The previous blog discussed why businesses need to be innovative. Because businesses must be innovative in order to maintain and strengthen their market position. It is creativity that fosters both innovation and entrepreneurship. Also, knowledge management, in turn, influences creativity.
But, what is knowledge management? Many people believe that developing systems of technically skilled information is the beginning and end of knowledge management. But, it is not the management of information and technologies as commonly believed.
Knowledge management
However, knowledge management is defined as the structured, concise, and purposeful formation, revival, and application of knowledge to maximise the effectiveness and earnings got from knowledge. It is also defined as the art of extracting value from an organization’s intangible resources.
“Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.” – Wikipedia
Knowledge management activities are classified into two types. The first is information management, while the second is people management. Moreover,knowledge management is more concerned with the art of fully understanding the possibilities and opportunities in an organisational setting. Assessing tacit and explicit knowledge along with their impact, and disseminating them are all part of this process.
Innovation and knowledge
Because innovations are more than just technological tasks, the knowledge required for effective knowledge management cannot be safeguarded solely through engineering and science. There are two types of innovation. It is technical knowledge and knowledge transfer. They need for acquiring knowledge about administrative methods offered for technology management. To improve the systematic development of innovations, an organisation must have access to two types of knowledge. They are administrative and technical.
A person discovering knowledge or learning should not be the only one who can access it. Everyone involved in the process should be able to access it. To benefit the entire organisation, all should use, apply, revise, and adopt them. To be real and effective, learning in an organisation must extend beyond simply transferring information to applying, updating, and improving it. Learning guidelines must be included, altered, and adjusted instead of blindly repeating older successful techniques. Eventually, if learning is to incorporate innovations, an administrative framework for the present and the future should be included.
View knowledge management as a social and technical system. It is composed of implicit and explicit business attitudes and policies. These are made possible by incorporating tools for information technology, business systems, as well as intelligent, human, and social capital. Working knowledge, intellectual ability, and mindset are all important factors in both organisational and individual thought functions. The organisational and managerial aspects of thinking activities and knowledge management force higher levels of knowledge.
What is knowledge and how does one get it?
Knowledge is structured data. It is information that has been organised and analysed. It is understandable and can solve problems or make decisions. Truths and convictions, ideas, evaluations and preconceptions, techniques, and know-how are all components of knowledge. It is a logical way of thinking about information.
“Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. “ – Wikipedia
Among the assets of an organisation are its human resources, its intellectual property, its infrastructure, and its market assets. It is organisational knowledge. It is information that has been processed and is included in systems and processes that facilitate action. This knowledge can be gained through the use of systems, practices, products, regulatory requirements, and the organisational context.
Knowledge can be explicit, implicit, or tacit. Explicit knowledge is easily accessible because it has been documented in well-organized structured sources of knowledge. Implicit knowledge is got through questioning and discussion. Tacit knowledge is gained indirectly and with difficulty in learning activities and behaviour observation.
Knowledge and Learning Relationship
Developing business skills includes individual and group interactions. Then, organisational learning becomes a tactic for governing interpersonal relationships. This happens through methods such as information disclosure, communication, and behavioural interaction. Businesses with effective organisational learning can expect to outperform market competition. The quality of cognitive learning defines performance improvement.
Three levels of learning
Functional, tactical, and strategic learning are three levels of learning.
By acquiring new knowledge, expertise and learning is accumulated through functional learning. Using information provided by the organization, it focuses on adding or improving capabilities. This type of learning assists in the management of basic organisational capabilities, resource allocation, and competition strategies.
On the other hand, in tactical learning, we use our prior experience and learning methods to learn new tactics. By changing or improving decision-making rules, we create novel concepts for inevitable and unforeseen decision-making activities. This is the path that will lead to a long-term understanding of learning, resulting in the restructuring and rebuilding of the company. Tactical learning allows businesses to explore new potentials more efficiently and effectively, as well as strengthen or combine already established basic capacities. The result is innovative concepts with increased competitive advantages.
Final words
We learn and develop new perspectives on the enterprise’s functional settings or outlook through strategic learning. As a result, we adopt new learning methods. We reconsider the decision-making rules and potential outcomes, as well as the fundamental properties of our functional settings. It is a type of ongoing education that focuses on the restructuring of methods and procedures used in the rebuilding and management of an organisation.
