MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION STRATEGY

Management and Information Strategy Assessment



Knowledge Management

Overview of the subject matter

Knowledge management provides the organizational and infrastructural requirements for a learning organization. It must, however, serve the value of the organization, i.e. it must encourage the creation of new knowledge, disseminate and consolidate existing knowledge within the organization (Snowden, Dave, 2002, p. 100 - 111).

Knowledge management is concerned with the ascending sequence 'date - information - knowledge - wisdom' and collectivization of tacit knowledge to a learning process within an organization to set in motion. Formally speaking, this process can be represented as follows:

'Implicit knowledge of the person A <=> explicit knowledge <=> implicit knowledge of the person B' (Sensky, Tom, 2002, p. 387-395).

Knowledge management should not be an end in itself. It is worthless as long as the members of the organization did not apply on their behalf. So it must be subordinated to the objectives of the strategy of the organization (Addicott, Rachael, et al, 2006, p. 87-94). To these goals must first be defined naturally, with the following points to consider:

Goals of the organization: What should actually be achieved?

Competition: how to achieve a competitive advantage?

Implementation: What steps are necessary?

Knowledge management has to deal thus with these three points. For example, it could be the target of a pharmaceutical business, get the fastest possible approval for new products to be able to quickly bring this to market. An analysis may then show that has the competition (within or outside a company) is much shorter product cycles, just because of this approval process is faster. This could be the following consequences. First, a partnership with more successful organizations in this field, or - more obvious - the application of so-called 'best practices', that is the most successful to date procedures (Snowden, Dave, 2002, p. 100-111).

Lack of knowledge and information problems is inextricably linked, since, in order to free the prisoner in the knowledge capacity, organizations must address those and other tasks simultaneously. In order to permanently reduce the deficit of knowledge, organizations need to solve such important problems as:

Acquisition of knowledge - the use of existing knowledge in the world and their adaptation to the needs of the organization (for example, with an open trade regime, attract foreign investment and licensing agreements), as well as acquire new knowledge by conducting research and development activities.

Assimilation of knowledge (such as achieving universal primary education, creating opportunities for lifelong learning and the development of higher education).

Transfer of knowledge - the use of new information and telecommunication technologies, the corresponding legal regulation and access to information resources (Liebowitz, Jay, 2006, p. 2-3).

Methods of analysis

This paper will begin with undertaking a critical evaluation of existing literature on the reasons why different knowledge management systems projects, across business sectors, have either failed or have succeeded to deliver the value they have promised. From the research, factors that are considered crucial will be selected to design a successful KMS that will include both technical and managerial areas of a ...