Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland

							Institute of Chartered Accountants
             of Scotland
    Knowledge Management Seminar
     Wednesday 18th October 2000

        Presentation by Hazel Hall

   Senior Lecturer in Information Management
    School of Computing, Napier University


                                               1
               Knowledge Management Seminar


Lecture content

•   Knowledge Management (KM) goals
•   KM as an antidote to knowledge fragmentation in organisations
•   Approaches to KM
•   Research in KM at Napier University
•   Areas of debate and interest in KM

Presentation accessible from: http://www.bim.napier.ac.uk/~hazel/index.htm




                  Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group     2
                       Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                      18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar




KM goals

• Realise the wealth of your company’s intellectual capital!Identify
  and share explicit and implicit information!
• Create open, extended enterprises and knowledge culture!
• Win improved productivity through creating value from existing
  resources, responsiveness to change, innovation!




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   3
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar




KM as an antidote to knowledge fragmentation in organisations

• Geographical disparity and global time differences
• Under-used/ignored knowledge bases, organisations not
  knowing what they know
• Multiple information sources in a variety of formats, information
  overload
• Poor IT infrastructures
• Culture of mistrust and/or poor communication
• Staff retention problems (both unintended and deliberate)
• General information illiteracy
                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   4
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
              Knowledge Management Seminar


KM - as a relatively new and multi-disciplinary area

Significant interest from 1995 onwards from researchers in:

•   business management
•   information science
•   computer science
•   psychology
•   artificial intelligence
•   knowledge engineering


                 Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   5
                      Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                     18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


Public sector interest in KM

• Our competitive future: building the knowledge economy
• Scottish Enterprise
• Business Shop Network




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   6
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


Interest in KM for commercial opportunity: software vendors

• KM is a buzz term (heir to MIS, DSS, EIS …)
• Vendors align marketing strategies with the buzz
• Examples: data mining software; yield management software;
  process handbooks; intranets; browsers; data warehouses;
  filters; software agents…




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   7
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


Interest in KM for commercial opportunity: service providers

• Knowledge about knowledge production has become a
  commercial product in its own right
• Management consultants sell expertise
• Academics raise research funding, sell courses, get invited to
  ICAS for lunch!




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   8
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
              Knowledge Management Seminar


Three broad theoretical approaches to KM

Davenport & Cronin (2000, para 1) offer 3 articulations:

• KM1 from the literature of library and information science
• KM2 from the literature of process engineering
• KM 3 from the literature of organisational theory

http://www.alise.org/nondiscuss/conf00_Davenport-Cronin_paper.htm




                 Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   9
                      Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                     18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


KM1

KM = organisational management of internally and externally
  produced publications

i.e. KM = information management (IM): acquisition, cataloguing,
    classification and organisation of resources for subsequent
    retrieval and use




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   10
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


KM2

KM = management of “know-how”

i.e. KM = mapping and modelling techniques and tools to identify
    organisational knowledge assets and then recompile them for
    business advantage




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   11
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


KM3

KM = provision of conditions for knowledge creation

i.e. KM = related to environmental factors to create knowledge
    culture




                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   12
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


Research in KM at Napier University: examples from the
  Information Management Group, School of Computing

• Motivations for knowledge sharing across intranets: reward
  systems (both explicit and soft) and enabling conditions
• Taxonomies
• Communities of practice and networked learning
• KM in academe
• Innovation, KM and the use of space
• Training and development of knowledge workers: learning
  about KM whilst “experiencing” KM

               Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   13
                    Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                   18th October 2000
             Knowledge Management Seminar


Research in KM at Napier University: examples from other units

•   Modelling processes of KM
•   KM in advertising
•   KM and teledemocracy
•   KM and careers guidance

Knowledge Management in the Age of Networks - conference to
  be held at Redwood House, Friday 27th October 2000



                Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   14
                     Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                    18th October 2000
              Knowledge Management Seminar


Areas of debate and interest in KM - possibly of particular interest
   to participants

•   Representation of knowledge assets on the balance sheet
•   Value of KM activity and tools
•   Taxonomies
•   Training for knowledge work, particularly within the context of
    traditional measures of achievement in British education




                 Presentation to the Edinburgh General Discussion Group   15
                      Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
                                     18th October 2000