Major Approaches to

the Knowledge
Management Cycle

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Comparison of Key KM Cycle Processes
Nikcols (1999) Wiig (1993) McElroy (1999) Rollet (2003) Bukowitz & Zack (1996)
Williams (2003)
Acquisition Creation Individual and Planning Get Acquisition
Group Learning
Organization Sourcing Knowledge Creating Use Refinement
Claim Validation
Specialization Compilation Information Integrating Learn Store/Retrieve
Acquisition
Store/Access Transformation Knowledge Organizing Contribute Distribution
Validation
Retrieve Dissemination Knowledge Transferring Assess Presentation
Integration
Distribution Application Maintaining Build/Sustain
Conservation Value Assessing Divest
Realization
Disposal

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The Zack KM Cycle
 derived from work on the design and development of
information products (Meyer & Zack, 1996)
 information products are broadly defined as
information “sold” to internal or external customers
such as databases, news synopses, and customer
profiles.

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The Zack KM Cycle
the notion of a product platform (the
knowledge repository) and the information
process platform (the knowledge refinery) to
emphasize the notion of value-added
processing required in order to leverage the
knowledge of an organization

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The Zack KM Cycle
consists primarily of creating a higher value-
added “knowledge product” at each stage of
knowledge processing
composed of the technologies, facilities, and
processes for manufacturing products and
services

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The Zack KM Cycle
information products are best viewed as a
repository comprising information content and
structure
other important elements to consider are the
overall structure and approach to how the
content is stored, manipulated, and retrieved

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The Zack KM Cycle
Meyer and Zack analyzed the major
developmental stages of a knowledge
repository and mapped these stages onto a KM
cycle: acquisition, refinement, storage/
retrieval, distribution, and presentation/use
this cycle is referred as the “refinery.”

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ACQUISITION of data or information addresses
the issues regarding sources of “raw” materials
such as scope, breadth, depth, credibility,
accuracy, timeliness, relevance, cost, control, and
exclusivity
“garbage in, garbage out”
source data must be of the highest quality;
otherwise the intellectual products produced
downstream will be inferior
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 REFINEMENT is the primary source of value added; it
may be physical (e.g., migrating from one medium to
another) or logical (restructuring, relabeling, indexing
and integrating)
 “sanitizing” content so as to ensure complete
anonymity of sources and key players involved or
standardizing (e.g., conforming to templates)
 creating more readily usable knowledge objects and
by storing the content more flexibly for future use
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 STORAGE/RETRIEVAL forms a bridge between the
upstream acquisition and refinement stages that feed
the repository and downstream stages of product
generation; may be physical (file folders, printed
information) or digital (database, knowledge
management software)
 DISTRIBUTION describes how the product is delivered
to the end user and encompasses not only the medium
of delivery but also its timing, frequency, form,
language, etc.
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PRESENTATION OR USE, at this stage that
context plays an important role
the effectiveness of each of the preceding
value-added steps is evaluated here: does the
user have enough context to be able to make
use of this content?

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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
 describe a knowledge management process
framework that outlines “how organizations
generate, maintain and deploy a strategically
correct stock of knowledge to create value”

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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
knowledge consists of knowledge repositories,
relationships, information technologies,
communications infrastructure, functional skill
sets, process know-how, environmental
responsiveness, organizational intelligence, and
external sources

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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle

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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
 get, learn, and contribute phases are tactical in nature;
triggered by market-driven opportunities or demands,
and they typically result in day-to-day use of
knowledge to respond to these demands
 assess, build/sustain, or divest stages are more
strategic, triggered by shifts in the macroenvironment;
focus on more long-range processes of matching
intellectual capital to strategic requirements
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
 GET consists of seeking out information needed in
order to make decisions, solve problems, or innovate
 key tasks: to organize knowledge content, maintain
timeliness, completeness, and accuracy, profile users’
information needs, access/ navigate/filter voluminous
content in order to respond to users’ needs, and help
train users with new knowledge repository
technologies (information literacy)
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
 USE deals with how to combine information in new
and interesting ways in order to foster organizational
innovation; focus is primarily on individuals and then
on groups
 LEARN stage refers to the formal process of learning
from experiences as a means of creating competitive
advantage; represents the transition step between the
application of ideas and the generation of new ones
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
 CONTRIBUTE deals with getting employees to post
what they have learned to the communal knowledge
base (e.g., a repository) as opposed to warehouse all
knowledge
 part of good organizational memory management
practice: maintain attribution, require authorization for
dissemination, provide feedback mechanisms, and
keep track of knowledge reuse
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
ASSESS stage deals more with the group and
organizational level; refers to the evaluation of
intellectual capital and requires that the
organization define mission-critical knowledge
and map current intellectual capital against future
knowledge needs

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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
BUILD AND SUSTAIN step ensures that the
organization’s future intellectual capital will keep
the organization viable and competitive
resources must be allocated to the growth and
maintenance of knowledge, and they should be
channeled in such a way as to create new
knowledge and reinforce existing knowledge
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle
DIVEST step is where organizations need to
examine their intellectual capital in terms of the
resources required to maintain it and whether
these resources would be better spent elsewhere
involves understanding the why, when, where,
and how of formally divesting parts of the
knowledge base
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The Bukowitz and Williams KM cycle introduces
two new critical phases:
 the learning of knowledge content
 the decision as to whether to maintain this knowledge or
divest the organization of this knowledge content

is more comprehensive than the Meyer and Zack

cycle because the notion of tacit as well as explicit
knowledge management has been incorporated.
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The McElroy KM Cycle
 describes a knowledge life cycle that consists of
the processes of knowledge production and
knowledge integration, with a series of feedback
loops to organizational memory, beliefs, and
claims and the business-processing environment

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 problem claim formulation is an attempt to
learn and state the specific nature of the detected
knowledge gap
 new knowledge claims are tested and evaluated
via knowledge claim evaluation processes

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 evaluation of knowledge claims leads to surviving
knowledge claims that will be integrated as new
organizational knowledge or falsified/undecided
knowledge claims
 record of all such outcomes becomes part of the
distributed organizational knowledge base via
knowledge integration
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The McElroy KM Cycle
once integrated, they are used in business
processing; experience gained from the use of
knowledge in the organizational knowledge base
gives rise to new claims and resulting beliefs,
triggering the cycle to begin all over again

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 knowledge is information until it is validated
 knowledge claim validation involves codification
at an organizational level
 formalized procedure is required for the receipt
and codification of individual and group
innovations

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 information acquisition is the process by which
an organization deliberately or serendipitously
acquires knowledge claims or information
produced by others, usually external to the
organization

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 knowledge claim evaluation is the process by
which knowledge claims are evaluated to
determine their veracity and value; implies that
they are of greater value than existing knowledge
in the organizational knowledge base

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 knowledge integration is the process by which an
organization introduces new knowledge claims to
its operating environment and retires old ones

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The McElroy KM Cycle
 strength of the McElroy cycle is the clear
description of how knowledge is evaluated and a
conscious decision is made as to whether or not it
will be integrated into the organizational memory
 validation of knowledge is a step that clearly
distinguishes knowledge management from
document management
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