" In practice, knowledge management involves sharing such assets between employees, departments and even with other companies.
It is important to note that knowledge management is not synonymous with technology. While the idea of knowledge management has become deeply integrated with technological advances, it can exist outside of the computer era. Note Santosus and Surmacz, "while (knowledge management) is often facilitated by it, technology by itself is not (knowledge management).
Knowledge management can bring about substantial benefits to the company, underlining the importance of effective managerial organization of the process. These benefits can include a direct contribution to bottom-line savings for the company. In addition, knowledge management can provide benefits to areas as diverse as employee morale, and effective company communication.
In effectively incorporating knowledge management into organizational practices, the organizing functions of management must be able to clearly defined intellectual or knowledge-based assets. As Santosus and Surmacz succinctly note, "Not all information is valuable." In other words, the effective manager must be able to determine what information is valuable, and what is not within the organizational process.
Generally, knowledge-based assets fall into two categories: the explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge-based assets include business plans, marketing research, trademarks, and patents. This knowledge is often documented, archived, and even codified with the help of information technology. In contrast, tacit knowledge is an inherently more ambiguous and often less tangible resource. This knowledge can be seen as "the know-how contained in people's heads" (Santosus and Surmacz). Identifying this tacit knowledge can be difficult, but is an important step during the organizing functions of management.
There are substantial organizing functions of management that are related to knowledge management. The importance of these organizing functions derives from the need for the integration of knowledge management within a larger business context. Without such a context,"(knowledge management) is meaningless at best and harmful at worst" (Santosus and Surmacz).
As such, the organizing functions of management, as related to knowledge management, must be focused on specific and clear goals. These include mobilizing resources that encourage...
Importantly, an effective knowledge management program must also help the company get products to market more quickly, thereby increasing revenues, and streamline operations by eliminating unnecessary processes (Santosus and Surmacz).
In the organizing stage, management must work diligently to mobilize a plan that has been created specifically in order to allow employees to become actively involved in knowledge management. This mobilization can include facilitating a company culture where sharing tacit knowledge is rewarded, and can include the creation of an incentive program (Santosus and Surmacz).
The organizational process should also include the means for integrating knowledge management and information technology. Further, the organizational process should reflect the idea that knowledge management is not static process. As such, organization should take into consideration that knowledge constantly changes, is updated, deleted, and amended. Similarly, the relevance of specific knowledge changes due to various and often unpredictable factors (Santosus and Surmacz).
In conclusion, the organizing functions of management that impact human resources and knowledge may strongly impact an organization's success. The organizing functions of management in relation to human resources consider business and employee needs, develops personnel organizational charts, incorporates internal and external factors, and establishes goals for day-to-day management. The organizing functions of management in a knowledge management scenario are focused closely on understanding and identifying company and employee needs. Here, organizing functions are especially important, as failure in identifying knowledge management issues within a larger business context can be devastating to the business.
Works Cited
Griffin, Ricky W., Ebert, Ronald J. And Starke, Frederick a. Business, fourth Canadian Edition. Pearson Education, 2004.
Santosus, Megan and Surmacz, Jon. The ABCs of Knowledge Management. CIO Magazine. 04 November 2004. http://www.cio.com/research/knowledge/edit/kmabcs.html
United States Department of Agriculture. Cooperative Business Management Functions. 04 November 2004. http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/cir4511.pdf
