Taking a Look at Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management: First of all we will define Knowledge, Knowledge is the combination of data information and data, to which is added experience, skills and expert opinion, to result in a valuable asset which can be used to aid decision making. Knowledge may be explicit and or tacit individual and or collective.

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 Management can make a significant difference between ongoing or successful ventures of any organization in a world of accelerating change. Knowledge Management provides the ability to connect and cooperate complex ideas efficiently and can be beneficial even to expand when using strategic alliances. To make Knowledge Management work in an

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).

Knowledge management often involves isolating and planning intellectual assets within an organization, producing new knowledge for competitive advantages within the organization, making vast amounts of corporate information accessible. Knowledge management can be hard to interpret or explain. How would a nurse or doctor define “health care” succinctly? How would a CEO explain “management”? Each of these areas is very complex, with many sub-areas of specialization. This in turn leads to the question “What is Knowledge Management Strategy & Metrics”?

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.

(Clarke, 2008) Illustrates how knowledge management can be used by firms and the scope and methods that are used for knowledge management which can help knowledge managers create a KM system which fosters innovation. It also provides us with various perspectives on the management of knowledge and about the KM in different organizations as a critical thinking system. The researchers of the paper say that Knowledge Management is not just explicit, it is not about just recording the explicit knowledge or cannot be achieved by manipulating that knowledge but it must be rather implicit from which the firm can benefit in the long run. So the process of knowledge management is equally important as the content.

"Knowledge management is the set of practices aimed at discovering and harnessing an organization 's intellectual resources. It 's about finding, unlocking, sharing, and altogether capitalizing on the most precious resources of an organization: people 's expertise, skills, wisdom, and relationships. Knowledge managers find these human assets, help people collaborate and learn, help people generate new ideas, and harness those ideas into successful innovations" (Bateman, 2004, p.8-9). One of the most important factors of change in management is the growing need for good, new ideas. Knowledge management is an approach that allows people to produce change. It 's bringing people together and collecting ideas from

Knowledge management is a concept that is widely known in many organizations but despite the concept being around for more than two decades, a universally accepted meaning of the term is yet to be outlined. Knowledge management is a concept that is concerned with the aspect of learning something before putting it into action. The concept is also involved with creating a platform which will allow exploration of new types of knowledge. The created knowledge may then be incepted in the minds of the employees to add value to the products or services they deliver. What is important to note is that as far as KM is concerned, it does not go beyond storing and manipulating data or information. Knowledge transfer to decision makers will need the development of a structured approach to ensure that it is available on demand. When considering the department of labor, you would appreciate the need for implementation of this strategy. Many departments hoard information thus making it tough to access

Chapter 12 generally discusses the various processes that assist in managing business knowledge. The author of this chapter demonstrates clearly to the readers how knowledge management is closely related to information systems in three unique ways. The author also gives a clear explanation on why data, knowledge, and information should not in any way be viewed as interchangeable in any way. According to this chapter, knowledge is considered to be more valuable as compared to information that is more valuable as compared data due to the level of human contribution that is involved. The chapter on “managing business knowledge” elaborates on the two forms of knowledge that include explicit and tacit categories.

Being challenged by the dynamic world of complex needs and expectations, organizations need to effectively and efficiently manage their internal base of resources. An essential organizational resource is knowledge (Choo, 2002). It is not only an essential resource itself but a facilitator and stimulator of new internal capabilities (Little, 2002).

Knowledge management is a large term and can mean a number of things. For the purpose of this paper, the definition of knowledge management that I will recognize is the creation, development, and sharing of knowledge and information within an organization. However the problem remains, as well as the topic of this paper, exactly how effective is knowledge management in an organization. Furthermore, the key question that I hope to answer in this paper is how the use and development of knowledge can be managed in an organization. Although there are countless pieces of literature on knowledge management itself, and there have been proposals that link knowledge management to a company’s performance, to this date there are very few papers that attempt to measure the effectiveness of knowledge management within an organization. Overall, my objective of this paper is to compare two separate companies and first, find out how to measure the value of knowledge management, and second, find out how beneficial it is to the organization.

Knowledge management is the ability of organizations to effectively utilize and maximize the expertise, knowledge and competencies of its employees considered assets