Making Knowledge Management (KM) relevant to UK plc, SME and public sector organizations depends upon exerting a positive impact on organizations and their various areas of business activity and functions. By examining current practices across a range of organizations, this PD examines how such relevance can be achieved.
Our research indicates that forward-looking organizations do not necessarily see KM as a traditional organizational function. Rather, they tend to prefer to establish KM as an organizational competence; when they are successful, such competence resides everywhere in the organization. The actual label “KM” may be de-emphasized in the process, but this can be a good thing, meaning that the practice of KM, however it is labelled, is not viewed as the exclusive preserve of an isolated function.
Where this strategy can be most effective is in spreading knowledge skills as widely as possible throughout the organization. At the same time, it can help avoid traditional rivalry between functions, or help an attempt to ‘colonize’ KM within a small community, which has marked many previous initiatives in this area.
This PD provides guidance on how to link KM and other key organizational functions and established emerging processes, within and between organizations. This PD is therefore intended for employees, managers, directors and anyone else interested in KM.
This PD combines both desk and primary research and also offers a comparison of different approaches and case studies. Readers should note, however, that although this PD touches upon various other management sciences - such as Quality - it does so only by way of example or analogy.
Key sections of this Guide include:
- Definitions of key terms in KM
- A discussion as to whether organizations actually need to care about KM (Clause 3);
- The context for linking KM to other key organizational functions (Clause 4) and established (Clause 5) and emerging processes (Clause 6);
- Links with other related British standards (Clause 7).
Summaries of relevant case studies across a wide range of industries are appended to each clause as “Good practice examples” and “Talking points”, along with “In brief” summaries of key points covered in the preceding clause.
The good practice examples aim to draw a sharp distinction between:
- a general description of KM and other process areas (i.e. what should organizations be doing, and why?), and
- pointers to the available evidence (i.e. what are organizations really doing, what works and what does not?).
Annexes
- provide suggestions for further relevant KM reading and
- provide a copy of the questionnaire used during the primary research for this PD.
Finally, extensive notes and references help guide the interested reader towards the primary and secondary sources used in the preparation of this PD.
