Knowledge Management COMS 380

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Knowledge ManagementCOMS 380 April 9
Mark Wolfe, PhD Candidate Senior Research
Associate Alberta SuperNet Research
Alliance University of Calgary
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What is knowledge?
Knowledge is neither data nor information, though
it is related to both, and the differences
between these terms are often a matter of degree.
We start with those more familiar terms both
because they are more familiar and because we can
understand knowledge best with reference to them.
Confusion about what data, information, and
knowledge are -- how they differ, what those
words mean -- has resulted in enormous
expenditures on technology initiatives that
rarely deliver what the firms spending the money
needed or thought they were getting. Often firms
don't understand what they need until they invest
heavily in a system that fails to provide it.
Davenport, Thomas H. and Prusak, Laurence.
(1997). Working Knowledge How Organizations
Manage What They Know . Boston Harvard Business
School Press
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What is knowledge?

• Data -- static facts raw inputs
• No inherent meaning in data
• Information -- data that is structured has
  meaning
• Sender/receiver aim is to reduce uncertainty
  data that makes a difference (Bateson)
• Knowledge -- information that is acted upon
• Knowledge arises from minds at work

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What is knowledge?
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience,
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.
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KM where does it come from?

• The computer era (1950s/60s)
• Centralized stage activity focused on the
  technology itself.
• Efforts within the nascent field of Information
  Systems (IS) were directed to making refinements
  to the base technology.
• The emphasis was on large computer installations
  housed in a central location and managed as a
  non-distributed technology.
• http//foodman123.com/s2000.htm

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KM where does it come from?

• The information era (1970s/80s)
• Distributed stage first localization of
  computing as a distributed resource
• Microcomputers first supercomputers
• End users beginning to exert pressure on
  applications and use
• Growth of IS as a strategic function of the
  organization

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KM where does it come from?

• The information utility era (late 1980s)
• Diffusion stage Information is now ubiquitous,
  a corporate resource that dramatically alters
  not only the manner in which organizations
  function, but also in the way they compete
• Responsibility shifts to the line (but autonomy
  slow to follow)
• Organizational change is rapid downsizing
  begins.

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KM where does it come from?

• The Knowledge Management era (1990s)
• Social context stage Loss of middle management
  through corporate downsizing in recessionary
  period of 1991-95 lobotomizes most organizations
  (knowledge loss)
• Employee contract re-written workers
  responsible for their own careers and future
• Commercialization of the internet dot-com
  explosion

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KM where does it come from?
The Knowledge Management era (1990s)
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KM where does it come from?
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KM where are we now?

• The network era (2000)
• The collaboration stage advanced broadband
  development enhancing distance work/training/educa
  tion
• Emphasis on virtual workteams heightened by
  world events
• Computerization under pressure through demand
  and fast-approaching limits of current
  miniaturization (enter quantum computing and
  nanotechnology)

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COMS 380 KM how did we get here?

• Castells from industrialism to
  informationalism
• Exhaustion of the mass production model
• Linear processes inadequate to manage complexity
  of expanded (global) markets
• Horizontal integration displacing vertical
  integration (multinational conglomerates)
• Crisis and then reinvention of the large firm
• Toyotism flexible processes through emphasis on
  people autonomy
• Inter-firm networking strategic alliances craft
  practices

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KM how did we get here?

• Castells from industrialism to
  informationalism
• These shifts are independent, and their timing
  differs, but all represent
• The process of disintegration of the
  organizational model of vertical, rational
  bureaucracies, characteristic of the large
  corporation under the conditions of standardized
  mass production and oligopolistic markets . . .
  Toyotism is a transitional model of between
  standardized, mass production and a more
  efficient work organization characterized by the
  introduction of craft practices, as well as by
  workers and suppliers involvement, in an
  assembly-line based, industrial model.

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