PUNCAK PERDANA CAMPUS

FACULTY OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Master of Science in Knowledge Management

IM 701

Corporate Knowledge Taxonomy

MKM 760

Assignment 1 : K Words
(Knowledge Culture)

Prepared by:
Siti Jasiah Binti Jasmi
2020510421

Prepared for:
Dr. Noor Zaidi bin Sahid

Submission Date:
7th November 2020
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The “K” words

PART A
What is Knowledge Culture?
I choose to define and discuss about Knowledge Culture for this assignment. There

are many terms that being use to describe and explain the concept of knowledge culture.

Some authors and websites recognize knowledge culture as corporate culture or

organizational culture and Knowledge sharing culture.

I had choose three websites to see the definition and concept of Knowledge

Culture. The first website that I have been browse to is

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/ksculture. From the author of this

websites, he puts the Knowledge Culture context as creating a knowledge sharing culture.

He define knowledge sharing culture as, “What then does it mean to create a Knowledge

Sharing Culture?” Well it’s about making knowledge sharing the norm. To create a

knowledge sharing culture you need to encourage people to work together more

effectively, to collaborate and to share - ultimately to make organizational knowledge

more productive”. Besides that, I was looking for the second definition of KC from

https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/knowledge-sharing-culture/. This site is a

corporate training sites that quote knowledge culture in business as, “A knowledge-

sharing culture is a corporate culture which encourages and enables the free exchange

of knowledge, insight and experience in order to benefit individuals and drive a business

toward key strategic goals.” Their focus of KC is drive by the corporate and business

environment. Thirdly, I decide to take the definition from,

https://www.zamaros.net/OB%20ch4%20reading%202%20-%20knowledge

%20culture.pdf. This website linked to a research article conducted by Stan Oliver and
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Kondal Reddy Kandadi which taken from the Journal of Knowledge Management. The

authors represent the meaning of knowledge culture as, “A way of organizational life that

enables and motivates people to create, share and utilize knowledge for the benefit and

enduring success of the organization”. After all, all of these three websites define KC as

a process of sharing knowledge among people in the organization.

PART B

What are the two most relevant similarities and differences between those

definitions? Even though there are defining the same concept of KC but there are also

few similarities and differences throughout their understanding. The two most relevant

similarities between the definitions are all the definitions above state that it is a process

of encouraging and enabling people or individual staff to create and share their knowledge

with other people within the organization. Additionally, those definitions also clearly define

the purpose of knowledge culture is helping to achieve the organizational goals and

success. In contrast, the two most relevant differences between the definitions are the

first definition state that the sharing process should be a norm in an organization while

the other does not present how to create this culture of knowledge sharing. This is refer

to the way should the organization cultivate the culture. Secondly, it do not state what are

the scope of knowledge that can be share by the people. As the second definition mention

about sharing knowledge, insight and experience to the others. While the other only

define knowledge for the sharing process.

From my point of view regarding the definitions, it should clarify the clear meaning

of the terminology with support of relevant activities or process that can incorporate the
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total meaning of the knowledge culture. For an example, the knowledge culture should

include the process of sharing either through face to face or with the use of any medium.

This is important, as definition will provides the image, identity and summarizing the

terminology.

PART C

This section I will provide my own definition of Knowledge Culture base on my

understanding and knowledge after reading through this K words. This definition can be

suit to any field or organization that plan to start Knowledge Management in their

organization. They must create this KC in order to make staffs and individuals get a

comfortable environment and understands the importance of knowledge management

process. After all, I decide to define Knowledge Culture as follow;

“Knowledge culture is a condition where people can effectively communicate and

collaborate with other people in order to create, learn, cooperate and share their

knowledge, experience, thoughts and opinion either through social interaction or with the

use of any electronic medium for the purpose to achieve a set of goals or agreed

objectives”

The sources that I used in order to formulate my own knowledge culture definition are

base on my reading through the websites and book as follow:-

Website 1 - http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/ksculture

Website 2- https://www.webology.org/2015/v12n1/a134.pdf

Book - Knowledge Management in the Public Sector, David E. McNabb (2006)

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PART D

There are several importance of having Knowledge Culture in an organization. This

culture can possibly solve organizational problems that people could not understand

before. It is important to cultivate the knowledge culture in an organization if the

organization has a startup plan to implement knowledge management concept. At the

initial stage, the culture should be understand and accepted throughout the people in the

organization. They have to understand the importance of managing knowledge through

some activities like sharing, learning, giving feedback and opinion and etc. They also have

to understand the purpose and benefit that they can get when implementing KM in the

organization. When all the staffs from bottom to top management get the clear picture of

KM concepts, then they can change the traditional organizational culture to adapt the

knowledge culture.

The possible organizational problems that could be solve by Knowledge Culture is

firstly it can prevent the lost of valuable knowledge when people are retire or being

transferred to another department. If the organization has already adapt this culture, this

problem will not happen as they know how to extract and keep the certain knowledge of

the staffs. Secondly, it can reduce and overcome the fear to speak or reluctant to share

knowledge with other people as scared of being questioned or rejected by the community.

If knowledge culture has become the culture of the organizations, people will not feel

awkward and scared to share their knowledge. The environment will encourage and

support people to learn in their community and this might lead to the creation of new

knowledge and better decision making.

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Reference Citation

Dilmaghani, M., Fahimnia, F., Ardakan, M. A., & Naghshineh, N. (2015). Function of
knowledge culture in the effectiveness of knowledge management procedures: A case
study of a knowledge-based organization. Retrieved from,
http://www.webology.org/2015/v12n1/a134.pdf

Gurteen, D. (1999). Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture. Retrieved from,

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/ksculture

Knowledge culture. Retrieve from, https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/knowledge-

sharing-culture/

McNabb, D. E. (2006). Knowledge Management in the Public Sector: A Blueprint for

Innovation in Government. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

S. O., & K. K. (2006). How to develop knowledge culture in organizations? A multiple case
study of large distributed organizations. Retrieved from, https://www.zamaros.net/OB
ch4 reading 2 - knowledge culture.pdf