Business Knowledge Management

Introduction With company downsizing and high turnover rates a reality in the post 9/11 business arena, the potential for a loss of critical information to organizations is high. Business knowledge leaves the company unless there is a way to capture, store, and retrieve it. In addition, geographic barriers can reduce the flow of knowledge throughout an organization. These factors and more have created the need for knowledge management (KM) (also referred to as enterprise knowledge management, knowledge management systems, knowledge assets management, executive information systems, information support systems, and business intelligence systems). The need for knowledge management was evident as early as 1996, as Daniel E. O'Leary of the University of Southern California observed, " Over 40 percent of the Fortune top 100 companies have a chief knowledge officer (CKO), a senior-level executive responsible for creating an infrastructure and cultural environment for knowledge sharing. " Knowledge management has been defined as, "the art or science of collecting organizational data and, by recognizing and understanding relationships and patterns, turning it into usable, accessible information and valuable knowledge " (Loshin, 2001). Alavi and Leidner describe it as, "identifying and leveraging the collective knowledge in an organization to help the organization compete " (2001). This process in many cases involves the use of knowledge management systems; the objective of knowledge management systems is to support creation, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations. While these definitions help clarify the role of knowledge management, O'Leary defines knowledge management more specifically to the enterprise, " Knowledge management entails formally managing knowledge resources in order to facilitate access and reuse of knowledge, typically by using advanced information technology...the overriding purpose of knowledge management is to make knowledge accessible and reusable to the enterprise " (1998). The knowledge that concerns knowledge management is organizational knowledge: the sum of all knowledge within an organization (Loshin, 2001). This knowledge is considered an intangible asset and is stored in the minds of the workforce as well as in information systems. This knowledge can be beliefs and value systems are of no less of importance to knowledge management. In many ways, they can be traced to organizational memory, "stored information from an organizational history that can be brought to bear on present decisions to which they refer, by individual recollections, and through shared interpretations " (Walsh and Ungson, 1991). This paper will explore key issues and critical success factors for doing …