knowledge management

By: Prof. Dipti Purohit 1

Concept of Knowledge-1

By: Dipti Purohit


Need of the arch

What is Knowledge?

• One day, a very scholarly English gentleman, while travelling in India, decided to go across big river, so he asked one of the village people who owned a small boat, if he would take him, to this request the boatman agreed.

Let us see this…….

• As they started, the sun became obscured by dark clouds, and as the river was large, the gentleman realized, that the crossing would take some time. So he started a conversation with the boatman.

“Did you know that the sun is approximately 93,000,000miles away, and yet it has provided heat and light, throughout the universe since time immemorial, baring that, if it was to shift, even a fraction of an inch out of its orbit, there would be total devastation?”

The boatman replied; “My dear sir, I am just a simple man who has had no education, there is no way I could know such information”

“Then” said the gentleman “You are 25% fool”.

• Some time passed, and as they were coming to the ½ way mark, the thunder began to rumble.

Did you know notice the lightening, just before the rumbling sound”. The gentleman asked. He continued. “Do you know how that phenomenon occurs”

The boatman replied; “No sir”

“Its occurrence is due to the expansion of rapidly heated air,” the gentleman exclaimed, “ You are 50% fool!!

• About ¾ of the way the weather completely changed. It became dark and started to rain heavily and started filling up the little boat with water clearly making it difficult for the boatman. But the foolish gentleman insisted in questioning.

“Do you know how we get rain”,

“No sir,” was the reply.”

“ The sun evaporates water from the sea, this gets stored in the clouds which then travel by be wind power, then when they become full, it lets all the water go, over the land. That’s how we get rain.”

“You are 75% fool.” Said the gentleman, now feeling very smug.

• The gentleman was suddenly interrupted from his banqueting by a loud cry from the boatman,“Oh no! I have lost my oar and now the water is about capsize the boat, we have no alternative but to swim the remainder of the way, luckily for us it is not very far.”

“But I can’t swim,” cried the gentleman now seeing his own imminent death.

“Then my dear sir, you are 100% fool” said the boatman!!!

But bhaiya ji, the question still remains- What is Knowledge?


Questions in mind

• What is knowledge? • How is it different from

information? • And how is information different

from mere data?


Let us see what is knowledge?

When information is further processed, it has the potential for becoming knowledge. Information is further processed when one finds a pattern relation existing among data and information. And when one is able to realize and understand the patterns and their implications, then this collection of data and information becomes knowledge.


Types of Knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Explicit

knowledge


Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge is personal. It is stored in the heads of people. It is accumulated through study and experience. It is developed through the process of interaction with other people. Tacit knowledge grows through the practice of trial and error and the experience of success and failure.

Explicit knowledge

Explicit knowledge is codified. It is stored in documents, databases, websites, emails and the like. It is knowledge that can be readily made available to others and transmitted or shared in the form of systematic and formal languages.


Interaction between types of knowledge

Personal knowledge can become organizational knowledge through the dynamic interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge.

This dynamic process is the essence of knowledge creation in an organization.

This interaction between the two types of knowledge brings about what is called the four modes of knowledge conversion


NONAKA AND TAKEUCHI MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE CONVERSION

four modes of knowledge conversion


The process of knowledge creation is based on a double spiral movement between tacit and explicit knowledge


socialization (from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge),

externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge),

combination (from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge), and

internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge).

Spiral of Organizational Knowledge Creation

• Socialization –From Tacit to Tacit

comes from shared experience with others, networking to share experiences. It can also come from “direct interactions with suppliers and customers and walking around inside the organization.”

eg. Honda’s Brainstorming camps

• Externalization - From Tacit to Explicit

information or knowledge becomes “crystalized.” People within the organization start sharing what they’ve learned (sort of like how I’m sharing it here) in the form of “concepts, hypothesis, diagrams, models, or prototypes.”

eg. Canon’s industrial copier was converted into the Mini-Copier

• Combination –From Explicit to Explicit

knowledge takes the pace of shared presentations, meetings. The knowledge items become categorized. The knowledge items start to undergo classification and are morphed by people in a format that the organization can use and apply.

Eg. POS (point of sales system) by Craft general foods.


• Internalization - From Explicit to Implicit

the process of understanding and absorbing explicit knowledge in to tacit knowledge held by the individual. Internalization is largely experiential, in order to actualize concepts and methods, either through the actual doing or through simulations. The internalization process transfers organization and group explicit knowledge to the individual.

Eg. GE’s “re-experience”


Burlton’s Knowledge Lifecycle Model


Primary repositories of an organization’s knowledge


Importance of knowledge management

• Organizations contain vast reservoirs of untapped core knowledge and enabling expertise.

• Who have what knowledge?• When is it useful?• How can it be retrieved?• How can it be converted to explicit

knowledge? Knowledge management addresses this

problem directly and pointedly.


Thank you

knowledge management

Business

Transcript of knowledge management