MODULE 2

LESSO
N

1 INTRODUCING KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT (KM)
15
HOURS

 This lesson focuses on the introduction and relevance of Knowledge Management (KM) in today’s
dynamic environments, and its application to the field of Public Administration.

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Define Knowledge Management and explain the concept of intellectual capital;
2. Discuss the underlying trends that affect decisions in organizational Knowledge Management;
3. Identify the different systems in Knowledge Management;
4. Discuss the issues and differences between the traditional information systems and Knowledge
Management systems;
5. Share insights on the contribution of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to the great
changes in Knowledge Management;
6. Discuss the application of Knowledge Management in Public Administration; and
7. Design a knowledge management initiative to support organizational needs.

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NASA’s chief historian Sylvia Fries who interviewed 51 NASA engineers who
had worked on the Apollo program once said:

“The 20th anniversary of the landing of an American on the surface of the Moon
occasioned many bittersweet reflections. Sweet was the celebration of the
historic event itself. . . . Bitter, for those same enthusiasts, was the knowledge
that during the twenty intervening years much of the national consensus that
launched this country on its first lunar adventure had evaporated . . . a generation of men and women who had
defined their lives to a large extent in terms of this nation’s epochal departure from Earth’s surface was taking
its leave of the program they had built (Fries 1992).”

 So, what is the essence of Knowledge Management?

In this lesson, you will learn about the important field of KM—what it is and how to implement it
successfully with the tools provided by the technological advances of our times. It presents a balanced
discussion between theory and application of KM to organizations.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?

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  Knowledge management (KM) may simply be defined as doing what is needed to get the most out of
knowledge resources. Although KM can be applied to individuals, it has recently attracted the attention
of organizations. KM is viewed as an increasingly important discipline that promotes the creation,
sharing, and leveraging of the corporation’s knowledge.
 Knowledge management is the process by which an enterprise gathers, organizes, shares and
analyzes its knowledge in a way that is easily accessible to employees. (It refers to a
multidisciplinary approach by making the best use of knowledge to achieve organizational objectives.)
 Is the process by which the knowledge and information of an organization is created, shared, used
and managed.

 Peter Drucker (1994), whom many consider the father of KM, best defines the need for it: Knowledge
has become the key resource, for a nation’s military strength as well as for its economic strength . . . is
fundamentally different from the traditional key resources of the economist—land, labor, and even
capital . . . we need systematic work on the quality of knowledge and the productivity of knowledge . . .
the performance capacity, if not the survival, of any organization in the knowledge society will come
increasingly to depend on those two factors (pp. 66–69).
 KM focuses on organizing and making available important knowledge, wherever and whenever it is
needed.

History of Knowledge Management

 The history of knowledge management is brief because it is a relatively new discipline, starting around
the 1970s.
 Knowledge management came about in the 1970s because of papers published by management
theorists and practitioners like Peter Drucker and Paul Strassman. These papers focus around how
information and knowledge could be used as valuable organizational resources.
 In the second half of the 20 th century, with increased use of computers, specific adaptations of
technologies such as knowledge bases, expert systems, information repositories, group decision
support systems, intranets, and computer-supported cooperative work were introduces to further
enhance these efforts.
 In the early 90’s of the last century Knowledge Management emerged as a pure approach to ICT.
Knowledge has been perceived as having a content written or digitized. Answers to Knowledge
Management have been sought in ICT tools like databases, online libraries, etc.
 KM’s focus shifted to the personal side of knowledge. This was partly because of the realization that
knowledge would not be included in ICT systems, but rather personal and subjective: “Knowledge is
on people”.
 The approach to human resource or development of human talent is focused on personal capacity
development, as individuals are seen as the main carrier of the knowledge. It includes methods such
as technical, managerial, and personal training, assessment talks, personal goal formulation.

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 Components of Knowledge Management:

1. People
2. Process
3. Content/IT
4. Strategy

 “people, process and technology” This paradigm – often referred to as the “golden triangle” –
has been used by organizational leaders since at least the early 1990s to guide initiatives and
lead organizational change.

Two types of People:

1. Senior leaders – providing sponsorship and insight into the broader organizational strategy. They are
often people who lead business areas with significant, urgent need of knowledge.
2. Cross – Functional Stakeholders – is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward
a common goal.

 “Knowledge flows like a city water supply, just turn the tap on when someone needs it”. The
KM Team knows how everything flows within the organization, like a Public Administrator.

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 \

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Intellectual Capital
KM is related to the concept of intellectual capital, which is considered by many as the most valuable
enterprise resource. An organization’s intellectual capital refers to the sum of all its knowledge resources,
which exist in aspects within or outside the organization (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998). There are three types
of intellectual capital according to Subramaniam and Youndt (2005):
 human capital or the knowledge, skills, and capabilities possessed by individual employees;
 organizational capital or the institutionalized knowledge and codified experience residing in
databases, manuals, culture, systems, structures, and processes; and
 social capital or the knowledge embedded in relationships and interactions among individuals

FORCES DRIVING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

The following are four underlying trends that influence an organization’s decision-making process in line with
KM:
a. Increasing domain complexity
The complexity of the underlying knowledge domains is increasing. As a direct consequence, the
complexity of the knowledge required to complete a specific business process task has increased as
well. Intricacy of internal and external processes, increased competition, and the rapid advancement
of technology all contribute to increasing domain complexity.

For example, new product development no longer requires only brainstorming sessions by the
freethinking product designers of the organization, but instead it requires the partnership of
interorganizational teams representing various functional subunits—from finance to marketing to
engineering. Thus, we see an increased emphasis from professional recruiters around the world
seeking new job applicants who not only possess excellent educational and professional

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 qualifications, but who also have outstanding communication and team-collaboration skills. These
skills will enable them to share their knowledge for the benefit of the organization.
b. Accelerating market volatility
The pace of change, or volatility, within each market domain has increased rapidly in the past decade.
For example, market and environmental influences can result in overnight changes in an organization.
Corporate announcements of a missed financial quarterly target could send a company’s
capitalization, and perhaps that of a whole industry, in a downward spiral.
c. Intensified speed or responsiveness
The time required to take action based upon subtle changes within and across domains is decreasing.
The rapid advance in technology continually changes the decision- making landscape, making it
imperative that decisions be made and implemented quickly, lest the window of opportunity closes.
d. Employee turnover
Organizations continue to face employee turnover due to voluntary (i.e., decided by the employee, for
example, due to opportunities for career advancement) as well as involuntary reasons (i.e., for
reasons beyond the employee’s control, such as health-related problems and termination of
employment by the employer). Such employee turnover inevitably leads to the organization losing
some of the knowledge possessed by the departing individuals.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN KM
Rapid changes in the field of KM have to a great extent resulted from the dramatic progress we have
witnessed in the field of information technology (IT). Information technology facilitates sharing as well as
accelerated growth of knowledge. IT allows the movement of information at increasing speeds and
efficiencies.

For example, computers capture data from measurements of natural phenomena, and then quickly manipulate
the data to better understand the phenomena it represents. Increased computer power at lower prices enables
the measurement of increasingly complex processes, which we possibly could only imagine before. According
to Bradley (1997):

“Today, knowledge is accumulating at an ever-increasing rate. It is estimated that knowledge is currently

doubling every 18 months and, of course, the pace is increasing. . . . Technology facilitates the speed at which
knowledge and ideas proliferate (p. 54).”

Thus, IT has provided the major impetus for enabling the implementation of KM applications.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Knowledge management systems utilize a variety of KM mechanisms and technologies to support the
knowledge management processes. Based on observations on the KM systems implementations under way at
many organizations, a framework emerges for classification of KM systems as:
1. Knowledge Application Systems (will be discussed in the succeeding module)
2. Knowledge Capture Systems (will be discussed in the succeeding module)
3. Knowledge Sharing Systems (will be discussed in the succeeding module)
4. Knowledge Discovery Systems (will be discussed in the succeeding module)

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Artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies play an important role in the processes of knowledge
discovery, capture, sharing, and application, enabling the development of KM systems. Because KM systems
provide access to explicit company knowledge, it is easy to learn from previous experiences. Experience
management is another recent term also related to knowledge management. Basically, experience develops
over time to coalesce into more general experience, which then combines into general knowledge.
Experiences captured over time can be managed by the use of technology.

ISSUES IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

 In practice, given the uncertainty in today’s business environments and the reality of continuing
layoffs, what could make employees feel compelled to participate in knowledge management
initiatives?

Many KM systems implementations have fallen short of their promise. Many KM systems implemented
at organizations have failed to enable knowledge workers to share their knowledge for the benefit of
the organization. Effective KM uses all the options available to motivated employees in order to put
knowledge to work. Effective KM depends on recognizing that all of these options basically need each
other.

 One of the primary differences between traditional information systems and KM systems is the active
role that users of KM systems play on building the content of such systems.

Users of traditional information systems are typically not required to actively contribute to building the
content of such systems, an effort typically delegated to the Management Information System (MIS)
department or to information systems consultants. Therefore, traditional IS research has concentrated
much of its efforts in understanding what are the factors leading users to accepting, and thereby using,
IT.

The successful implementation of KM systems requires that its users not only effectively “use” such
systems as in traditional information systems but that in fact that they also “contribute” to the
knowledge base of such systems.

 Whereas technology has provided the impetus for managing knowledge, we now know that effective
KM initiatives are not only limited to a technological solution. An old adage states that “effective KM is
80 percent related to organizational culture and human factors and 20 percent related to technology.”
This means that there is an important human component in KM. This finding addresses the fact that
knowledge is first created in the people’s minds. KM practices must:

 first identify ways to encourage and stimulate the ability of employees to develop new
knowledge
 KM methodologies and technologies must enable effective ways to elicit, represent, organize,
reuse, and renew this knowledge
 KM should not distance itself from the knowledge owners but instead celebrate and recognize
their position as experts in the organization

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 This, in effect, is the essence of knowledge management.

APPLICATION OF KM IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

There are four areas to consider implementing KM in PA:
• Enhance decision making with public services
• Aid the public to participate effectively in public decision making
• Build competitive societal knowledge and IC capabilities
• Develop knowledge competitive workforce

Objective of KM in Public Administration:

 To provide effective PA services and functions to pursue and implement the public agenda in all areas
 To provide a stable, just, orderly and secure society
 A society that provide citizens an acceptable level of quality of life through building, maintaining and
leveraging commercial and public intellectual capital
 A prosperous society that is competitive in the regional and global economy through developing its
citizens to be competent knowledge workers and its institutions to be competitive

Functional Areas of a Comprehensive KM:

1. Governance functions- direct and support KM form enterprise perspective and goals
2. Staff or infrastructure functions- support to KM objectives including supporting capabilities like
special expertise teams, institutions and technological facilities
3. Operational functions- obtain and create knowledge and to capture, organize, distribute and
manipulate it
4. Functions to realize the value of knowledge- related investments

The following shows the example of an organization’s KM Initiative/activities in four functional areas. The first
one focuses on the goal: Maximize Region’s Knowledge-Related Benefits.

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Another example of a KM Initiative related to Public Administration is shown below. It focuses on the goal:
Prepare Effective Policy Partners.

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Assessment No. 1

Submit it thru email or PM

Deadline will be on Tuesday Nov. 15, 2022

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1. Based on the scenario above, do you agree that Knowledge Management is for everybody? Share your
Scenario A
John Smith owns an independent auto repair shop in Stillwater, Oklahoma, which he established in
1985. Prior to opening his own shop, he had been repairing foreign cars as a mechanic for the local
Toyota dealership. In these days of increasing complexity in automobiles, he had to learn about such
new technologies as fuel injection, computer-controlled ignition, and multivalve and turbocharged
engines. This has not been easy, but he managed to do it, and at the same time created a successful
business, one with an outstanding reputation. As his business grew, he had to hire mechanics to help
him with the workload. At first, training them was easy since cars were simple. That has radically
changed in the last ten years. He now finds himself spending more time training and correcting the
work of his mechanics instead of working on cars himself, which is what he truly enjoys. To further
complicate matters, his mechanics are so well-trained that the local Toyota dealership is hiring them
away from him for significant salary increases. Being a small business he cannot afford to compete
with them, so he finds himself doing more and more training and correcting all the time. The turnover
has now begun to affect the quality of the work he turns over to his customers, increasing complaints
and damaging his hard-earned reputation. Basically, he has a knowledge problem. He has the
knowledge and needs to capture it in a way that it is easy to disseminate to his mechanics. He must
find a way to manage this knowledge in order to survive. How successful he is will dictate his future
survival in this business.

thoughts. (Not less than 3 sentences)

2. What are your recommendations to solve the problems faced by Mr. Smith? (Enumerate)

Thanks

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