Knowledge Management and TQM: An Integrated Approach to Management

Knowledge management (KM) is the name given to the set of systematic and disciplined actions that an organisation can take to obtain the greatest value from the knowledge available to it. Knowledge management has received increasing attention from 1990. For a few years, it was the next big thing after business process reengineering and total quality management. This paper describes and compares concepts of KM and TQM. At the end, it concludes that KM and TQM are complementary and to be successful, it is necessary to take an integrated approach to management. Introduction Knowledge management (KM)—also known under rubrics such as organisational learning, organisational memory, and expertise management— has received increasing attention and has emerged on the maps of strategy consultants and conference organizers over the last decade. For a few years, it was the next big thing after business process reengineering and total quality management. It overlapped with initiatives on competence management and organisational learning, gaining credibility from the daily news on the imminent arrival of the knowledge society and the continuously expanding Internet. The early emphasis in knowledge management was on information systems. Then the focus shifted towards organisational development, intellectual capital management, and