Major Issues

in
Knowledge Management

C.VIJAY KUMAR
International 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:

• Control Core Culture

• Competence Core Culture
• Collaboration Core Culture
• 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