Title
Impact of Business Decisions with the collaboration of Knowledge Management in IT sector
Introduction:
In the current IT industry, Business decisions are the key factor in this global environment to run companies (Martin, 2009). Most of these requires analysis that was done logically of the available information. Based on the few theories, 47% of the business organizations are worsening due to the inappropriate business decisions (Rábová & Hodinka, 2011). Hence Business decisions in the IT companies are to be made in a right path to perform well in this emerging world. Few of the companies were still failing to take the critical business decisions which was already a raised in the past (Hu, Almansoori, Kannan, Azarm, & Wang, 2012). In order to make the effective business decisions without any failure right in the future, there must be a process or system to share and manage the information resources within the organization (Lin, Tsai, & Wu, 2014). This process must reduce the manpower and also improves the corporate efficiency, effectiveness, innovation and customer services (Daniel & Christopher, 2011). This issue can be rectified with the help of Knowledge Management system.
Knowledge Management (KM) is described as a systematic process of sharing, reusing and managing the knowledge only when it is made available and recorded (Jashapara, 2005). This helps an organization to gain insight and understanding for own experience (Remus, 2012). Most of the KM activities
Knowledge management was defined as the turning of information into actionable knowledge which can be accessed by people who can apply it. Robbins (2003) gives a time perspective in his definition of knowledge management. He mentions as part of knowledge management the distribution of the right information to the right people at the right time. Lytras et al (2002) gives a definition of knowledge management which emphasises the purpose of knowledge management. In the definition creation of new capabilities, enablement for superior performance, encouraging innovation and enhancement of customer value were mentioned. For the purpose of this study the researcher summarised knowledge management as the intentional process of coordinating people, technology and systems to optimise creation and sharing of intellectual
The superior capabilities of knowledge management systems provide an opportunity for the business to engage the most effective components and recognize the importance of communication to make informed, accurate decisions (McGrath, 2001). This system can organize the company’s knowledge resources, knowledge obtaining, organizing, and applying to make a sound routine the will enforce effectiveness (Niu, 2008). The dynamic function of knowledge management to create, capture, and apply knowledge to achieve an organization’s objective will allow them to be more profitable and successful (Zucker, 1986). In addition to increasing profits, the system can be also used to reduce costs and enhance research and development (DeTienne & Jackson, 2001). With all of these advantages, it would be wasteful for a company to not employ knowledge management. As seen in the Discovery Communications, Inc. example, the company can attribute their new productivity levels and increase in ease of securing documents to the knowledge management system that put into place by Carefree Technology. Like Discovery Communications, Inc., knowledge management is so popular today because companies can collect, process and share knowledge to ignite employees ' creativity which in turn will make the business grow. Wenhong and Jianhua (2009) explained the core of knowledge management is to convert company’s knowledge resources into an increased company
While Knowledge Management (KM) is important in any business however, there is no real agreed upon definition. KM is a concept that includes the
Since the mid-1990s, knowledge management has become increasingly significant for business managers and companies. ‘It is broadly accepted that systematic knowledge management is tightly linked with gaining and sustaining competitive advantage.’ (Bogner & Bansal, 2007, p658-6 as cited in Hislop, 2009, p1) The definition of knowledge management is various because of the wide range of this concept and its complexity (Al-Hawamdeh, 2003). For example, the broad definition provided by McAdam and McCreedy (2000, p155 as cited in Hislop 2009, p53) note that: ‘KM relates to the management of anything classified as knowledge’ Furthermore, Hislop (2009, p59)
Call, D. (2005). Knowledge management - not rocket science. Journal of Knowledge Management. (April) p.19-30. [Online]. Available from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.staffs.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1108/13673270510590191 [Accessed: 20 November 2016].
Knowledge management refers to organising and sharing the various forms of business information created within an organisation (Marakas and O’Brien 2013). Knowledge management is important as it increases the capability of a firm to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into its business processes (Laudon & Laudon 2014).
There are two dominant streams of research on knowledge management in modern academic literature: the resource-based and the process-based. The first stream focuses mainly on the increase of knowledge stock and there use of knowledge repositories (Barney, 1991; Kamara et al., 2002). Knowledge management is viewed as a developing system of techniques and values by the means of which organization effectively acquires and uses its intellectual assets (Snowden, 1999).
Organisational learning can be seen as the goal of knowledge management and may be obtained by good knowledge management strategies and processes. By motivating the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge, KM initiatives pay off by helping the organization embed knowledge into organisational processes so that it can continuously improve its practices and behaviours and pursue the achievement of its goals.
In a knowledge organization, defined by Bergeron (2003) as “corporations that take a systematic approach to capturing information”, knowledge and knowledge workers are treated as the organization’s most valuable asset. Therefore, the sharing of knowledge between employees is essential in knowledge management. But how does an organization make this work? In order for a knowledge management program to be successfully applied, several key factors must be considered: employees, leadership, application of information technology (to be discussed in later section), and most important of all, knowledge.
In the contemporary corporate cultural based world, a knowledge management system (KMS) is considered an important element to assist the sharing and integration of knowledge within the organization. An effective knowledge management strategy is capable of resolving knowledge management issue arises at any level in the organization (top management-to-bottom management level). A successful KMS also helps in increasing the overall business performance through ensuring staff performance, project management, organizational change management, quality of deliverables and the satisfaction of the staffs and customers. On the other side a lack of implementation of proper knowledge management system may hinder the performance of the staffs and the overall productiveness for the organization.
In order to understand knowledge management, it is important to start by defining what knowledge is. Knowledge is the full utilization of information and data, coupled with the potential of people's skills, competencies, ideas, intuitions, commitments and motivations. In today’s dynamic and complex business environment, the desire for knowledge has increased even more with the scope and content changed dramatically, often spreading outside the organization.
The term knowledge management has become common in businesses throughout the world. Despite its increased prevalence, there remains a large degree of confusion concerning the applied definition of what knowledge management is. Within the knowledge management community, attempts at defining this elusive term appear to be in constant flux. However, a basic description of what constitutes
Knowledge is often defined as facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a certain subject. There are many taxonomies that specify different kinds of knowledge but most fundamental contrast is between “tacit” and “explicit” knowledge. Tacit knowledge is referred as knowing more than we can say (Polanyi, 1966). Most knowledge is initially tacit and it has been arduously developed over a long time through the method of trial and error. Explicit knowledge on the other hand exists in the form of words, sentences, documents, organised data, computer programs and in other explicit form, in such a way that they can be directly and completely transferred from one person to another. Knowledge Management is a concept and a term that arose approximately two decades ago, it is said to be a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing information. KM was initially defined as the process of applying a systematic
Knowledge management is a term and a concept which began in the early 1990s. Despite the popular notion that knowledge management only began as a practice with the rise of technology, it has been around as a concept for around 15,000 years. At that time in history, merchants, artisans, doctors, and others first began writing down their knowledge for future generations. In Mesopotamia, roughly 5,000 years ago, people began to have difficulty keeping track of all the clay tablets on which information was written and created the first organized knowledge management solutions, the library (Bergeron 2003). Over the years, even as human advanced technologically, the idea of knowledge management remained. Since the idea of knowledge management arose as a management idea in the 1990s, it has undergone several changes in definition as ideas have changed. First, in 1994, it was defined as “the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge.” While this was a very straight forward definition, it had the disadvantage of not including any mention of the human element. Thus, in 1998, the definition was changed to be “a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an enterprise’s information assets, which may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously un-captured expertise and experience in individual workers.” Finally, as technology has created more of an element of
In the last era, there has been a substantial rise in the number of health initiatives which have seen significant increase in partnerships with national governments, agencies and global organizations. As these programs grow, there has also been a rise in the number of practices followed by the governments and well as these organizations approach to manage aids and funds. These require a significant importance being put to knowledge management.