Knowledge Management (KM) in Organizations

Companies are facing a paradigm shift: from productive management to talent management.

From the end of the 20th century to the present day, the main source of economic wealth creation is knowledge.. It has been considered that the main source of an organization's competitive advantage lies in what it knows, how it uses what it knows and its ability to learn new things (Barney, 1991).

Based on this conception of knowledge as a source of wealth, our era has been baptized as the knowledge society (Viedma, 2001). What implications does this have for the world of organizations?

Managing knowledge and competitiveness

To maintain their competitive advantage, organizations need to establish a strategy. The starting point for the formulation of such a strategy is to identify and assess the resources and capabilities available in the organization. These resources can be tangible (products, revenues), intangible (culture) and human capital (knowledge, skills and capabilities).

Not all of an organization's knowledge becomes a source of sustainable competitive advantage; only that which contributes to the generation of economic value will be a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Here, knowledge is also understood as skills, experience, contextualized information, values, attitudes, know howetc., all of which have been referred to as essential knowledge or "core competencies" (Viedma, 2001).

Knowledge as an individual asset

It is important to point out that knowledge is fundamentally located in people. It is an individual asset that is developed mainly through learning..

In today's context, which is more demanding and dynamic than any previous era, organizations need to bring this knowledge to the surface in order to turn it into a common good and be able to control it. In recent decades, a new trend has emerged, both at the research and operational levels, which aims to achieve this goal: knowledge management (KM).

Based on the premise that knowledge resides in the individual, KM is understood as a process that transforms this individual asset into an organizational asset. For this process to be successful, it is essential to have a commitment among all members of the organization, a correct dissemination of knowledge and the successful incorporation of the necessary processes and systems to ensure that such knowledge becomes institutionalized and remains among its members.

QA is essential for the adaptability of organizations, their survival and competitiveness in environments where change is rapid, increasing and discontinuous. in environments where change is rapid, incremental, and discontinuous. In KM, people, organizational systems and information and communication technology intervene synergistically.

Knowledge Management as a discipline

KM is a young and promising discipline aimed at enhancing the innovation and competitive advantage of those organizations that integrate knowledge management into their business processes. of those organizations that integrate into their operational and business processes activities to capture, document, retrieve and reuse knowledge, as well as to create, transfer and exchange it (Dayan and Evan, 2006).

Knowledge Management not only affects business organizations, it is also important in research practice, at the scientific level. It is a broad and complex concept, with multiple dimensions and interrelated activities (identification, creation, development, exchange, transformation, retention, renewal, dissemination, application, etc.) that generate a valuable asset for the company, knowledge (Lloria, 2008).

Researching knowledge management

Research in KM has been approached from different disciplines. Thus, there are studies that come, for example, from psychology, sociology, economics, engineering, computer sciences or management. management.

Each contribution from these areas has served to provide discoveries about different aspects of Knowledge Management, but of Knowledge Management, but so far no universal comprehensive explanatory framework has been reached, nor for any specific domain. It follows that interdisciplinary research is needed, rather than research activities focused on a single area of knowledge (Nonaka and Teece, 2001).

What is and what is not QA?

QA is a process:

Continuous management process that serves to (Quintas et al., 1997) 2.

• Understand current and emerging needs
• Identify and exploit acquired knowledge
• Develop new opportunities in the organization

2. Facilitator of knowledge flows and knowledge sharing to improve individual and collective productivity (Guns and Välikangas, 1998).

3. Dynamic of turning unreflective practice into reflective practice, so that: (a) surfaces the rules governing the practice of activities (b) helps shape collective understanding and (c) facilitates the emergence of heuristic knowledge (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001).

Processes and phases of QA

Some authors differentiate three types of processes in QA (Argote et al., 2003):

• Creation or development of new knowledge
• Knowledge retention
• Knowledge transfer

Lehaney and colleagues (2004) define KM as: "systematic organization, (...), with appropriate objectives and feedback mechanisms, under the control of a sector (public or private) that facilitates the creation, retention, exchange, identification, acquisition, utilization, and measurement of information and new ideas, to achieve strategic objectives, (...), which are subject to financial, legal, resource, political, technical, cultural, and social constraints".

KM should not be confused with information management or management of the technology that supports it.. Nor is it exactly the same as talent management. Knowledge and its management require human intervention and, in this sense, learning and tacit knowledge are fundamental in this process. Information technology is only a support for the whole process, but it is not the ultimate goal of KM (Martín and Casadesús, 1999).

Bibliographical references:

• Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
• Dayan, R., & Evans, S. (2006). KM your way to CMMI. Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(1), 69-80.
• Guns, W., & Välikangas, L. (1998). Rethinking knowledge work: creating value through idiosyncratic knowledge. Journal of Knowledge Management, 1(4), 287-293.
• Lehaney, B., Coakes, E., & Gillian, J. (2004). Beyond Knowledge Management. London: Idea Group Publishing.
• Lloria, B. (2008). A review of the main approaches to knowledge management. Konwledge Management Research & Practice, 6, 77-89.
• Martin, C. (2000). Las 7 Cibertendencias del Siglo XXI. Madrid: McGraw Hill.
• Nonaka, I., & Teece, D. (2001). Research directions for knowledge management. En I. Nonaka, & D. Teece (Edits.), Managing Industrial Knowledge: Creation, Transfer and Utilization (págs. 330-335). London: Sage.
• Quintas, P., Lefrere, P., & Jones, G. (1997). Knowledge management: a strategic agenda. Long Range Planning, 30(3), 385-391.
• Tsoukas, H., & Vladimirou, E. (2001). What is the organizational knowledge? Journal of Management Studies, 38(7), 973-993.
• Viedma, J. (2001). ICBS Intellectual capital benchmarking systems. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2(2), 148-164.