Knowledge management in organisations

By Priya Chetty on February 4, 2012

The following figure outlines Knowledge Management in an organisational perspective.  As seen in the figure, Knowledge should be studied as an interrelationship between stimulus and response:

Figure 1: Knowledge Management in Organisations. {Source: Frappaolo, C. (1996) }
Figure 1: Knowledge Management in Organisations. {Source: Frappaolo, C. (1996) }

While studying with respect to an organisational perspective, stimulus could be further classified into two types:

  • Anticipated Stimulus
  • Unanticipated Stimulus

Similarly, response could be further classified into two types

  • Planned response
  • Unplanned response

The coordination of stimulus and response is exhibited in the form of Knowledge of an individual. An organisation is composed of a group of individuals. Hence the knowledge of an organisation collectively denotes the overall knowledge level of all its human resource.

It is essential to manage Knowledge in any organisation and proper knowledge management in-turn contributes to development or birth of new innovative ideas.

The Process of Knowledge Management in Organisations

In any organisation, Knowledge Management is essential. The Knowledge Management process of any organisation can be explained as follows:

Figure 2: Process of Knowledge Management in Organisations {Source: Hislop, D. (2005) }
Figure 2: Process of Knowledge Management in Organisations {Source: Hislop, D. (2005) }

Knowledge management consists of the following steps:

  • Collecting
  • Organising
  • Summarizing
  • Analyzing
  • Synthesizing
  • Decision Making

Knowledge as the figure shows is the combination of data and information. The knowledge collected initially is helpful in any organisation in decision making.

 

References

  • Carl Frappaolo, Knowledge management, Capstone, 2006
  • Donald Hislop, Knowledge management in organizations: a critical introduction ,Oxford University Press, 2005

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