Knowledge Management Process Model
Module 3A
KNOWLEGDE MANAGEMENT
PROCESSES (KMP)
People
series of activities an organization put
in place for the facilitation and use of
knowledge
Knowledge
Management
support the conversion of tacit Process Systems
knowledge to explicit knowledge and
explicit to tacit (continuous process)
Fig 1.Tripartite nature of Knowledge Management
A. Knowledge Acquisition and Generation
Acquisition in KM deals primarily with tacit knowledge although it also acquires explicit knowledge.
The tacit knowledge can be transferred to explicit knowledge through externalization, that is, the
tacit knowledge is converted to recorded form, in documents or databases for reference by others
(Alegbeleye, 2010)
Knowledge before acquired should be identified first (knowledge identification)
KNOWLEDGE CAN BE GENERATED THROUGH:
1. Formal and informal writing
2. Research
3. Shared Problem Solving (brainstorming, FGD’s, seminars, workshops, etc)
B. Knowledge Capture
Knowledge capturing is another important aspect or component of knowledge management in
knowledge based organizations.
KNOWLEDGE CAPTURING INVOLVES:
1. Technology - Several technologies exist for facilitating the creation and sharing of knowledge.
(e.g., Information Technology instrument)
2. Knowledge Mapping - a method used to identify where knowledge resides within an organization.
Requires the techniques of questionnaire, interview and sometimes observations.
Mutula and Mooko (2008) described Knowledge mapping as a navigation aid to codify
information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationship between
knowledge stores.
C. Knowledge Organization
The knowledge acquired, generated or created needs to be properly organized for easy access
and retrieval which is the essence of organization of knowledge. (cataloguing and classification)
Nwalo (2003) defined cataloguing as the process of writing descriptive information of a book and
non-book material on a catalogue card and classification as assigning a class number to a book
that corresponds with a subject heading following a chosen classification scheme.
Alegbeleye (2010) identified a number of aspects involved in organization of knowledge as:
Identification of messages, identification of texts, and description of content.
Tools for knowledge organization include indexing, abstracting and cataloguing technique.
D. Knowledge Storage
The knowledge created and acquired needs to be properly stored and preserved for subsequent
access and use, and for the sake of posterity.
Alavi and Leidner, (2001) pointed knowledge storage as a process in knowledge management
involves capturing, transcribing, and coding knowledge.
Alegbeleye (2010) asserted that the ideas of knowledge storage, which he also called knowledge
“repository” as used in knowledge management is to take documents with knowledge embedded
in them and store them so that they can be easily retrieved in the future.
E. Knowledge Sharing
Ikenwe and Igbinovia (2015) described knowledge sharing as a fundamental priority of knowledge
management and defined it as an act through which, acquired information, knowledge, ideas,
skills, and experiences are exchanged and shared among people, organizations and institutions.
Knowledge sharing allows for leveraging the knowledge gained by an organization (Alegbeleye,
2010)
The main reason of sharing individual knowledge to entire organization is that knowledge should not
disappear if that employee leaves the organization (Dhamdhere, 2015)
Organizations must put certain measures (incentives) in place to ensure knowledge is shared and to
discourage knowledge hoarding.
F. Knowledge Application
Once knowledge is shared among people in the organizations, the shared knowledge should be
applied to solve a problem.
Dhamdhere (2015) if the gathered, stored, created and shared knowledge will not be applied
properly the whole process would be in vain and for proper knowledge application, knowledge
management process should be communicated to users.
Knowledge should be put to affective and efficient utilization to fill a gap or need.
