Evaluating Knowledge Management Performance

Clemente Minonne1 and Geoff Turner2
1Switzerland and University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia
2Universities of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus and University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia

As organisations become increasingly aware that knowledge is among their most valuable strategic assets, they will be forced to re-evaluate the way in which they engage with the source of that knowledge to underpin their sustainable development. This will create a fundamental change to established practice; a change that results in a paradigm shift from the traditional operational approach to a more strategic involvement in knowledge management. This change is promoted by the knowledge management maturity model (KM3). KM3 is founded on the idea that successful knowledge management comprises four forms of integration, namely cultural, organisational, procedural and methodical. Despite an emphasis on one of these forms by many organisations, it is understood that all forms of KM integration should be considered in parallel to implement knowledge management practices in an integrative manner. Key indicators that measure the performance of knowledge management integration are needed. They need to measure both effectiveness and efficiency. In many cases, organisations having, and actively executing, a knowledge management strategy tend to focus on the efficiency dimension because it can be evaluated more easily than the effectiveness dimension. Yet this path is fraught with danger because, as with many other aspects of business, the management of knowledge has to be effective before it may provide efficiency gains. Nevertheless, organisations require appropriate forms of measurement. Those that are unwilling, or unable, to develop effective measuring and reporting systems are likely to suffer from product or service quality decreases, lower productivity growth and a reduced ability to compete because they will be less successful in acquiring and using relevant knowledge resources. Key performance indicators that are developed to assess the progress of organisations in this compelling activity need to be aligned with one or another of the four forms of integration and may be either qualitative or quantitative in nature. The balanced scorecard concept is used to measure performance of the KM3 where the balance between the four forms of integration is the prime consideration. Each of these is represented by one segment of the knowledge management monitor (KM2) to facilitate a better understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships. It does so by providing structured information about an organisation's knowledge resources: how they are nurtured and how they contribute to organisational sustainability. At the same time, use of KM2 is related to organisational economy. Good economy means good resource management, which for many organisations translates to how they manage individual and accumulated organisational knowledge. This has become so important that they are looking for a more integrated way of managing the three interdependent and complementary pillars of knowledge management, which are organisational learning management, organisational knowledge management and intellectual capital management. Although these three concepts lack a unifying vision, they all relate to each other by informing one another and provide the pathway for a knowledge-based orientation of strategic management.

Keywords: strategic knowledge management, performance measurement, integrative approach

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Business Benefits of Non-Managed Knowledge

Sinead Devane1 and Julian Wilson2 1Business School, Bournemouth University, UK
2James Wilson (Engravers) Ltd, Poole, UK

Getting individuals to use knowledge is vital for business to thrive, especially in small businesses where each individual’s impact (good and bad) upon the organisation has an amplified effect. This paper presents the effects of one small business’ effort to make the most of its employees’ knowledge.

Here we introduce the thinking behind the organisation’s different approach; non-managed knowledge, or the indirect management of knowledge. The paper addresses a philosophical argument about the nature of knowledge and the way we use it and this argument is supported by a case study of the organisation and quantitative results from the company’s own records.

We argue that the management of knowledge itself is not a cost effective exercise, as knowledge is such a complex phenomenon, inextricably bound with individual biographies and circumstances of the moment. Rather, a new focus for knowledge management is presented, through which the effects of an individual’s use of knowledge is demonstrated. Knowledge itself cannot be seen, but the effects of its use can. Just as a shadow is cast when the sun shines on an object, so what a person achieves in their work takes a form that belies the knowledge that was used in the achievement.

Thus in this organisation individuals are encouraged to maximise their own agency, and work to their own potential. What they achieve above and beyond the minimum standards of the organisation will demonstrate their own competence. Such working conditions encourage individual development, the application of knowledge and effective knowledge management through indirect means.

Keywords: knowledge management, outcomes and application, reification, cultural memes, agency, innovation

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The Emergence and Diffusion of the Concept of Knowledge Work

Hanna Timonen and Kaija-Stiina Paloheimo
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
hanna.timonen@tkk.fi
kaija-stiina.paloheimo@tkk.fi

Abstract:

The past decades have witnessed the proliferation of research on knowledge work. Knowledge work has mostly been used as an antonym to manual work, to refer to specific occupations characterized by an emphasis on specialized skills and the use of theoretical knowledge. The efforts to encompass all the different contexts where knowledge plays a relevant role in work tasks has resulted in various and ambiguous definitions of what knowledge work actually is.

In order to shed light on the elusive concept of knowledge work, we studied how it has appeared in the scientific discussion, and diffused from one scientific community to another. As the circulation of new ideas and concepts in scientific discussion is apparent through academic literature, we examined the emergence and diffusion of the concept of knowledge work through a citation analysis on articles from the Social Sciences Citation Index. The data set consists of 273 articles with 7,057 cited references for the 1974 to 2003 period, and we used a dense sub-network grouping algorithm on the co-citation network to distinguish highly cited groups of references.

We distinguish three periods of diffusion of the concept of knowledge work. The results show that Drucker’s In the age of discontinuity (1969) and Bell’s The coming of post-industrial society (1968) were the main influencers when the concept emerged in the scientific discussion from 1974 to 1992. After this period, we can distinguish a slow diffusion period from 1993 to 2003, when the concept started to gain attention, and a fast diffusion period from 1999 to 2003, when the research proliferated.

The discussion dispersed outside the management domain already in the emergence period, but the management domain has stayed the main domain of discussion also later on. However, from 1992 to 2003 the discussion inside the management domain dispersed into different groups. One of the main influences to a new group of research that appeared at this time was Zuboff’s In the age of the smart machine (1984). This group, drawing on research conducted on knowledge-intensive firms, has recently produced highly cited articles such as Blackler’s ‘Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations’ in Organization Studies (1995). As the current discussion on knowledge work is dispersed in different groups, there is a need to engage in a common conceptual discussion and define what is actually meant by knowledge work.

Keywords: scientific discourse, knowledge work, bibliometric analysis, citation analysis

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