Knowledge management systems: using technology to enhance organizational learning

Knowledge management seeks to understand how individuals in organizational settings acquire, create, store, and use knowledge. Technology developments such as the World Wide Web, relational databases, and sophisticated hypertext search engines and navigational tools enable knowledge management processes. Knowledge management systems are centralized computer systems where employees store, structure, and access a corporation’s document-based knowledge. Knowledge management systems support organization learning by providing employees with a shared interface to access information during problem solving and decision-making situations and convert this information into performance-enhancing, actionable knowledge. However, the technology subsystem simply supports the system-linked processes that define a learning organization: people, the organizational culture, knowledge, learning, and knowledge management. Corporate knowledge management systems are chartered with providing both logical and physical structures that allow individuals to access and create intellectual capital while performing in their work and task environments. INTRODUCTION In their 75th Anniversary issue, the Harvard Business Review (1997) posed this question to Peter Drucker and Peter Senge, both respected authors in the field of business: “What problems or challenges do you see already taking shape for business executives as they move into the next century?” (p. 18). Drucker and Senge identified changes that were not technical or rational in nature as much as cultural: how to lead organizations that create and nurture knowledge and how to maintain, as individuals and organizations, our ability to learn. Zuboff (1988) notes that today’s organization may have little choice but to acquire the learning habit, since in a knowledge-based economy one of its principal purposes becomes the expansion of knowledge. This knowledge is not essential for its own sake (as in some academic pursuit), but knowledge that comes to reside at the core of what it means to be productive. Learning is no longer a separate activity that occurs either before one enters the workplace or in classroom settings. Learning takes place as a by-product of people doing their work. The behaviors that define learning and the behaviors that define being productive are one and the same. When employees learn, they construct actionable knowledge, knowledge that easily translates into performance-enhancing behavior. More specifically, it is organizational knowledge, the information embodied in the set of task-environment specific work practices, theories, skills, processes, and heuristics shared by a firm’s employees (Argyris, 1996a; Argyris & Schön, 1987). An organization’s task environment is a pattern of interconnected roles operating through a set of norms, strategies, and assumptions that specify how work gets divided and how the tasks get performed (Dixon, 1994). Central to any organizational learning environment is the effective use of technology to provide employees information needed to solve problems, make decisions, and take effective action (Marquard, 1996; Senge, 1990). Knowledge management systems are centralized computer systems where employees store, structure, and access a corporation’s documentbased knowledge. Physically, the document-based knowledge is stored in relational databases, encapsulated in word processor files, spreadsheet files, and graphical presentation files and presented to the users through a ubiquitous Internet browser-like interface. Knowledge management systems support organization learning by providing employees with a shared interface to access information during problem solving and decision-making situations and convert this information into performance-enhancing, actionable knowledge. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Knowledge management focuses on understanding how knowledge is acquired, created, stored and utilized within an organization. Successful companies are able to acquire, codify, and transfer knowledge more effectively and with greater speed than the competition (Myers, 1996). Organizations provide employees with an environment to learn and share knowledge using technology with the goal of enhancing their productivity. Learning occurs when individuals create new knowledge by combining explicit knowledge accessed from knowledge management systems, with their prior knowledge, normally in tacit form. The individual utilizes this new knowledge to complete his or her task. The individual publishes the resulting new knowledge into the knowledge management system for use by other employees. This cycle of knowledge creation, publication, and sharing is the central theme of knowledge management. The following knowledge management model presents four processes that enable employees, while interacting with their knowledge management system, to generate and share knowledge. Knowledge Management Model Knowledge management is a methodology grounded in the generic process-centric model in Figure 1. Figure 1 Generic Knowledge Management Model This paper appears in Challenges of Information Technology Management in the 21st Century, the proceedings of the Information Resources Management Association International Conference. Copyright © 2000, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITP4508 IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING 2000 IRMA International Conference • 427 Knowledge Acquisition Organizations acquire knowledge from both external and internal sources. Methods to acquire information from external sources include: benchmarking best practices from other organizations; attending conferences; hiring consultants; monitoring economic, social, and technological trends; collecting data from customers, competitors, and resources; hiring new staff; collaborating with other organizations, building alliances, forming joint ventures, and establishing knowledge links with business partners. Organizations acquire knowledge internally by tapping into the knowledge of its staff, learning from experience, and implementing continuous process improvement. Two important points regarding knowledge acquisition; first, information, whether it is acquired from an external or an internal source is subject to perceptual filters (norms, values, and procedures) that influence what information the organization listens to and ultimately accepts. Second, knowledge acquisition systemically is guided by a firm’s core competency strategy. Individuals search for information, internally and externally, which enhances performance and adds to existing knowledge bases. For organizations to meet their strategic objectives, knowledge acquired from multiple sources must self-organize around the firm’s key business processes and knowledge domains modeled in a firm’s value chain.