Introduction
Knowledge management is essential in organizations since it generates important benefits such as greater communication between employees, increased competitiveness and leadership, as well as the company envisions new business opportunities.
Knowledge management is made up of elements such as learning, knowledge, intelligence, human capital, intellectual capital, among others, it is important to understand these concepts and their interaction with the organization.
Companies are becoming aware of the importance of the registration of knowledge, its transfer, communication, value and wisdom since by giving a special pull to knowledge, value will be generated for the organization to achieve its objectives.
Concepts
In order to understand the topic of Knowledge Management, it is necessary to start by defining each of the words that make up the topic.
- Learning: It can be defined as a process with which knowledge is acquired either through experiences, information, attitudes or values. Intelligence: It is the ability that people have to assimilate and process information to "understand and understand." Management: Word that comes from the Latin gestio that means action. Management is the function that is carried out through people, social groups, work teams to achieve objectives where integrated activities are carried out through processes. Knowledge: It can be defined as the ability to process and concentrate all those experiences, intelligence, culture, studies, ideas and information, among others, that are established in a certain mental structure for the acquisition of new information.
Based on the above concepts, we can define knowledge management as the planning, organization, control and direction of processes and activities to strengthen knowledge, increasing competitiveness through the correct use and creation of this resource individually and in groups.
Factors involved in knowledge management
Knowledge management involves several factors such as: intangible assets, organizational learning, human capital, intellectual and relational capital. As shown in figure 1.
Figure 1. Knowledge management factors.
Intangible assets
They are all those assets of a company that do not exist physically, but generate value and are part of the accounting; Example: the brand of a company, since the reliability and recognition it generates in the markets depends on it, determining its value.
Organizational learning
It is a process by which the company acquires information and transforms it into knowledge, obtaining great benefits for the organization in order to manage it properly for the improvement of the organization.
Human capital
It is the improvement of the capacity of the collaborators resulting in the increase of the production capacity.
Intellectual capital
It is the set of intangible assets such as knowledge of human resources, learning, interpersonal relationships in the supply chain, brands, among others, that generate value for the company and as a result a competitive advantage.
Types of knowledge
Knowledge has always been talked about but there are various categories according to management, the most important are explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge and structural knowledge, then we talk about each of them.
Explicit knowledge
This type of knowledge is when a person who is an expert in a subject knows what knowledge is required and how to use it, in addition to having a certain command of the subject. These experts have the ability to formally transmit their knowledge by documenting it; an example may be a manual where the knowledge and its application are described.
Tacit knowledge
Also known as informal knowledge, most people have this knowledge and whoever possesses it is difficult or even impossible to transfer, since the people who have it are often not aware that they possess it, much less their way of using it. application.
Structural knowledge
It has already been possible to define both explicit and tacit knowledge; As mentioned above, the explicit can be transmitted in documents, videos, in various media or materials, on the contrary, the tacit can hardly be transcribed.
So structural knowledge is all those explicit knowledge transcribed and embodied in media or materials, which are available in and for the organization, since these will remain there when the human resource that works in the organization is not found.
Evolution of knowledge management
First generation. Knowledge documentation.
At the beginning, companies began to record knowledge in documents, where they involve technology as a tool, where document, information and content management is involved as shown in figure 2; that facilitates the creation of these documents; But this generation was tedious and expensive due to all the time and resources required to make the records, but it is important that at least the companies document their knowledge as a minimum step.
Figure 2. Knowledge documentation
Second generation. Communicate knowledge
Knowledge is no longer enough to document it, but it must also be disseminated, where all members of the company have the necessary information to correctly carry out their processes. This generation arises something very important for knowledge management that are the "communities of practice" As shown in figure 3.
Figure 3. Communicate knowledge.
Community of practice: Where a group of people who share a common interest about a specific topic is involved, where they deepen, investigate and concentrate their knowledge. The knowledge must be correctly distributed among the members who have an interest in the knowledge for the application of their work area.
Third generation. Knowledge value.
In this generation, the value of knowledge and the importance of companies generating and applying knowledge throughout the organization stands out. As shown in figure 4.
Innovation emerges as an important concept in knowledge management. Knowledge continuity management: In the organization the knowledge that is generated must be kept and reused so that it is constantly applied in the company.
Figure 4. Knowledge value.
Fourth generation. Knowledge wisdom
Where knowledge becomes wisdom, when a company is aware no longer of the importance of the generation and application of knowledge but of learning and intelligence. You learn in the workplace, from there knowledge is generated and a concept of the sale of knowledge to the environment arises. As shown in figure 5.
Figure 5. Wisdom of knowledge
In the evolution of knowledge management, it can be observed that in each generation there were steps that had an impact and that are used today as part of the search for knowledge in organizations.
The objectives of knowledge management
According to its evolution, the main objectives are the following:
- Increase new business opportunities Increase communication between the organization's collaborators Generate competitiveness in the present and future of the organization That the company achieve its leadership in the market
Main tools for knowledge management
As the knowledge that is generated in organizations has been mentioned, it is necessary to document it and communicate it to the members of the company, and there are various tools that facilitate these tasks, some are mentioned below:
- Digital libraries. Data bases, documents. Software. Intranets
The aforementioned tools serve to facilitate access to knowledge and rapid dissemination, resulting in the generation of the value of knowledge.
Having easy access to organizational knowledge generates a clear picture of the intellectual heritage of the entire company.
Information systems play an important role as they facilitate administration and timely and adequate consultation for its application.
Knowledge management models
Knowledge management has evolved over time and companies are more concerned with applying it since the benefits are great, which is why various models have emerged, of which we highlight two:
Gopal & Gagnon model (1995)
It highlights that tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge, thus facilitating its transmission in a cycle that is made up of three main stages:
- Knowledge management: Stage where the intellectual capital of the organization is discovered in order to determine the current situation of the organization's knowledge and establish a desirable future situation. Information management: It establishes the characteristics and adequate requirements that the organization must carry. information to achieve what is desired in the stage of knowledge management. Learning management: In this stage, learning prototypes are reflected and their measurement resulting in the generation of continuous improvement.
Nonaka Model (1991)
This model is made up of six steps:
- Construction of individual knowledge. Increase of individual knowledge through tacit knowledge. Transform tacit knowledge into explicit. Transformation of knowledge into a product. Creation of new concepts. Integration of new knowledge in the knowledge base.
Future work
Design and implementation of an explicit knowledge management model in small companies through a cloud-based platform.
objective
Develop an easy-to-use tool that allows for explicit knowledge management in small businesses through a cloud-based platform.
Conclusions
At present, organizations cannot put aside knowledge management as it opens up a world of possibilities, the competitiveness of companies is no longer based on the basic aspects of market position, sales, customer service, among others. factors, the competitiveness rather depends on the way that companies learn to learn, and to concentrate all that knowledge since they can obtain information from all areas of the company and thus apply continuous improvement.
When companies are aware of knowledge management and know how to apply it properly, in the end they discover other new opportunities and generate new business, and this gives them a real picture of the growth of the company.
References
- Fundibeq.org (2012). Knowledge management. Retrieved on October 28, 2012. Fundibeq.org (2012). Organizational Learning. Retrieved on October 28, 2012: Fondosdigitales.us.es (2012). Organizational Learning. Retrieved on October 28, 2012. Mpra.ub (2012) Paper: Knowledge Management in Higher Education Institutions. A Conceptual Analysis Retrieved on October 28, 2012.
