How Would You Motivate Interest in Knowledge Management?

How Would You Motivate Interest in Knowledge Management?

In Whatever Happened to Knowledge Management?

(Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2015), Thomas Davenport wrote that the rise of Google, a new focus on analytics and Big Data, and various organizational and cultural challenges had each played a role in the discipline's declining popularity. Davenport concluded that knowledge management is gasping for breath. What do you think?

Olivier Serrat 07/02/2017

1 Is Knowledge Management Dead?

In Whatever Happened to Knowledge Management? (The Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2015), Thomas Davenport wrote that the rise of Google, a new focus on analytics and Big Data, and various organizational and cultural challenges each played a role in the discipline’s declining popularity. What do you think? We are probably at different stages depending on our definitions and approaches; but, if knowledge is the strategic resource of the 21st century how can its management—aka the leveraging of knowledge assets to improve relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability [and what innovation drives these]—be thought redundant when economies obviously cannot function without it? Knowledge management may have been hijacked by some who viewed it—proprietarily—as a technology, a domain of communities of practice, a program, or (on the odd occasion) a strategy. Beyond the peak of exaggerated expectations, past the trough of disenchantment, might we now be on the slope of enlightenment with a new take on knowledge management as a holistic approach born of behavioral change? Ultimately, how would you arouse interest in knowledge management?

Quo Vadis, Knowledge Management?

There are numerous definitions of knowledge management, most of which are vague; many duplicate descriptions of information management, an innovation in the 1970s that the Age of the Internet proclaims passé. Within hierarchical forms of organization (noting that there are market and, growingly, networked configurations too), approaches to knowledge management have been chiefly technocentric—focusing on how information and communications technology can enhance core knowledge activities, especially storing and sharing (with necessarily lesser attention to identifying, creating, and using, given available technology); sometimes organizational—making out how an organization might be designed to better facilitate knowledge processes; and less often ecological—concerned with fostering dynamic evolution of knowledge interactions among entities.

What with ad hoc definitions and approaches, it is prudent to admit we have been blind men feeling different parts of the proverbial elephant; this said, if knowledge is the strategic resource of the 21st century, how can efforts at its management—aka the leveraging of knowledge assets to improve relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability [and what innovations drive these]—be thought futile when economies obviously cannot function without it? Right from its inception back in the 1990s but continuously since, knowledge management has been commandeered in turn by those who view it—proprietarily and at largely wasted expense overall—as a technology, a domain of internal communities of practice, a program, or (on the odd occasion) a strategy. Beyond the peak of exaggerated expectations, past the trough of disenchantment, could we now be on the upward slope to enlightenment with a new take on knowledge management as a holistic approach to behavioral change?

Managing Knowledge—What, How, When, Where, and Who Follow Why In context, and framed by values, knowledge is in our minds a fluid mix of data, information, and experience, augmented by insight, that aids decision making. In organizations, it should for effect be embedded in norms, practices, processes, and routines—not just in documents and repositories, for the higher objective of advancing organizational performance.

So far, so good: a problem well stated is a problem half-solved. But, before we design and push knowledge services and knowledge solutions, we should take care they are very closely connected to operations: knowledge management is a means to an end—that being a more

2 efficient and effective, fit-for-purpose, organization. And yet, the "why" of knowledge management is hardly ever made practicably explicit by those who sell its virtues. Distinct motivations are to:  Achieve shorter product and service development cycles;  Boost internal and external network connectivity;  Harness intellectual capital;  Increase knowledge content in the development and provision of products and services;  Leverage the expertise of people across the organization;  Manage business environments so staff can access insights that are appropriate to their work;  Promote creativity, innovation, and organizational learning; and  Solve intractable problems.

For sure, what sundry motivations drive knowledge management efforts are not mutually incompatible and organizations are likely to hold several simultaneously. However, each has to do with specific capacities and skills, resources, and systems, for both exploitation and development. From requisite ecological, organizational, and technocentric perspectives, once the motives impelling knowledge management initiatives and the desired outcomes have been made clear, the "how"—thence the what, when, where, and who—of knowledge management can be brought to bear in related areas of activity.

People Hate To Be Sold, but They Love To Buy It is only possible to motivate interest in knowledge management if people readily understand what it means, what the intermediate objective is, and how the accomplishment of that will contribute to individual and collective performance. Looking forward, there is little doubt that information and communications technology, viz. "digital", is no longer optional: pending actualization of the Internet of Things, organizations must embrace the digital world if they are to survive and, preferably, thrive. To boost efficiency and productivity, reduce transaction costs, and transform service delivery, they must seek to be digital by default. Irrespective of the arena they find themselves in, digitization offers organizations fundamentally new standpoints from which to think about clients, audiences, and partners and, vitally, engage with them. As digital develops and opportunities to ask, learn, and share with ever greater ease multiply, it is likely that technocentric, organizational, and ecological approaches to knowledge management will converge and then probably combine to drive ever more hybrid forms of hierarchies, markets, and networks. When one considers the fact that it has existed for a mere 20 years, far from being dead or even short of breath, knowledge management may actually be in the vanguard of developments for profound behavioral change at the global level.

Acknowledgements Jeffrey W. Alstete, Professor, Department of Management and Business Administration in the School of Business at Iona College, shared valuable insights in response to a related question the author posted on ResearchGate on 11 January 2017.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank, or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent.