Major Issues in

Knowledge Management

C.VIJAY KUMARInternational School of Information Management

University of Mysore

MYSORE - 006

9th December,2008

KM strategy in organizations

“KM is a concept in which an enterprise gathers,

organizes, shares, and analyzes the knowledge of

individuals and groups across the organization

in ways that directly affect performance”- Robert S. Seiner

sources of Knowledge

 Internal information resources:

• People — Oral communication • Correspondence — Mail, memoranda  • Data Records — Files

on activities, Operations, Personnel, etc.• Graphic materials — Maps, Charts, Diagrams, etc.  

External information resources:

• People outside the organization• Internal information resources of other organization• Published information — books, journals, reports, etc• Mass media — News • Electronic databases and data banks  

Major issues in KM

• Social Networking Analysis• Security• Version control• Information Overload• Communities of Practice• Psychological aspects• KM practices• Culture etc.

Challenges

• What knowledge required to do jobs ?• If so, at what cost? If not what’s cost ?• who should get what knowledge-priority?• Methods of acquisition, storage, organization and

delivery processes• What system would be best? – cost factor• Alternatives• Balance between manual and computer systems

Three issues of KM

• Information Overload

• Security

• Culture

Information Overload

• ‘Information value chain’ from handling information and data to converting pre-processed information into knowledge and action

• Examining the generic relationship between information and the actual or potential user of that information

• Directly related to the development of technologies for collecting, organizing and distributing information and interpersonal communication

Factors

• Volume

• Comprehension

• Integration

• Location

• Access

• Relevance

• Verification

Examples

• Document management• Work flow• Intranet & Internet• Database integration• Group ware and collaboration tools• Project management• Communication tracking• Knowledge creation and representation tools

Recommendations

• Skills-based approaches

• Technologies

• Corporate Information Policy

• Portals & Intranet

• Search engines and directories

• Knowledge Management Products

Security

• Access control• Trust management and Negotiation• securing a knowledge management

system• Validity of the data• Right information-Right person-right time

Recommendations

• Secure Tools for knowledge sharing• Security policy based framework• Role Based access control• Secure knowledge management

architecture • Trust rules for collaboration

Cultural Issues…

• Different Levels of the Socio-Cultural Context• Globalization vs. Localization• Conflict of motives • Individual and social barriers• Core cultures:

1. Control Core Culture

2. Competence Core Culture

3. Collaboration Core Culture

4. Cultivation Core Culture

Recommendations

• Create shared need – share knowledge • Reward key contributors

• Design & roll out of various KM modules • Developing culture of virtual environments• cultural awareness and cultural diversity as an

important and necessary skill• Adopt the sense-making approach in human

resource practices

• Balance the values and the conflicts of cultural diversity

• value cultural diversity knowledge-intellectual capital

References: Reuters Ltd. (1996). Dying for information?. An investigation into the

effects of information overload in Singapore andworldwide(1996).London.

Entin, E.E., Freeman, J., Serfaty, D, & Cohen, M. (1997). Information

management: Understanding and coping with information overload.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 41st

Annual Meeting, pp. 565-68

R. Sandhu, E. Coyne, H. Feinstein, and C. Youman, “Role-based access control models,” Computer, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 38–47, Feb. 1996.

Walsham, G. (2001). Making a world of difference: IT in a global context.

Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Son Ltd.

• http://www.yahoo.com• http://www.google.com• http://www.pdfzone.com/products/software/tool_DocFather.html• http://cais.isworld/articles/1-7/article

Thank you