6.+Knowledge+Management

=Knowledge Management =

([|KM]) refers to a multi-disciplined approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of [|knowledge]. KM focuses on processes such as acquiring, creating and sharing knowledge and the cultural and technical foundations that support them. media type="custom" key="24715046"

KM can be broadly stated to compose of [|Knowledge Generation] and [|Knowledge Sharing] [|(Gupta, 2008)]

 Knowledge Generation  According to [|Nonaka and Konno (1998)] knowledge creation is a spiraling process of interactions between [|explicit] and [|tacit knowledge]. 'Knowledge is manageable only insofar as leaders embrace and foster the dynamism of knowledge creation. The role of top management is as the providers of ba for knowledge creation. Their task is to manage for knowledge emergence. Leaders must support emerging processes with visionary proposals (mind) and a personal commitment of time and power (body). The success of knowledge creation depends on management's assumption of responsibility, justification, financial backing, and caring.' [|(Nonaka, Konno, 1998)]

==Knowledge Sharing ==

'Fundamentally sharing is about being more open in your way of work and in your relationships with other people. Organisation must help people to build the facilitating networks of relationships because organisations have always used human to transfer the knowledge across the firm, which would improve the employee satisfaction.' [|(Gupta, 2008)]

Knowledge Management in a Virtual Organisation

'Organizations are moving to a virtual organization structure due to the Competitive advantages gained by advances in electronic communication/information technology and competitive pressures that force a focus on core products. A productive organization utilizes the virtual organization knowledge management process and tools in a way that creates knowledge growth and enables synthesis to generate constructive decisions.' (Kotnour, Proctor, 1996) [|Read more]

'Virtual worlds, as electronic environments where individuals can interact in a realistic manner in form of avatars, are increasingly used by gamers, consumers and employees. Therefore, they provide opportunities for reinventing business processes. Especially, effective knowledge management (KM) requires the use of appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) as well as social interaction. Emerging virtual worlds enable new ways to support knowledge and knowing processes because these virtual environments consider social aspects that are necessary for knowledge creating and knowledge sharing processes. Thus, collaboration in virtual worlds resembles real-life activities.' (Mueller J. et al, 2011) [|Read more]

'Although virtual environments promise access to diverse, specialized knowledge, they intrinsically constrain the integration and application of that expertise. These constraints involve the shortcomings of transactive memory, insufficient mutual understanding, failure in sharing and remembering contextual knowledge, and the inflexibility of organizational ties.'(Alavi,Tiwana,2002) [|Read more]

'Optimal knowledge transfers can be achieved by individuals armed with the right personal capabilities and skills for virtual work, particularly when those knowledge transfers are emergent, bottom-up and cannot be specified a priori. The virtual competency exhibited by individuals can be the key to overcoming the constraints of knowledge transfers with such characteristics because underlying competency can facilitate effective action in unfamiliar and novel situations. Knowledge transfer is critical in virtual organizations.' (Wang, Haggerty, 2009) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'In order to increase competitiveness, companies need to be able to react to changing and increasing market demands. To become more flexible, companies make use of outsourcing with the purpose to focus on their core competencies. The consequence of this trend is an increasing number of company networks. In order to reach an efficient and effective cooperation within those networks, the development of support functions aiming at improved cooperational and communicational structures is essential. Within these structures the focus is on efficient knowledge and information exchange between the single network companies. Only by consequent implementation of knowledge management within those networks as well as the pooling of knowledge resources of each network company, it will be possible to sustainable improve the quality of the industrial services which are based on the factor “knowledge“.' (Luczak, Hauser, 2005) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'This article reviews and integrates the transnational and virtual team literature to provide an overview of examined cognitive, behavioral and affective relationship aspects. By demonstrating the interrelations between these relationship aspects, the article deviates from the prevalent, linear input–process–output models of team functioning and makes a first step towards a configurational perspective on relationships in TNTs. It further reviews how several characteristics of the team structure, organizational context and socio-political environment may facilitate or inhibit relationship aspects. Through a synthesis of previous research, the article develops two examples of likely relationship configurations and their driving factors. The review concludes by recommending methods for future empirical research on relationship configurations in TNTs.' (Zimmermann, 2011) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'Thanks to availability of the Internet, virtual communities are proliferating at an unprecedented rate. In-depth understanding of virtual community dynamics can help us to address critical organizational and information systems issues such as communities-of-practice, virtual collaboration, and knowledge management. In this article, we develop a virtual community activity framework, integrating community knowledge sharing activity into business activities in the form of an e-business model. We examine how the level of community knowledge sharing activity leads to virtual community outcomes and whether such community outcomes are related to loyalty toward the virtual community service provider.' (Koh, Kim, 2004) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'There has been a growing interest in examining the factors that support or hinder one's knowledge sharing behavior in the virtual communities. However, still very few studies examined them from both personal and environmental perspectives. In order to explore the knowledge sharing behaviors within the virtual communities of professional societies, this study proposed a social cognitive theory (SCT)-based model that includes knowledge sharing self-efficacy and outcome expectations for personal influences, and multi-dimensional trusts for environmental influences. The proposed research model was then evaluated with structural equation modeling, and confirmatory factor analysis was also applied to test if the empirical data conform to the proposed model.' (Hsu et al, 2007) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'Professional virtual communities (PVCs) bring together geographically dispersed, like-minded people to form a network for knowledge exchange. To promote knowledge sharing, it is important to know why individuals choose to give or to receive knowledge with other community members.' (Chen, Hung, 2010) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">'The rapid developments of Internet technology have accelerated the transformation of traditional business into e-business. Especially in the era of the explosion of information, it is essential important for them to make effective use of raw data and converting it into revenue based on the Internet environment. Therefore, it is most significant to explore the field of knowledge management in the virtual organization. This paper used library research, Internet sources, interview and many other effective methods to illustrate the challenges and impacts of information/knowledge management for a virtual organization and give some solutions most efficient to solve current problems encountered.' (Wang, Liu, 2011) <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[|Read more]

=<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px;">References =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Alavi M. and Tiwana A. (2002) ‘[|Knowledge Integration in Virtual Teams:The Potential Role of KMS]', //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">, Vol.53, (Issue 12), pp.1029–1037

Chen C.J. and Hung S.W. (2010) ‘[|To give or to receive? Factors influencing members’ knowledge sharing and community promotion in professional virtual communities]’, //Information & Management//, Vol.47, (Issue 4), pp. 226–236

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gupta, K. S. (2008) '[|A comparative analysis of knowledge sharing climate].', //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Knowledge & Process Management //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">, Vol. 15(No 3), pp. 186-195

Hsu M.H. et al (2007) ‘[|Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities: The relationship between trust, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations]’, //International Journal of Human-Computer Studies//, Vol.65, (Issue 2), pp. 153–169

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|"Introduction to Knowledge Management"]. //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kotnour T.G. and Proctor M. (1996) ‘[|Processes and Tools to Support Knowledge Management in a Virtual Organization]’, //Engineering and Technology Management//, //Proceedings., International Conference on 18-20 Aug//, pp. 247- 252

Luczak H. and Hauser A. (2005) ‘[|Knowledge Management in virtual organizations]’, //Research Institute for Rationalization and Operations Management at Aachen University of Technology, Germany//

Mueller J. //et al// (2011) ‘[|Virtual worlds as knowledge management platform – a practice-perspective]’, //Information Systems Journal//, Vol.21, (Issue 6), pp. 479–501

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nonaka, I. and Konno, N. (1998) [|'The concept of “Ba”: Building a foundation for knowledge creation'], //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">California Management Review //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">, Vol.40(No.3), pp. 40-p.54.

Koh J. and Kim Y.G. (2004) ‘[|Knowledge sharing in virtual communities: an e-business perspective]’, //Expert Systems with Applications//, Vol.26, (Issue 2), pp. 155–166

Wang J. and Liu F (2011) ‘[|Knowledge Management for a Virtual Organization]’, //Artificial Intelligence, Management Science and Electronic Commerce (AIMSEC), 2nd International Conference on 8-10 Aug.//, pp. 2171-2174

Wang Y. and Haggerty N. (2009) ‘[|Knowledge transfer in virtual settings: the role of individual virtual competency]’, //Information Systems Journal//, Vol.19, (Issue 6), pp.571–593

Zimmermann A. (2011) ‘[|Interpersonal relationships in transnational, virtual teams: Towards a conﬁgurational perspective]’, //International Journal of Management Reviews//, Vol.13, (Issue 1), pp. 59–78

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|http://en.wikipedia.org]

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