Benefits of Adopting Knowledge Management Model for Organizations
Let us try to understand what are the advantages of having a conceptual model to guide Knowledge Management (KM) activities in a given organization.
Knowledge management is a recurring, multidisciplinary, collaborative, and integrated approach to identifying, creating, capturing, organizing, accessing, and disseminating an enterprise’s tangible and non-tangible knowledge assets that enhance organizational memory and productivity.
Today, organizations adopt the KM model to improve organizational memory, efficiency, and to save knowledge within the organization. Every organization has policies that standardize the KM process across different verticals and departments. The primary aim is to enable learning within the organization while building a learning culture. In such organizations, sharing knowledge is always encouraged, and those willing to learn to find it easy to do so. Adopting the KM model ensures that specialized knowledge does not leave the organization with employees and remains available within organizational memory.
Nonaka & Takeuchi’s (1996) model presents that knowledge can be from tacit to tacit via socialization and tacit to explicit by externalization. However, while the Nonaka and Takeuchi model focus on the knowledge transformations between tacit and explicit knowledge, this model does not address more significant issues of how decision-making takes place by leveraging both these forms of knowledge. In the Choo Sense-Making KM Model, Choo (1998) focuses on information that is selected and fed into the organization and its actions. Each of the phases in this sense-making, knowledge-creation, and decision-making model has an outside stimulus or trigger.
These are two popular KM models from many available for an organization to choose from. McAdams and McCreedy (1999) proposed a KM model that is great for small organizations that do not have their employees spread across multiple offices and geographies. The McAdams and McCreedy KM Model considers that knowledge is created via social interactions and becomes a part of how the organization gets things done. The knowledge yield is not based on mere inputs or data points. It also happens due to social interactions as employees interact, passing and building tacit knowledge.
Implementing and adopting the suitable KM model will help build an efficient workspace. A workspace that enables faster and better decision-making with increased collaboration. Since KM is an ongoing, reiterative process, it helps build an organizational knowledge pool. However, KM requires extensive planning and expertise. Therefore, it is important for an organization to adopt a KM model that suits its size, culture, and requirements.
References:
Dalkir, K., (2017). Knowledge management in theory and practice. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Knowledge Management: Importance, Benefits, Examples [2021]
https://www.valamis.com/hub/knowledge-management