KM Framework and models

The literatures of knowledge Management have defined many ways in which KM in organization could be managed and implemented. Nonaka (1991) came up with a SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) framework of “Knowledge creation”.

Socialization: the sharing of tacit knowledge between individuals through the joint activities are been concentrated on.

Externalization: the expression of tacit knowledge in the publicly comprehensible forms.

Combination: the conversion of explicit knowledge into more complex sets of explicit knowledge: communication, dissemination, systematization of explicit knowledge.

Internalization: this is the integration of externalized knowledge into tacit knowledge on individuals or organization scale.

According to Nonaka (1991), the spiral resulting from the exchange of tacit and explicit knowledge across different organizational levels lead the key to knowledge creation and re-creation.

(Earl, 2001). Came up with 7 school’s of knowledge management model. According to Earl( 2001). organization existence depends on these features TECHNOCRATIC, ECONOMIC and BEHAVIORAL. The Technocratic was divided into 3 schools as “systems”, “cartographic” and “engineering”, this has to do more with the Information Technology. In engineering school, it captures how re engineering is used in the processes of the transfer of knowledge flows in an organization activity. An example according to A. Gonnan (1998) is the consultancy practice on learning and improvement from knowledge reuse, recognizing that assignments and their component tasks or processes are often repeatable.

(Earl, 2001).The systems school still have to do with IT, it studies the expert knowledge and used in the knowledge bases so that organization can use the information. Internalization is the based on IT infrastructures. This justifies Nonaka (1991) model “Internalization”. Example according to M. J. Earl (1994) is the data-base built by Shorko Films to capture all second-by-second transactional data from a distributed process control system.

In the economic, which has the commercial school did not fit into the Nonaka (1991). SECI model. The commercial school deals with maximization of profit. It focus on “exploitation” of knowledge than “exploration” of knowledge according to M. J. Earl (2001). For example. A consultant can sell its intellectual knowledge to an organization to make income, i.e knowledge exploitation.

Earl (2001). in the behavioral, the organizational school have to do with how an organization shared, stored, interacted and exchange of information with in it environment “knowledge communities”. This agrees Nonaka (1991) SECI model. According to Hansen et al. 1999 combines both “codified knowledge “ and “personalized knowledge” strategies. Here their exist form of “socialization”, this school has the full integration of the Nonaka (1991) SECI framework.

Earl(2001). In strategic school sees how knowledge management can be used as competitive strategy by an organization i.e knowledge capability. An example is the Buckman Laboratories where knowledge is seen as a source of differentiation as well as a necessity in the specialty chemicals business.

In conclusion, Nonka (1991) in his SECI framework was give an outline and they are bounded. He didn't go further to simplify its framework. But Earl (2001) was more specific with his views about the 7 schools model. Some of the schools in Earl (2001) where able to fit into the SECI framework showing some forms of agreement with the SECI although not all.

References

• Earl, M. J. (2001).Knowledge management strategies: Towards taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems/ Summer 2001, vol.18, No. 1, pp.215-233.
• Earl, M. J. (1994)The new and old business process redesign. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 3, 1 (1994), 5-22.
• Gannon, A.(1998) Knowledge management at Hewlett Packard. Knowledge Management, 3, 1, (December/January 1998), 14-17.
• Nonaka, I., and Takeuchi, H. The knowledge-Creating Company. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Data, Information and Knowledge

There have been these misunderstanding, misuse and trying to distinguish between data, information and Knowledge. However, different writers and authors came up with the ideas that the use of data, information and knowledge depends on the end user.

Data
Different scholars came up with definitions of data. According to Harris (1996) and Avison and Fitzgerald (1995) they have similar views about data as "the lowest level of known fact and unstructed fact".

Davenport and Prusak (1998) defines data as essential raw material for the creation of information.

Data can be defined as raw and unprocessed fact.
Example: In Nokia organization the defective records of manufactured phones in the production process is data. The records from the process are raw .

The above example justifies Davenport and Prusak definition of data.


Information.
Information according to Harris(1996) are sorted, grouped, analyzed, and interpreted data. Marshall(1997) and Davenport and Prusak(1998) have similar views on information, i.e information to some persons can be knowledge and vice-vase.

For example, if Nokia phone organization takes record of all there monthly sales(data) and put it down in a processed form as (information) charts or graphs. These charts or graphs will help Nokia organization to have the knowledge on when to invest more on their products to certify
there customers demand against the coming season and for a common man it could be an information or data.Therefore, Information are processed data.

Knowledge
Many authors has the word knowledge as not been static, it is interchanged for information.
Davenport et al. (1998) sees knowledge as information combine with context, experience, interpretation, and reflection. Marshall (1997) views knowledge as understanding, interpreting and applying information to a specific work function.

In Practice

Using the above example to illustrate, when Nokia organization have knowledge of their customers demand, meaning they have been able to use the experience and understanding of the past to interpret, reflect and predict for the future business plan. Here, knowledge will come to play because it will help the organization or company to have a competitive advantage over others in the next season.



References

• Avison, D.E and Fitzgerald, G. (1995) Information Systems Development: methodlogies,techonologies, tool, 2nd edn,McGraw-Hill, London.
• Davenprt, T.H, Delong, D.w and Beer, M.C. (1998) 'Successful Knowledge Management projects', Sloan Management Review, 39(2): 43-57
• Davenport, T.H and Prusak, L. (1998) Working knowledge, Boston, Harvard Business School Press, MA.
• Harris, D.B (1996) 'Creating a Knowledge Centric Information Technology Enviroment', Technology in Education Institute, http://www.dbharris.com/ckc.htm , 15 September.
• Marshall, L. (1997) 'Facilitating Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing. New Opportunities for Information professionals, Online, Vol 21 No5, Pp 92-98.

COMMUNITY OF PRATICE "CoP"

Community of Practice exist in our day to day life activities, in our homes, schools, place of work e.t.c. .These are people that come together to share ideas or knowledge about an event or a set goal.
Therefor, Community of Practice can be defined as a group of people or organizations bounded by what they share or do together i.e tiring to archive there set goal.An example of a community of practice is Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is a community of practice because the entire labour workers both the skilled and unskilled, the government and private workers all come together to form the NLC. In this Community of practice, there objective can be found on http://www.onlinenigeria.com/finance/?blurb=619
, these set objectives or goals is the bounding force holding the labour workers together as one community, even though the workers are from different Establishments and organizations.
In my view, for a Community of practice to exist each member in the community of practice must be attracted or have a passion for the set goal or objectives.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge Management

In last few years, KM have been a major concern in organizations and industries. This have given rise to WHAT "Identification of KM", WHY "Insight about KM", HOW "Implementation of KM" this can be noted as 3I's . Knowledge management guru’s and scholars came with different definitions of Knowledge management.This definitions have sprigged up debates and arguments which till date have not agreed on a particular definition for Knowledge management.However, recent research have examined KM into :

1.Conceptual- Definitions, Principles and KM framework.
2.Process - How the KM model work.
3.Technology - Integrating of Information Technology (IT) into KM.
4.Organization - Organizational characteristics, Skills assessment, Organizational forms.
5.Management - Management practices, Measuring and Valuing intellectual capital.
6.Implementation - Success factors, Challenges and prerequisites, IT infrastructure, KM strategies.

According to Bassi, L.J (1997) KM is the process of creating, capturing and using knowledge to enhance organizational performance.

Von Krogh (1998) refers to KM as identifying and leveraging the collective knowledge in an organization to help the organization compete.

Wiig, K (1997) refers to KM the systematic, explicit and deliberate building, renewal and application of knowledge to maximize an enterprise's knowledge-related effectiveness and returns from its knowledge asset.

Despite the views of the authors about KM, it could be fitted in into the 3I's according to it features. However, Knowledge management could defined as how organizations identifies, have an insight and implementation of knowledge for there self goal.

In Practice

Illustration of how KM is applied in an organization, for example: Consider Nokia as an organization. When GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) came into Nigeria 2000, there where different mobile phone organizations like Nokia, Samsung, Ericson e.t.c there various phone was in the Nigeria market. But Nokia mobile was fast enough to use the Knowledge management to identify(behavior), implement(good product quality) and have an insight (knowledge about demand) about the mobile phone market and used it to have an competitive advantage over others mobile phone makers. When an organization is trying have a completive advantage over another, it develops to knowledge management strategy.

Knowledge Management Strategy

Knowledge management strategy arises when an organization tries to gain or have an edge in its environment. These KM consultants or experts where able to identify KM strategies into codification and personalization strategies .

• Codification Strategy can be identify as Knowledge in a database ,where it can be accessed by anyone in the companies. This KM strategy can also reuse,stored and edited.

An example of Organization that uses codify strategy is Ernst & Young, they codify strategy using "People to documents" approach such as interview guides, work schedules, benchmark e.t.c by storing them in the electronic repository for people to use. This was extracted from person who develop it, made independent of that person and reused for various purposes.

• Personalization Strategy can be identify as knowledge form the person that develops it, and is shared through one-to-one conversation.

An example of organization that uses personalization is Boston Consulting and Bain thy focus on dialogs between individual, not knowledge object in a database.here the organization is much important in the person-to-person knowledge sharing approach.

Differences between codification and personalization strategy are as follows:

1.Knowledge in codification strategy is retained through storage, editing and reuse while in personalization strategy can be lost because it is from one sources.
2.Knowledge in codification strategy is multi-dimensional in ideas of knowledge because it is stored in the organization while personalization strategy is one-dimensional.
3.Knowledge in codification strategy is share through computer networks while the use of computer in personalization strategy is use for information.

Finally, the two strategies can not be applied by an organizations because they have to stick to one. Those that have tried failed. Example is Bain in 1980' s when they developed a large paper-base document center at there headquarter. It was a waste of time and money, so they have to revert to there person-to-person strategy .

References

• Morten, T.H et al (1999) WHAT'S YOUR STRATEGY FOR MANAGING KNOWLEDGE? Source:Harvard Business Review 77(2), 1999:106-16

• Wiig, K. (1997), "Knowledge management: where did it come from and where will it go?" Journalof Expert Systems with Applications. Fall 1997

• Von Krogh,G. (1998), Care in knowledge creation. "California Management Review". 40(3) 133-153.

Hello,
My name is Nnaemeka Emmanuel Asiegbu, 25 years old. I am from Nigeria(Africa), the eastern part of Nigeria (IGBO tribe). I attended High Gate Nursey/Primary School, Oshodi Lagos for my primary education and Command Day Secondary charity, Oshodi Lagos were I obtained my First School Leaving Certificate (SSCE) in June 2000. In November 2002, I got admitted into Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, where i obtained a BSc. Statistics in July 2006.Between March 2007 and March 2008, I went for My one year National Youth Service in Kebbi State, Nigeria.