Business Information System Chapter 3: Knowledge Management

Understanding Knowledge

• Knowledge is increasingly recognized as a strategic imperative of organizations, essential for growth and competitiveness.
• A collection of data is not information, and information remains relatively static in time and linear in nature.
• Information becomes knowledge when patterns and relationships are identified, and implications are understood.

Knowledge Definitions

• Different perspectives on knowledge definitions:
  • Information with rules allowing inferences to be drawn.
  • Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.
  • Information plus semantic meaning, measured by depth, scope, and ability to integrate and resolve problems.
  • Built upon the foundation of mental abilities.
  • Part of the hierarchy made up of data, information, and knowledge.
  • Information with guidance for action based on insight and experience.
  • Relevant, actionable, and partially based on experience.
  • Content in context to produce an actionable understanding.

Types of Knowledge

• Two types of knowledge:
  • Tacit knowledge: personal, stored in people's heads, accumulated through study and experience.
  • Explicit knowledge: codified, stored in documents, databases, and other formal systems.

Tacit Knowledge

• Tacit knowledge grows through trial and error, and experience of success and failure.
• Sharing tacit knowledge is a great challenge to organizations.
• Tacit knowledge can be shared through conversations, workshops, on-the-job training, and IT tools.
• Essential prerequisite for making good decisions.

Explicit Knowledge

• Comprises anything that can be codified, documented, and archived.
• Examples: reports, memos, business plans, drawings, patents, trademarks, customer lists, methodologies, etc.
• Not separate from tacit knowledge, but complementary.
• Requires tacit knowledge to understand.

Interaction between Types of Knowledge

• Dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge leads to knowledge creation in an organization.
• This interaction brings about the four modes of knowledge conversion.

Four Modes of Knowledge Conversion

• Socialization: creating common tacit knowledge through shared experiences.
• Externalization: articulating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (concepts, diagrams, etc.).
• Other modes: internalization and combination.

Understanding Knowledge

• Knowledge is increasingly recognized as a strategic imperative of organizations, essential for growth and competitiveness.
• A collection of data is not information, and information remains relatively static in time and linear in nature.
• Information becomes knowledge when patterns and relationships are identified, and implications are understood.

Knowledge Definitions

• Different perspectives on knowledge definitions:
  • Information with rules allowing inferences to be drawn.
  • Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.
  • Information plus semantic meaning, measured by depth, scope, and ability to integrate and resolve problems.
  • Built upon the foundation of mental abilities.
  • Part of the hierarchy made up of data, information, and knowledge.
  • Information with guidance for action based on insight and experience.
  • Relevant, actionable, and partially based on experience.
  • Content in context to produce an actionable understanding.

Types of Knowledge

• Two types of knowledge:
  • Tacit knowledge: personal, stored in people's heads, accumulated through study and experience.
  • Explicit knowledge: codified, stored in documents, databases, and other formal systems.

Tacit Knowledge

• Tacit knowledge grows through trial and error, and experience of success and failure.
• Sharing tacit knowledge is a great challenge to organizations.
• Tacit knowledge can be shared through conversations, workshops, on-the-job training, and IT tools.
• Essential prerequisite for making good decisions.

Explicit Knowledge

• Comprises anything that can be codified, documented, and archived.
• Examples: reports, memos, business plans, drawings, patents, trademarks, customer lists, methodologies, etc.
• Not separate from tacit knowledge, but complementary.
• Requires tacit knowledge to understand.

Interaction between Types of Knowledge

• Dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge leads to knowledge creation in an organization.
• This interaction brings about the four modes of knowledge conversion.

Four Modes of Knowledge Conversion

• Socialization: creating common tacit knowledge through shared experiences.
• Externalization: articulating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (concepts, diagrams, etc.).
• Other modes: internalization and combination.