[转帖]Classification of Knowledge Management Processes

Classification of Knowledge Management Processes - The Knowledge Process Wheel

Taking into account the literatures on knowledge management and organisational learning, the Knowledge Processes Wheel, a framework of knowledge processes has been defined (see Figure 3). It addresses the possible knowledge management practices that an organisation might implement to continuously maintain and develop its knowledge assets.

Each of the knowledge processes will be explained in the following.

Knowledge generation includes a set of processes executed in order to increase the stock of corporate knowledge assets. Its aim is to allow organisation to develop knowledge assets. It is possible to recognise two main sub-processes of knowledge generation, which are the knowledge acquisition and the knowledge creation.

Knowledge acquisition is the process of capturing and bringing knowledge from the external environment into the internal context of a company. The most direct way to acquire knowledge assets from the external environment of the company is to buy it. Knowledge acquisition can be performed by scanning the external environment and identifying and capturing knowledge for instance in the form of patents, practices and technologies. Alternative methods are either to acquire knowledge assets or to rent them, e.g. paying consultants to resolve specific problems, or to obtain them by building up relationships, e.g. setting up joint ventures or other forms of agreements aiming to exchange knowledge.
Some companies are specialised in providing a support to acquire knowledge from outside the organisation; these companies perform the function of knowledge brokers. Teltech for instance is a company helping other organisations to get access to external technical know-how. It provides four main services: the expert network, i.e. the possibility to be linked to a network of experts (academics, recent retirees from industry, or consultants) specialised in areas of specific knowledge expertise; the assisted database searches, i.e. access to over 1600 online databases with support of knowledge analysts; the vendor service, i.e. a service to search particular products or services; and the technical alert service, i.e. a system that provides information about the most significant technical developments from researches around the world (Davenport, 1998).

Knowledge creation is the process of developing new knowledge assets within the company. Adopting a cognitive approach it can be considered as the result of an information interpretation process performed by individuals within the organisation. Knowledge creation within a company is then strictly tied to individual learning processes and can be the result of either a fortuitous individual activity or a planned organisational policy. The most effective way to create knowledge within an organisation is to motivate employees to be creative and learning-oriented, as well as to dedicate specific resources to these processes. A common way to generate knowledge is to establish organisational units specifically for the purpose of knowledge generation, such as a R&D departments.

Knowledge mapping is the process of identifying knowledge assets within the organisation and of defining ways of getting them. Often, much of the knowledge people require to solve problems already exists within an organisation, but it is not easily available when needed. All organisational knowledge has to be accessible, as this makes the process of creating new knowledge assets more efficient and effective. Knowledge mapping is usually supported by knowledge storing technologies that make knowledge either available when it is necessary or enable employees to locate where the knowledge resides and how it can be acquired.

Knowledge sharing is the process by which the knowledge is disseminated across the organisation. Knowledge sharing contains two process dimensions, formal and informal processes used to distribute by knowledge throughout the organisation. For example, knowledge can be shared in formal processes such as meetings, seminars and workshops, by using co-workers, company knowledge data-bases and internal documents. On the other hand, informal processes consist mainly of informal discussions between individuals that can be encouraged by the organisation which can define time, space and social initiatives for this purpose. This can be achieved by defining suitable places to socialise or scheduling tea/coffee breaks to encourage people to meet. Specific knowledge projects aimed to support knowledge sharing processes can be implemented within organisation. For example internal benchmarking practices allow identifying organisational best practices and strategic know-how as well as finding approaches to better spread and exploit them. Further knowledge sharing can be supported by the use of ICT, e.g. GroupWare, on-line databases, data warehousing/knowledge repositories, intranets, decision-support tools. The strategy to adopt ICT appears to be one of the most followed managerial practices within the organisations, but just the implementation of ICT does not ensure knowledge sharing. Individuals generate knowledge and they have to be encouraged to share their knowledge, ICT can just be a facilitator. Therefore an investment in ICT that disregards the human dimension of the knowledge sharing process will inevitably fail.

Knowledge transferring is the process of passing on knowledge between cognitive systems. When it takes place within a firm among different units, groups or individuals, it overlaps with knowledge sharing. Instead, when it involves the inter-organisational dimension, it has common characteristics with many knowledge acquisition processes. The main difference between the two knowledge transfer processes is the disparity in their intention. The former endeavours to make individual or team knowledge organisational knowledge. The latter works towards creating a channel and context to enable the organisation to acquire knowledge which has been generated outside the firm's borders. Both processes, intra and inter-organisational knowledge transfer, are based on a communication process that involves both information and interpretation processes in order to allow the knowledge owned by the sender to be acquired and absorbed by the receiver. It is important to point out that the nature of the transferred knowledge should determine the communication characteristics. For instance, when the knowledge is tacit the communication is better performed by socialisation or facilitated by multimedia communication technology. The effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer processes is affected by the absorptive capacity of the receiver, which is related to a shared knowledge background between sender and receiver. If they share a common technical and cultural experience the performance of the knowledge transfer process is improved by reducing the ambiguity of the information interpretation process.

Knowledge Codification is the process that aims to formalise knowledge into appropriate codes. It involves three main dimensions: capturing knowledge, which consists of identifying the knowledge related to a specific ability; knowledge externalisation, which involves changing the nature of knowledge from tacit to explicit; and knowledge representation, which involves a description of the explicit knowledge with an appropriate set of information codes.

Knowledge storing is the process of saving knowledge within the organisation, meant to make knowledge available anytime and anywhere. Knowledge storing is at the heart of knowledge mapping and can take the form of either knowledge databases, in which codified knowledge is stored in appropriate information codes, or of yellow pages, which provide links to people with specific know-how. The former is based on the idea that knowledge can be codified and made available to be retrieved electronically. This is an approach followed by many consultant companies such as Arthur Andersen, Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young which have developed and adopted best practices databases to support the activities of consultants spread out around the world. In the latter only some information about potential knowledge resources are stored that assist in identifying the people and the places where knowledge resides. For example Hoffmann-LaRoche, as a part of its overall Drug Approval Process knowledge map, included a Yellow Page catalogue of relevant experts, arranged according to know-how, questions and issues.

Knowledge application is the process of applying knowledge within the organisation. The knowledge is a value-added resource only if it is applied within the organisation and its processes. Knowledge becomes an organisational innovation only if it is applied to improve business performance. The knowledge application is most of the time a question of turning knowledge into action. Often the differences in organisational performance come not only from differences in what companies know, but rather from their ability to translate their knowledge into action.