Handbook on Knowledge Management

It has been extensively identified that knowledge is an important aspect for an economy to develop. We are seeing a lot of transformation rapidly happening in our society. Every day we are seeing that we are becoming more and more dependent on knowledge. If this is the case with our societies, the scenario is not much different for organizations. With such an importance to knowledge, managing it has become a serious concern for organizations. An organization which can built excellent process to manage knowledge, certainly will have a competitive edge over its competitors. Knowledge management (KM) cannot be achieved with a single definite activity. It involves an assortment of activities. These are usually referred to be knowledge activities. The utilization of the knowledge activities at the resources connected to knowledge which is limited and assisted through an extensive choice of aspects will result in KM. In the KM literature, knowledge is most commonly categorized as either explicit or tacit (that which is in peoples heads). This characterization is however rather too simple, but a more important point, and a criticism, is that it is misleading. A much more nuanced and useful characterization is to describe knowledge as explicit, implicit, and tacit. It is important to remember that knowledge management is not about managing knowledge for knowledges sake. The overall objective is to create value and to leverage, improve, and refine the firms competences and knowledge assets to meet organizational goals and targets. KM systems have come a long way and have evolved from being an optional part of KM to a critical component. Today, such systems can allow for the capture of unstructured thoughts and ideas, can create virtual conferencing allowing close contact between people from different parts of the world, and so on. This Text provides an introduction to knowledge management and the need for organizations to become learning organizations. It also provides examples of how knowledge representation with tool support can be used to help with decision making.