INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Knowledge has become a corporate asset that may be the principal competitive advantage in the global economy. The potential for success of the companies is closely tied to their ability to innovate and to develop their ways of production; all this is based on the knowledge assets possessed by the company [Davenport & Prusak, 1998]. The current focus and study of knowledge management is not for the sake academics only, but a realization that knowing about knowledge is critical to business growth and business survival.
Knowledge, if properly utilized and leveraged, can drive organizations to become more competitive, innovative and sustainable. The interest in organizational sustainability and growth has created much disclosure on the methods of improving and developing organizational performance, for example process re-engineering, innovation, and providing and superior customer service. Furthermore, several strategies appeared to tackle these improvement, among them was the concept of downsizing, a prevalent strategy in the 80’s, and was created under the pressure to reduce expenditure and to increase profitability. The effect of this strategy was the loss of vital knowledge workers, who had accumulated years of experience and knowledge, and who were forced to leave the organization because of the downsizing policy. By leaving the organization, they took valuable knowledge with them. Knowledge dispersed across organizations is an important source of organizational advantage (Teece 1998; Tsai and Ghoshal 1999). Knowledge is often defined in relation to action, e.g. information transformed into capability for effective action. However, together with ability to act, knowledge is also just what we know. Consequences of knowledge include, for example, a capacity to perform a particular task, or a productive resource or factor in providing competitive advantage. Experience, intuition and judgement belong to knowledge, which is hence a product of information, experience, skills and attitude. All knowledge is local and belief related. It may be defined as patterns of meaning that can promote a theoretical or practical understanding that enables the recognition of variety in complexity. These patterns are often developed through a coalescing of information. If information is seen as a set of coded events, then consistency occurs with the definition that explicit knowledge is codified (Wise, 2002).
Knowledge management is complex and multifaceted; it encompasses everything the organisation does to make knowledge available to the business, such as embedding key information in systems and processes, applying incentives to motivate employees and forging alliances to infuse the business with new knowledge. Effective knowledge management requires a combination of many organisational elements- technology, human resource practices, organisational structure and culture- in order to ensure that the right knowledge is brought to bear at the right time. Knowledge management initiatives in organization are consequently increasingly becoming important and firms are making significant information technology investments in deploying knowledge management systems (KMS).
Weber (2007) agree that in order for organizations to stay in the competitive race knowledge has to be up dated continuously. Knowledge management attempts to secure and replenish the learning experiences, as well as the work products, of the individuals who comprise an organization. Today’s volatile business demands a new attitude and approach within organizations actions must be anticipatory, adaptive, and based on a faster cycle of knowledge creation.
Knowledge management can play an important role to make companies compete productively. Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, value, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.
An emerging knowledge-centric view of the firm describes firms as organizations that know how to do things. This implies that a firm can best be seen as a coordinated collection of capabilities, somewhat bound by its own history, and limited in effectiveness by its current cognitive and social skills. The main building block of these capabilities (or unit of analysis, if you prefer) is tacit and specific to the firm (Winter, 1993).
Knowledge is a philosophical concept defined by Plato as a belief that is supported by an account or explanation (Blair, 2002). In this context of view of an organization’s knowledge, the definition indicates the knowledge that comes from increasing the company’s ability to utilize and a sense of information available to create values for shareholders (Leiponen, 2006). There has been much significant growth in knowledge-based school of thought, which shows that the yield and retention of knowledge can have a positive effect on a firm’s performance (Maltia & Scott, 1999). To manage the company’s intangible assets with leverage for the benefits are considered a core capability. Knowledge management (KM) has aimed at capturing, integrating and using existing organization knowledge and subsequently creating a knowledge asset that can be source of sustainable competitive advantage in the long run (Brooking, 1999; Havens & Knapp, 1999).
Knowledge management has been recognized as an essential component of a proactively managed organization. The key concepts include converting data, organizational insight, experience and expertise into reusable and useful knowledge that is distributed and shared within the people who need it. Knowledge management addresses business challenges and enhances customer responsiveness by creating and delivering innovative products or services, managing or enhancing relationships with existing and new customers, partners and suppliers, and administering or improving more efficient and effective work practices and processes. Knowledge management is about getting knowledge from those who have it to those who need it in order to improve organizational effectiveness (Armstrong, 2005). Knowledge management has become a direct competitive advantage for companies selling ideas and relationship (Ulrich, 1998).
Knowledge management (KM) refers to range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning across the organization. Knowledge management programs are typically tied to organizational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific business outcomes such as shared business intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or high levels of innovation.
Knowledge management is popularized and has been spread across the industrial and information research world. Organizations understand the significance of intellectual capital that is managed efficiently in order to improve the entire organizational performance by aligning the ability of employees in accordance with the overall business strategy. The knowledge management focuses on merging people, processes, and technology together by combining the ability with the objective of providing corporate knowledge at an organizational standard. Knowledge management is also about identifying and compiling business information within the business with a competitive advantage over other companies. The information that is gathered will be comprised of employee knowledge that makes up their experience in the field, as well as technological knowledge that various people may have. Knowledge management is about ensuring that this information is accessible to anyone within the company who needs it.
An organization that wants to create a knowledge sharing culture needs to encourage its staff to work together more effectively, to collaborate and to share lastly to make organizational knowledge more productive. Davenport and Prusak (1998, 2000) explain that sharing must be initiated at a human level and once it is working its application on technology will produce positive results. The responsibility of effective management is to ensure that prompt and effective decisions are taken. Management and employees are not only to increase their knowledge, but share it for the benefit of the organization and themselves as well. Without motivation, sense of security, healthy reward system, this cannot be achieved. However, direct and indirect rewards must be put in place to encourage knowledge sharing.
| Project details | Contents |
|---|---|
| Number of Pages | 124 pages |
| Chapter one | Introduction |
| Chapter two | Literature review |
| Chapter three | methodology |
| Chapter four | Data analysis |
| Chapter five | Summary,discussion & recommendations |
| Reference | Reference |
| Questionnaire | Questionnaire |
| Appendix | Appendix |
| Chapter summary | 1 to 5 chapters |
| Available document | PDF and MS-word format |
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE WORK
All listed topics on our website are available project materials in PDF and MS word files, well supervised and approved by lecturers who are intellectual in their various fields of discipline, documented to assist you with complete, quality and well organized researched work. if you can't find what you're looking for feel free to contact us.
FOLLOW US