THE ROLE OF ICT IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management can be defined as a collaborative and integrated approach to the

creation, capture, organization, access and use of an enterprises intellectual assets. Information
technology integrates capturing, organizing, transferring and distributing knowledge.

An efficient KMS should allow the user to easily access the explicit knowledge stored in any
system that can be applied to address the issue in hand. KMS should increase the ease with
which user can find a potential solution to the problematic situation. KMS makes the user relax
about the need to encode the explicit knowledge in long-term memory as the knowledge
components can easily be accesses by the users active working memory (McCall et al, 2008).

There are two critical demerits of KMS which might balance out the potential of the encoding of
the knowledge available explicitly. Firstly, the vast amount of information and different ways of
retrieving it via KMS could lead to likely increase in the amount of mental workout to retrieve
the information (Rose and Wolfe, 2000; Rose, 2005). Secondly, it is the supposed simplicity of
availability. If the information is easily accessible then the user will just use it for his situation
without feeling any kind of motivation to encode the knowledge.

Researchers have found that many companies who have implemented Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) are of the view that the software will provide them a new chance to improve
operational support and will simultaneously provide them a competitive advantage also (Irani et
al, 2007). However the concept of justification happens only at those places where every
employee is made aware of the importance of the new software for the organisational
sustainability. Although the resources of knowledge varies firm wide but usually it constitutes of
manuals, letters, information about customers and derived knowledge of work processes.
Organisations are realising that knowledge will not automatically flow throughout the company.

A critical aspect of knowledge sharing is providing the right means which should work within
the organisational context. Over the period of time, organisations have realised that information
technology (IT) is the only means by which enterprise knowledge can be shared effectively.
Video-conferencing, sharing of application and providing support electronically are some of the
key enablers of knowledge sharing processes. They can provide an excellent support to the
already existing infrastructure of knowledge management.

Few of the major benefits of Knowledge Management systems are

(1)In-valuable information can be shared throughout the hierarchy of the organisation.

(2) Provides the opportunity to do away with churning out the same work thereby resulting in
reduction of out-dated work.

(3) New employees can be trained in a shorter period.

(4) The intellectual property is retained by the organisation even of the employees leaves if it is
possible to codify that knowledge. Some of the organisations who implemented the KMS very
effectively and efficiently are MIT Open Course Ware, Knowledge Wharton. Although both of
these organisations are educational institutions they provide an excellent case study of efficiently
using information systems in their KM processes.

Let us first consider the role of IT in supporting the knowledge creation spiral proposed by
Nonaka and Takeuchi. Socialization requires interaction between two or more persons with
similar and/or overlapping interests. Communication, coordination, and group process support
functions offered by IT are useful in facilitating the socialization process. Many organizations set
up yellow pages that list experts and their field of expertise. Such yellow pages facilitate
socialization by pointing to the source of tacit knowledge. The yellow pages use the storage and
retrieval function. The search process associated with these pages may be enhanced through
information location function.

Externalization converts tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Knowledge acquisition

techniques and tools can facilitate this process to some extent. Combination process creates
explicit knowledge through transformation, analysis, and integration of available explicit
knowledge. All IT functions with the exceptions of communication, coordination, and group
process support are useful in facilitating combination. Internalization converts explicit
knowledge into tacit knowledge. Knowledge location, browsing, filtering and retrieval functions
are useful in finding appropriate knowledge, while analysis and presentation functions are useful
in assimilating knowledge from its explicit form into tacit form.

The key role being played by information systems is to assist in the storage and diffusion of
knowledge so that knowledge can be accessed across the space and time. Information systems
provide visibility to the invisible work and the complexity involved in doing that work. On one
hand IT is used as a medium for flow of knowledge that supports communication, collaboration
knowledge seeking enabling collaborative learning. On the other hand KM academicians warn
management people about the huge investment in IT at the expense of human capital. This may
lead IT driven KM strategies converting knowledge into static and inert information disregarding
the role of tacit knowledge and this in turn can bring back the earlier organizational motto More
IT, less people. More precisely speaking incorporating IT to scale up KM projects seems
unavoidable. The best solution about applying IT to KM is to have the awareness about the limits
of IT that can give most optimum results for KM. Another fact worth mentioning here is that any
IT deployment will not be completely successful until accompanied by cultural change towards
knowledge values. Therefore, technology support is necessary for KM in an organization.
Knowledge projects are likely to succeed when a sophisticated technology infrastructure is
adopted. IT infrastructure includes Email, document management, data warehousing, workflow
software, decision support system etc.
Knowledge Management involves a plethora of tools related to the knowledge management
cycle such as:

An after-action review (AAR)- It is a tool to evaluate and capture lessons learned. It takes
the form of a quick and informal discussion at the end of a project or at a key stage within
a project or activity.
A case study- It is a written examination of a project, or important part of a project. It has
a clear structure that brings out key qualitative and quantitative information from the
project. Case studies are often published with a broad audience in mind, so it is useful to
bring the most useful and transferable information to the fore.
A knowledge caf brings people together to have open, creative conversation on topics
of mutual interest. It can be organised in a meeting or workshop format, but the emphasis
should be on flowing dialogue that allows people to share ideas and learn from each
other. It encourages people to explore issues that require discussion in order to build a
consensus around an issue.
Blogs are most commonly used as an online version of a personal journal. Essentially, a
blog is simply a web page that contains periodic, chronological ordered posts,
additionally grouped by categories. Users visiting the blog can often add comments to
posts. Administering a blog (updating it by adding new posts, creating links to other web
pages, adding pictures, categorizing posts etc.) is extremely simple.
Intranets- Intranets have wide spread across organizations for sharing dynamic
information. Intranet can be divided into two components namely the technology
infrastructure and web server. Technology infrastructure includes universal web server,
thin client, HTML format, IP networks and web server is the repository for content. The
web server and web browser have enabled greater access to information for groups of
knowledge workers and application developers.
Document management systems-Document management system are repositories for
organizations document or explicit knowledge in an organization. These systems are
mainly used for creating, processing and reviewing documents. Some of the
organizations are approaching organization wide KM based on document management.
Document management systems are vital knowledge repositories that must be integrated
into knowledge infrastructure of an organization. However they are not used as the
complete basis for the knowledge management system as knowledge workers resist to use
highly structured document management process for creating and processing complex
documents.
Groupware and Workflow systems-Groupwares are used in the organization for
communicating and collaborating among workgroups and departments in formal or adhoc
conversations when users cannot communicate in real time. So it can be rightly said that
groupware are important technology for exchanging and enhancing tacit knowledge. On
the other hand the workflow systems are used for codification of knowledge transfer
 processes. As an example proposal generation system can be considered where workflow
system facilitates preparation of structured and ordered information and its review.
Data warehousing and mining tools-Organizations create data warehouse and provide the
managers with data mining tools to take decisions based on increasingly complex set of
data. KMS provide access to data ware houses by open database connectivity and
structured query language. Data mining tools also provide access to reports to the users
based on subject area which they are investigating.
Brain storming applications- are used to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
These applications are useful knowledge creation tools that help in categorizing,
organizing and identifying knowledge resources.

Managing explicit knowledge requires significant investment in IT. Knowledge extracted from
experts, organizational policies and procedures, problem solving episodes, etc. are captured in
the organizational knowledge base. Browsing, presentation, location, and filtering functions are
deployed to provide knowledge workers access to this knowledge. An expert system may also be
used as a vehicle for knowledge reuse IT, thus, plays a key role in facilitating knowledge
creation and management.