A Review of Knowledge Management about

theoretical conception and designing approaches

Abstract

Purpose : This paper's major goal is to conduct a thorough theoretical review and analysis for the
domains of knowledge management (KM) and look into the potential directions for future KM
research.

Design/Methodology/Approach : First, a few theoretical foundations for knowledge

management (KM), including definitions and stages of KM, have been compiled and examined. Then,
a thorough analysis of the principal strategies for developing the KM system from several angles,
including knowledge representation and organisation, knowledge exchange, and KM performance
measurement, has been carried out.

Findings : The contributions of this paper will be beneficial for the study of KM for both academics
and practitioners.

Originality : The goal of this study is to thoroughly evaluate and analyse KM's theoretical
underpinnings.

Keywords : Knowledge management, Literature review, Design approaches.

Paper type : Literature review.

Introduction

Knowledge is now commonly acknowledged as the most important competitive advantage (Palacios
and Garrigos, 2006). A theoretical or practical understanding of a subject is referred to as
knowledge. In the twenty-first century, the term "knowledge management" (KM) has gained
widespread use since it has been used to a variety of tasks and contexts with the aim of managing,
developing, and expanding intellectual assets (Shannak, 2009). And it has grown richer as a result of
the enormous wealth of contributions made by numerous academics and a vast accumulation of
experiences. From a more profound perspective, knowledge management (KM) should be a type of
working philosophy. The discipline of management studies includes knowledge management, which
is strongly related to information and communication technology (Mihalca et al., 2008). In fact, there
are many ways to look at KM because data comes from so many different sectors. Philosophy,
cognitive science, social science, management science, information science, knowledge engineering,
artificial intelligence, and economics are prominent among them (Kakabadse et al., 2003).

Why is knowledge management necessary? We are currently living in the age of knowledge.
Knowledge has become increasingly important, and this is due to the fact that knowledge
management done well has several benefits for enhancing learning effectiveness. We also adopt KM
efforts in the hope that they will provide us a stronger competitive edge. KM is used to produce,
transfer, and exchange knowledge as well as to record, document, retrieve, and reuse it (Dayan and
Evans, 2006). There is no limit to how KM can be used, from individual learning to small businesses
to large multinational corporations. According to Tseng et al. (2012), it is becoming more and more
crucial for people to understand what information is essential, how to manage this information, and
how to turn it into permanent knowledge. KM also plays a critical role in the success of an
organization's initiatives and strategies (Castrogiovanni et al., 2016). To fully capitalise on the value
of knowledge, it is crucial for both individuals and businesses to manage and utilise knowledge
effectively.

Numerous articles discussing KM reviews from various angles have been written during the past ten
years. Different branches were categorised by Ragab and Arisha (2013) of KM analysis. Serenko
(2013) conducted an analysis of the literature on knowledge management and selected key works.
Makhsousi et al. (2013) evaluated current developments in the application of knowledge
management (KM) in many fields and talked about why certain KM implementations fail and how
they could succeed. Arisha and Ragab (2013) gave a thorough reference for newcomers starting their
own research in the subject by providing a literature review and categorising the analysis of the
continually expanding quantity of KM articles. The most recent research on KM systems studies in
organisations was evaluated by Matayong and Mahmood (2013). Different KM models were
evaluated by Chiliban et al. (2014) based on their advantages and disadvantages. Tzortzaki and
Mihiotis (2014) investigated the evolution of the KM theory across time. Omotayo (2015) conducted
a review of the KM literature to highlight the significance of KM in a company. In their 2016 review,
Asrar-ul-Haq and Anwar examined efforts to offer the evidence base for knowledge sharing and KM
in organisational settings.

Based on the scenario already mentioned, the goal of this research is to give a comprehensive
overview of knowledge management. And we carry out this duty using a variety of analytical
techniques, including literature bibliometric analysis, theoretical basic analysis, and a review of
creating methodologies. Finally, the following can be said about how our key contributions connect
to Streams (A) and (B): We (A) provide a summary and analysis of several key theoretical notions
concerning knowledge management, and (B) provide a thorough overview of the methods for
developing the KM system. The rest of this essay is structured as follows. We discuss the main KM
concepts in Section 2 of this article.The methods for designing a KM system are displayed and
examined in Section 3. In Section 4, findings are offered.

Theoretical conception of knowledge management

Being a complicated and abstract topic, knowledge can be conceptualised in a variety of ways. The
notion of knowledge is actually an ongoingdebate on the subject of epistemology among
philosophers. One of the most widely used definitions of knowledge is that it is a dynamic human
resource used to justify one's own views in order to discover the truth (Nonaka, 1994). The
conclusion is that knowledge is an unseen or intangible asset, and that acquiring it requires
sophisticated cognitive processes involving perception, learning, communication, association, and
reasoning (Epetimehin and Ekundayo, 2011). Knowledge is a framework for creating, analysing, and
employing information. It is an idea, skill, experience, and vision (Soltani and Navimipour, 2016).
Generally speaking, there are two categories of knowledge: implicit and explicit (Hubert, 1996). The
knowledge a person has that is private and specific to their situation that is stored in their thoughts,
actions, and perception is known as tacit knowledge (Duffy, 2000). According to Koenig (2012),
explicit knowledge is defined as knowledge or information that is presented in a concrete manner.

Additionally, there are other definitions and summaries of KM that have been developed by
academics from a variety of disciplines. These definitions are not entirely clear and vary in meaning
according to the authors' points of view. Despite the wealth of theoretical and conceptual work, we
should revisit key KM principles in order to gain a thorough understanding of the field. One such
fundamental is the theoretical understanding of the concept of knowledge. We looked at a few key
KM ideas and compiled them in Table I. Some concepts, including organisation and information,
stand out as being more essential and central than others when examining the definitions of KM. In
conclusion, despite the many diverse definitions and explanations of KM, their main goals are to
assist people in increasing the effectiveness of their learning and integrating multiple information
sources to increase their competitive advantages. And KM is capable of giving the person the skills
and strategies they require to get through the deluge of information they face, enabling them to
maximise learning effectiveness and competitive advantage.

Process and stages of knowledge management :Many associated activities are developed to
carry out crucial components of strategy and operations for KM in what is seen as a process.
Numerous KM procedures have been introduced during the past 20 years by scholars working from
various angles. Additionally, we looked through and summarised some key accounts of the KM
process. This result is shown in Table II. Although there are many ways to describe the KM process,
some terms—like creation, storage, transfer, and application—seem more essential and central than
others.

How new knowledge is formed is referred to as knowledge creation. In this phase, new information
is created or old information within tacit and explicit knowledge is replaced (Ajmal and Koskinen,
2008). The act of documenting knowledge and keeping it in repositories like archives, databases, and
file systems is referred to as knowledge storage. It also tries to transfer knowledge to those who
need to use it, whether they be individuals, groups, or other units (Johannsen, 2000). Knowledge
transfer is a crucial KM process that involves moving knowledge to areas where it is needed and
useful (Pirkkalainen and Pawlowski, 2013). Since the transfer must result in changes to the
knowledge base, this stage is crucial for the success of the KM process (Argote and Ingram,
2000).The actualization of knowledge is referred to as knowledge application. According to Newell et
al. (2004), this approach can be used to change the strategic direction, address new issues, increase
efficiency, and cut expenses. And during this phase, knowledge is put to good use by enacting best
practises, for example.

Designing approaches for knowledge management : In order to manage knowledge by establishing

associations between knowledge bodies with comparable content, knowledge representation and
organisation is a technique that increases the effectiveness of describing associations between
knowledge bodies. The semantic link network (SLN) has seen significant application in the KM
community during the last ten years. A network called SLN depicts the semantic connections
between concepts. It is also consistently employed as a mode of knowledge representation. It is
made up of edges that indicate the semantic connections between concepts and vertices that
represent the concepts themselves (Hai, 2011).
Horwitch & Armacost 2002 The creation, extraction, transformation and storage of the correct
knowledge and information in order to design better policy, modify action
Skyrme and deliver results
2003 The explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its
associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusion, use and
April & Izadi exploitation
2004 The philosophy of knowledge management is made up of both the collect
function (data and information dimensions) and the connect function
Pearce-Moses (knowledge and wisdom function)
2005 The administration and oversight of an organization’s intellectual capital by
managing information and its use in order to maximize its value
Wang
2007 Knowledge transfers, between explicit and tacit, between individual and
Serrat collective
2009 Explicit and systematic management of processes enabling vital individual
and collective knowledge resources to be identified, created, stored, shared,
and used for benefit. Its practical expression is the fusion of information
management and organizational learning
Ramsin & Paige
A framework for applying KM development practices and, like all
2010
methodologies, consists of two parts: process and modeling language
Becerra-Fernandez &
2010 Performing the activities involved in discovering, capturing, sharing, and
Sabherwal
applying knowledge so as to enhance, in a cost effective fashion, the impact of
knowledge on the unit’s goal achievement
Pauleen & Gorman
2011 The application of knowledge management through individual strategies,
based on experience and skills, to create maximum value for individuals
Groff & Jones
2012 A set of organizational activities to achieving organizational objectives by
Clobridge making the best use of knowledge
2013 The process of systematically capturing, describing, organizing, and sharing
knowledge – making it useful, usable, adaptable, and re-useable
Rouse
2013 An enterprise consciously and comprehensively gathers, organizes, shares,
and analyzes its knowledge in terms of resources, documents, and people
Chang & Lin skills
Navimipour & Charband 2015 A process of capturing, storing, sharing and using knowledge
Liu, Wang et al. 2016 The process of capturing, sharing, developing, and using the knowledge
efficiently
2017 Not only managing tangible content from the literature but also extracting
information from the raw data available on organization and systematization

In order to address various KM-related issues, Kravchenko et al. (2017) developed a novel approach
for estimating semantic similarity. They used the knowledge network model to construct the genetic
algorithm for estimating semantic similarity. A new paradigm for knowledge semantic
representation (KSR) was put out by Xiao et al. (2016) to generate semantic interpretable
representations, which are utilised to explicitly describe knowledge. A semantic-based knowledge
management paradigm was put up by Che Cob et al. (2016) to facilitate collaborative learning
environments.The use of SLN to improve KM was examined by Cob et al. (2015), who also presented
a semantic KM model to promote collaborative learning environments.

The most popular SLN application in knowledge management is ontology.Ontology, which refers to a
methodical explanation of being, is a term borrowed from philosophy. A catalogue of existent
concepts in a field called an ontology contains predicates, the semantics of concepts, and
information about how those concepts relate to one another (Natalya et al., 2001). Ontology offers a
broad range of possible applications in the classification of information, the creation of knowledge
and information databases, and the study and development of intelligent search engines. As can be
seen in Table III, throughout the past ten years, several scholars have expressed worry about the
applications of ontology to the subject of knowledge management.

Knowledge Sharing : How to encourage information sharing with others is one of the main
difficulties in knowledge management. In fact, effective knowledge management depends on
effective knowledge exchange (Swacha, 2015). The exchange of knowledge between and among
people is referred to as knowledge sharing.Additionally, it seeks to combine many knowledge
sources and transform them into fresh knowledge routines or structures. Sometimes the terms
"knowledge sharing" and "knowledge transfer" are used interchangeably or are thought to have
similar objectives (Dan and Sunesson, 2012). We will treat knowledge transfer and sharing as
semantically equivalent in accordance with the majority of the literature (Paulin and Suneson, 2012).
The degree to which the knowledge is replicated in the recipient determined the effectiveness of
knowledge sharing.

The goal of Swacha's (2015) system of appropriate gamification rules, which makes use of a number
of specifically chosen gamification components, is to encourage people to engage in a variety of
knowledge-sharing-related activities. Recent research by Yong (2013) on the effects of organisational
rewards, reciprocity, happiness, and social capital on people's intents to share their knowledge,
which previous research has so far disregarded. Our understanding of the relative roles of personal
motives and social capital in people's intents to share knowledge will be greatly enhanced and
expanded by their new results. An online knowledge-sharing paradigm was presented by Ma and
Yuen (2011) and tested with undergraduate students in an online learning setting. Additionally, this
model incorporates two brand-new concepts: perceived online relationship commitment and
perceived online attachment motivation. In a group meeting, Hung et al. (2011) looked into the
impacts of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentive. The outcomes of their study demonstrated
the importance of a KM system with built-in reputation feedback for successful knowledge sharing.
Tohidinia and Mosakhani (2010) assessed the impact of a number of potential factors on knowledge-
sharing behaviour and proposed an organised effort to enhance knowledge-sharing behaviour in
companies, an effort that takes into account pertinent elements from many viewpoints.

Performance measures for knowledge management : A major component of KM is performance

measurement (Wang et al., 2015). By using this method of measurement, we can evaluate the
efficacy of KM practises, determine whether the existing knowledge process can satisfy our needs
for learning and whether it can offer feedback on KM in order to carry out ongoing KM
improvement. The creation of KM performance evaluation criteria and the choice of the evaluation
techniques are all parts of KM performance evaluation (Wang and Zheng, 2010). Both qualitative
and quantitative analysis are used in this procedure. Open-ended questionnaires (Changchit et al.,
2001), expert interviews (Booker et al., 2008), case studies, and surveys are some of the popular
qualitative methods for KM evaluation (Darroch and McNaughton, 2002). While the explicit
measures are always assessed using the quantitative. Knowledge resources, KM processes, and
factors that affect KM were the three categories into which Wang et al. (2015) divided the
performance measurements. Zhang (2009) submitted the Balanced Scorecard into the performance
assessment of knowledge management (KM) on the basis of the analysis of the Balanced Scorecard
and KM, and carried out the in-depth analysis to gauge the performance of KM tools from four
perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. A knowledge
management (KM) performance evaluation technique that considers knowledge system, structure
capital, human capital, mental capital, and market capital was proposed by Wang and Zheng (2010).
Wu et al. (2009) created a principle component analysis-based method for measuring the
effectiveness of knowledge management. Additionally, the knowledge stocks, learning firms' level of
maturity, information management, and marketing prowess make up the measure index. In order to
classify the performance indicators for possible usage in KM performance measurements, Tseng
(2008) presented a categorization matrix. Process, human, and IT evaluation criteria are also
included for this methodology.

Conclusion

For this research, we focus on giving a detailed theoretical overview and analysis of KM. The
theoretical notions of knowledge management, including conception and stages, were first
summarised and assessed. Then, we went over a few key strategies for creating the KM system from
several angles, such as knowledge representation and structure, knowledge sharing, and KM
performance measurement.

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