Content area
Full Text
Part one - Knowledge management
Keywords
Knowledge management, Knowledge economy, Knowledge management systems
Abstract
Highlights the emergence of the knowledge-based economies reliant on their effectiveness in developing and utilising knowledge. Knowledge embodied in new products and services has become the primary source of wealth creation. Digital networks provide access to vast amounts of data and information, but knowledge management is required to translate data and information in a meaningful way. Knowledge management initiatives are unlikely to be successful unless they are integrated with business strategy, and related to the development of the core capabilities of the organisation. Sharing the discovery and synthesis of intellectual activity involves the creation of knowledge communities of practice.
Introduction
The emergence of economies based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information was charted by the OECD in their report The KnowledgeBased Economy:
The knowledge-based economy places great importance on the diffusion and use of information and knowledge as well as its creation. The determinants of success of enterprises, and of national economies as a whole, is ever more reliant upon their effectiveness in gathering and utilising knowledge. Strategic know-how and competence are being developed interactively and shared within sub-groups and networks, where knowwho is significant. The economy becomes a hierarchy of networks driven by acceleration in the rate of change and the rate of learning. What is created is a network society, where the opportunity and capability to access and join knowledge and learning intensive relations determines the socio-economic position of individuals and firms (OECD, 1996, p. 14).
The OECD is concerned with the institutions and processes for:
knowledge production - the research and development of new knowledge;
knowledge transmission - education, training and development of people;
knowledge transfer - the diffusion of knowledge and innovation.
Different kinds of knowledge are distinguishable in the knowledge-based economy including know-what, know-why, know-how and know-who. Knowledge is a deeper concept than information, which refers to the most accessible elements of the know-what and know-why components of knowledge. Some types of knowledge come closest to being market commodities, while other types of knowledge, particularly knowhow and know-who, are more tacit and difficult to measure, but often are the most valuable to possess. The OECD describes these...