KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

PRELIM LESSON 3: MODELS OF KM

To succeed, a knowledge management initiative must have a robust theoretical foundation.

The major KM framework to operate within; otherwise, the activities will not be coordinated and will not
produce the expected KM benefits.

Learning Objects
• Understand the key tenets of the major knowledge management theoretical models use today.
• Link the KM frameworks to key KM concepts and the major phases of the KM cycle.
• Explain the complex adaptive model of KM and how it addresses the subjective and dynamic
nature of content to be managed.
“In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive
advantage is knowledge.”
- I. Nonaka (1995)

Although few would argue that knowledge is not important, the overriding problem is that few managers,
and information professionals understand how to manage knowledge in knowledge-creating
organizations.
The tendency is to focus on “hard” or quantifiable knowledge, and KM is often seen as some sort of
information processing machine.

The advent of knowledge management was initially met with a fair degree of criticism; with many people
feeling this was yet another buzzword that would quickly pass into history.
KM established itself credibly as both an academic discipline of study and a professional field of practice,
and one reason it was so successful was the work done on theoretical or conceptual models of knowledge
management.
Early in the development of KM, more pragmatic considerations about its processes were soon
complemented by the need to understand what was happening in organizational knowing, reasoning, and
learning.
All KM models presented here attempt to address knowledge management from a holistic and
comprehensive perspective.

Data: A set of discrete, objective facts about events.

Information: A message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or visible
communication.
Knowledge: A fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual information, and expert
insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and
information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often
becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines,
processes, practices, and norms.

We can transform information into knowledge by means of comparison, consequences, connections, and
conversation.
Knowledge-creating activities take place between and within humans and that we must consider
knowledge among the most important corporate assets.

MAJOR THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MODELS

The following models were selected because they possess the following critical characteristics:
• They represented a holistic approach to knowledge management (i.e., they are comprehensive and
take into consideration people, process, organization, and technological dimensions).
• They have been reviewed, critiqued, and discussed extensively in the KM literature, by
practitioners, academics, and researchers alike.
• The models have been implemented and field tested with respect to reliability and validity.
The Von Krogh and Roos Model of Organizational Epistemology

• This model (1995) distinguishes between individual knowledge and social knowledge, and they
take an epistemological approach to managing organizational knowledge: the organizational
epistemology KM model.
- Epistemology means the theory of knowledge – methods, validity, and scope. It distinguishes
justified belief from opinion.
According to this model, the following aspects should be analyzed:
• Why and how the knowledge gets to the employees of a company.
• Why and how the knowledge reaches the organization.
• What does it mean knowledge for the employee/organization?
• What are the barriers for organizational knowledge management.
The cognitive perspective states that a cognitive system, no matter if it’s human or artificial, creates
representations (models) of the reality, and the process of learning appears when these representations are
somehow manipulated (used in different inferences).
A cognitive epistemology sees organizational knowledge as a system with self-organization
characteristics, where people are transparent to the information coming from the exterior. In this
perspective, the brain can be perceived as a machine based on logic and detections, which doesn’t permit
opposite declarations.
So, the organization gathers information from its environment, which it process logical. By searches and
different cognitive competencies, possible way of actions will be generated – everything based on the
mobilization of individual cognitive resources.
It is known that the brain is not processing sequential symbols, but rather it perceives the whole
perspective, global properties, models, and synergies.
Learning rules are those which can govern how the different components are inter-related. The
information is not just taken from the exterior environment; it can be generated also internally. The
familiarity and practice are leading to learning.
Von Krogh and Roos are following in their models the principles of connectionist approach. In their
organizational model, the knowledge is to be found both in the mind of the people and in the connections
between them.
Learning rules govern how the various components of these whole networks are connected. Information is
not only taken in from the environment but also generated internally.
Familiarity and practice lead to learning. Individuals form nodes in a loosely connected organizational
system, and knowledge is an emergent phenomenon that stem from the social interactions of these
individuals.
Von Krogh and Roos adopt the connectionist approach. For them knowledge resides from the individuals
of an organization and at the social level, in the relations between the individuals. Knowledge is said to be
“embodied”; that is “everything known is known by somebody”.
Connectionism maintains that there can be no knowledge without a knower. This notion fits nicely with
the concept of tacit knowledge, which is very difficult to abstract out of someone and is made more
concrete. It also reinforces the strong need to maintain links between knowledge objects and those who
are knowledgeable about them - authors, subject matter experts, and experienced users who have applied
the knowledge both successfully and unsuccessfully.
Krogh and Roos examined the nature of knowledge management from the perspective of:
• Employees,
• Communication,
• Organizational structure,
• Links between members and
• Management of human resources
These five factors can generate problems which can prevent knowledge management strategies.
• For example, if the employees are not perceiving the knowledge as being an important part of the
company, the effects will be seen in their quality of work. Also, if there is no common language to
express new knowledge, keeping this new knowledge will be very difficult. In the case where members of
the organization are now willing to share their experiences, it will be extremely difficult to generate social
collective knowledge.
Thus, organizations need to put knowledge enablers in place who serve to stimulate individual knowledge
development, group sharing of knowledge, and organizational retention of valuable knowledge-based
content.
The connectionist approach appears to be the more appropriate one for underpinning a theoretical model
of knowledge management, especially owing to the fact that the linkage between knowledge and those
who “absorb” and make use of the knowledge is viewed as an unbreakable bond.
The connectionist approach provides a solid theoretical cornerstone for a model of KM and is a
component of the model discussed.

Nonaka and Takeuchi Knowledge Management Spiral Model

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) studied the success of Japanese companies in achieving creativity and
innovation. They quicky found that it was far from a mechanistic processing of objective knowledge.
Instead, they discovered that organizational innovation often stemmed from highly subjective insights that
can best be described in the form of metaphors, slogans, or symbols.
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) argue that a key factor behind the Japanese enterprises’ successful track
record in innovation stems from the more tacit-driven approach to knowledge management.
They maintain that Western culture considers knower and known as separate entities which places greater
importance on communicating and storing explicit knowledge.
Accordingly, it may be easier for Japanese managers to engage in the process of “indwelling”, a term
used by Polanyi (1966) to define the individual’s involvement with objects through self-involvement and
commitment to create knowledge.
In such cultural environment, knowledge is principally “group knowledge,” easily converted and
mobilized (from tacit to explicit) and easily transferred and shared.
Knowledge creation always begins with the individual. An individual’s personal, private knowledge is
translated into valuable, public organizational knowledge.
Making personal knowledge available to others in the company is at the core of this KM model. This type
of knowledge creation process takes place continuously and occurs at all levels of the organization. In
many cases, the creation of knowledge happens in an unexpected or unplanned way.
Knowledge Conversion
• From Tacit knowledge to Tacit knowledge; the process of SOCIALIZATION.
• From Tacit knowledge to Explicit knowledge: the process of EXTERNALIZATION.
• From Explicit knowledge to Explicit knowledge: the process of COMBINATION.
• From Explicit knowledge to Tacit knowledge: the process of INTERNALIZATION.
Socialization
Consists of sharing knowledge in face-to-face, natural, and typically social interactions. It involves
arriving at a mutual understanding through the sharing of mental models, brainstorming to come up with
new ideas, apprenticeship, or mentoring interaction, and so on.
Externalization
This process gives a visible form to tacit knowledge and converts it to explicit knowledge. It can be
defined as “a quintessential knowledge creation process in that tacit knowledge becomes explicit, taking
the shapes of metaphors, analogies, concepts, hypotheses, or models”.
In this mode, individuals can articulate the knowledge and know-how and, in some cases, the know-why
and the care-shy.
Combination
This process of recombining discrete pieces of explicit knowledge into a new form. Some examples would
be a synthesis in the form of a review report, a trend analysis, a brief executive summary.
Internalization
This process occurs through diffusing and embedding newly acquired behavior and newly understood or
revised mental models. Internalization is strongly linked to “learning by doing.”
Internalization converts or integrates shared and/or individual experiences and knowledge into individual
mental models.
Once internalized, new knowledge is then used by employees who broaden it, extend it, and reframe it
within their own existing tacit knowledge bases.
They understand, learn, and buy into the new knowledge, and this is manifested an observable change;
that is, they now do their jobs and tasks differently.
Knowledge Spiral
Knowledge spiral is a continuous activity of knowledge flow, sharing, and sharing, and conversion by
individuals, communities, and the organization itself.
Knowledge creation is not a sequential process. Rather, it depends on a continuous and dynamic
interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge throughout the four quadrants.

The knowledge spiral shows how organizations, articulate, organize, and systematize individual tacit
knowledge.
Organizations produce and develop tools, structures, and models to accumulate and share knowledge.
Transferring individual’s experiences and information through observation, imitation, and practice
(socialization quadrant).
Formalizing and converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge through use of analogy, metaphor,
and model externalization quadrant.
Synthesizing and recombining explicit knowledge combination quadrant.
Re-transferring the explicit into tacit knowledge and becoming the part of individual’s experience –
internalization quadrant.
REFERENCES:
Dalkir, K, (2005). Knowledge management in theory and practice. Massachusetts, MA: Elsevier
Butterworth-Heinemann.
“The von Krogh and Ross model” (n.d.). Theoretical models of information and knowledge management.
https://www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/IKM/Theoretical_models_of_Information_and_Knowledge_Management/the_
von_krogh_and_roos_model_of_organizational_epistemology.html