a short-term period, limited resources, and multiple procedures. It makes project participants adapt rapidly to new project contexts. There are two mainly obstacles for organizational learning. First, project members do not have enough time to participating in sharing and disseminating activities because the project team members are totally engaged with project tasks (Hanisch et al., 2009). Then, the replacement of key team

In order to manage knowledge successfully, it is essential to clarify the essence of knowledge before identifying the importance of knowledge management. The perception of knowledge has been varied broadly; however, one of the generally accepted defintion is from Davenport and Prusak (1998). According to their points of view, knowledge is defined as a set of experience and values, it either comes from individuals ' mind or roots in the organisation, which can be found in the documents, routines, practices and norms, and is assumed to flow between individuals through various networks, being used to assess and embody new

Knowledge is considered as one of the most important and competitive resource for sustenance of the organisation (Zack, 1999). It can be compared to the strategic resource that can be used and applied in various frames of the organisation. Experienced managers in the organisations believe that company can receive strategic advantage through knowledge and not the strategies or actions implemented by competitors. Knowledge can be regarded as a strong approach that opens numerous ways of success. It is that weapon that help organisation to evaluate solutions in financial and other professional difficulties.

According to Davenport et al (1998), Knowledge Management is concerned with exploitation and development of knowledge asset of the organization with a view of the objective of the organization. Knowledge can be managed by explicit, documented knowledge, tacit and subjective knowledge. It also associated with knowledge creation as well as knowledge sharing. Thus, requires systems for creation and maintenance of knowledge repositories to cultivate and to aid knowledge sharing. Organizations that succeed in knowledge management are likely to view knowledge as an asset and to develop organization culture which support knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Jennifer Rowley (1999) describes the implementation of knowledge management has the importance consequences for structure and culture of the organization, and the roles of managers as well as workers. We can say that knowledge management implementation is crucial as it will lead an organization to be at competitive advantages. There are two types of knowledge mainly explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Different people convey their knowledge differently. The philosopher Polanyi (1967) described tacit knowledge as knowing more than we can tell, or knowing how to do something without thinking about it, like ride a bicycle. Tacit knowledge is automatic, requires little or no time or thought and helps to determine how organizations make decision and influence the behavior of their member (Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998). Sternberg (1997) states that tacit knowledge is technical or cognitive as it made up of mental models, values, beliefs, perceptions, insights and assumptions. Technical tacit knowledge demonstrated when people master particular knowledge or skills whereas cognitive tacit knowledge include implicit mental models and perceptions that are ingrained they are taken for granted. Tacit knowledge basically is the “know-how” based on practice, experience and seldom expressed

What exactly is knowledge management? “Knowledge management is defined as developing a system to improve the creation and sharing of knowledge critical for decision making” (Kreitner, 217). Tacit knowledge involves the creative minds of the production because “it is personal, intuitive, and undocumented

Knowledge Management (KM) uses various ways to identify opportunities for improvement (OFI). What needs to be remembered is that KM improvements are not simple, they are in fact complex. “They must be integrated with changes in work processes in other units to yield benefits” (White & Griffith 2010, p. 334). Because important projects can take several years to complete it is important for KM to have a sophisticated planning process for continuous improvement. In order to have a successful

Knowledge management was defined as the turning of information into actionable knowledge which can be accessed by people who can apply it. Robbins (2003) gives a time perspective in his definition of knowledge management. He mentions as part of knowledge management the distribution of the right information to the right people at the right time. Lytras et al (2002) gives a definition of knowledge management which emphasises the purpose of knowledge management. In the definition creation of new capabilities, enablement for superior performance, encouraging innovation and enhancement of customer value were mentioned. For the purpose of this study the researcher summarised knowledge management as the intentional process of coordinating people, technology and systems to optimise creation and sharing of intellectual

In the recent past information and knowledge revolution have been witnessed in all sectors of production and have had the magnitude of the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries (Ondari-Okemwa & Smith, 2009). “Knowledge has been increasingly recognised as the most important economic resource surpassing the traditional resources of capital, labour and land” (Drucker, 1993). Tacit Knowledge creation and sharing has been attracting increasing interest, since the process of creating and managing it is relatively complex as compared to explicit knowledge. It is almost impossible to characterize tacit Knowledge without describing Knowledge and Knowledge Management (Mungai,

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.

Understanding the nature, role, importance, and value of tacit knowledge at individual or group level, is imprudent to formulating a KM strategy You must also formulate decisions about the organizations cultural change, picking the appropriate tools and finding a suitable measurement system. Without awareness of tacit knowledge any KM program is unlikely to maintain perspective and balance. In contrast to the views held by the tacit knowledge approach, the explicit knowledge approach shows that knowledge is something that can be explained by individuals. The explicit knowledge takes some effort and assistance may be required to obtain the desired knowledge. As a result, the explicit knowledge approach assumes that the useful tacit knowledge of individuals in organizations can be articulated and made explicit. The explicit knowledge approach also shows that explicit knowledge assets can then be dispersed within an organization through documents, drawings, standard operating procedures, manuals of best practice, and the like.

Since the mid-1990s, knowledge management has become increasingly significant for business managers and companies. ‘It is broadly accepted that systematic knowledge management is tightly linked with gaining and sustaining competitive advantage.’ (Bogner & Bansal, 2007, p658-6 as cited in Hislop, 2009, p1) The definition of knowledge management is various because of the wide range of this concept and its complexity (Al-Hawamdeh, 2003). For example, the broad definition provided by McAdam and McCreedy (2000, p155 as cited in Hislop 2009, p53) note that: ‘KM relates to the management of anything classified as knowledge’ Furthermore, Hislop (2009, p59)

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].

Within the Army organizations of today knowledge management plays a huge role in the dissemination of information to the unit and it’s soldiers. This is no different for the aviation unit in which I operate. This information can be found in FM 6-01.1, Knowledge Management Operations. It defines knowledge management as the process of enabling knowledge flow to enhance shared understanding, learning, and decision-making. But when the unit was surveyed about their understanding of knowledge management the results were surprising.

In fact, convert the tacit knowledge a clear knowledge creating assets that is open 24/7 and free of time and space constraints that prevent the spread of tacit knowledge by moving workers , according to (Ron Sanchez 2000 ). In addition, by dividing some clear examples of knowledge to individuals in the organization who specializes in domain knowledge say of a clearer, knowledge that can be visited, debated, tested again better, it can stimulate additional organization.Ini also critical in learning can help in identifying the individuals in the organization. Other advantages, it is important to explain in systematic system and codifying a clear knowledge of the organization in making the organizational knowledge base clearer. And it also helps the organization to find a lack of knowledge and help in finding explicit knowledge is

The future of our industry lies in how best we can integrate and communicate all our work with various stakeholders to manage a project efficiently. This has given rise to an area called construction informatics where a significant amount of research is being done. The area deals with a range of subjects from integration to interoperability and from knowledge mining to strategic management. This area came into existence from two fields. The first was the use of computers to design and carry out time and cost calculations. The other was for computers to categorize and store essential information. Currently, integration, interoperability, innovation along with strategic management of Information and Communication Technologies are the key areas of research of construction informatics (Isikdag 2009).