Knowledge Management

Introduction

The discipline of knowledge management has been a center of interest for more than a decade. In the current years the relevance of knowledge management has been generally identified as the basis of developed economies moving from natural possession to intellectual asset (Omotayo, 2015). Also, in the recent industrialized economy, a growing portion of the value of a firm is gotten from factors like - workers knowledge and abilities (Usoff, Thibodeau, and Burnaby, 2002).

Intellectual capital has been recognized as some collection of intangibles - capabilities, expertise and resources, that can assist in the creation of value and enhance organizational performance (Bontis, Keow and Richardson, 2000; Roos and Roos, 1997; Bontis, 19998). Balanced scorecard was introduced and created by Kaplan and Norton (1992) has been welcomed by most organizations globally and viewed as very good tool for measuring performance of an organization.

The idea of community of practice as contributed to the aspect of learning and knowing and most institutions in different sectors are now aiming at communities of practice as essential in enhancing performance (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner, 2015).

Soft system thinking aspect has provided an identity and some framework to the area of system thinking which is required for providing solutions to managerial problems (Reisman and Oral, 2005).

This essay will examine how organizations can acquire knowledge and make it available to others for improved organizational performance. Additionally, the aspect of intellectual capital will be looked at and how it brings value to an organization. Other themes with relations to IC and Knowledge management like the communities of practice will also be looked at.

Further analysis will be done with respect to the themes to be discussed, with cases from others organizational setting.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge can be referred to as “the insights, understandings, and practical know-how that people possess”(Omotayo, 2015). Alavi and leidner (1999) describes knowledge as capacity with the ability for influencing future operations. Knowledge is seen as what exist in the mind and built through interactions and experiences on social network (Huysman and Wulf, 2006; Newell et al, 2006). Nonaka and Takeuchi (2005) states that two types of knowledge exist, which are tacit and explicit knowledge. According to King (2009), tacit knowledge can be described as knowledge that exist in people’s mind which is usually hard or impossible to express. Explicit knowledge on the other hand are those that exist as arranged data, computer programs, archives and sentences (King , 2009). Nonaka (1994) describes explicit knowledge as those knowledge that exist in digital form and it is captured on databases, archives and is retrieved from there sequentially.

In the work of King (2009), Knowledge management is described as inspiring, coordinating, supervising, planning of individuals, systems and procedures within the firm so that the firms knowledge related asset are enhanced and efficiently made use of. Knowledge-related asset can be referred to as skills, learnt lessons, knowledge on documents, processes, policies and data that an organization can create themselves (Freeze and Kulkarni, 2007).

According to Gorelick and Tantawy-monsou (2005), knowledge management provides a medium to gain and contribute current knowledge and also create additional knowledge.

The demand for Knowledge management has been to assist the older workforce, impact of globalization, competitive market and survival of the organization (Omotayo, 2015). King (2009) states the objectives of knowledge management as enhancing and leveraging firms knowledge asset to achieve improved decisions, improved organizational attitude, exceptional organizational performance and improved knowledge processes.

Intellectual Capital

According to Kannan and Aulbur (2004), Intellectual capital relates to intellectual substance like facts, information, know-how and intellectual possessions which can be used in generating revenue. Rastogi (2003) in his own view describes intellectual capital as a full ability of a business to set up, manage and establish its knowledge asset in order to create value and reach organizational goals. Intellectual capital is an organization resource that contains- human capital, relational capital, structural capital (Choo and Bontis, 2002).

According to Halim (2010), a key part of intellectual capital, is human capital - which identifies what an individual can bring to an organization. This includes social capability, professional capability, leadership, strength and employee motivation. Also, Bontis (2002), explained that human capital means the human factor in a firm, expertise employee go with when exiting a firm, and provides the organization with unique features.

In same way, structural capital refers to interaction amongst employee and their connection to the organization and what remains when a worker exits the organization (Halim, 2010). Lastly, Welbourne and Val (2009) refers to relational capital as organizational development, keeping and growing good quality relationships with individuals or group that have impact on the firm. Some examples for measuring intellectual capital in Mohammed (2017) work are the balanced scorecard, and Skandia navigator.

Social Capital

Adler and Kwon (2002) explain social capital as the generosity that are shown to us by those that are known too well and those that are known slightly. Rastogi (2002) describes social capital of an organization as the attitude of its employees to working together freely and with total dedication in support of organizational objectives. Inkpen and Tsang (2005, p. 150) states the benefit of social capital at an organizational level as “privileged access to knowledge and information, preferential opportunities for new business, reputation, influence, and enhanced understanding of network norms”. Cohen and Prusak (2001), explains that an essential benefit of high social capital is that employees tends to stay longer in companies and that when organizations ignore social capital, they risk losing employees and their knowledge.