Showing papers by "John S. Edwards published in 2018"

Integrating Knowledge Management and Business Processes

Abstract: Knowledge has been a subject of interest and enquiry for thousands of years, since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, and no doubt even before that. “What is knowledge” continues to be an important topic of discussion in philosophy. More recently, interest in managing knowledge has grown in step with the perception that increasingly we live in a knowledge-based economy. Drucker (1969) is usually credited with being the first to popularize the knowledge-based economy concept by linking the importance of knowledge with rapid technological change. Karl Wiig coined the term knowledge management (hereafter KM) for a NATO seminar in 1986, and its popularity took off following the publication of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s book “The Knowledge Creating Company” (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Knowledge creation is in fact just one of many activities involved in KM. Others include identifying, acquiring, sharing, retaining, refining, and using knowledge. Heisig (2009) compared 160 different KM frameworks: no fewer than 117 of them included a list of activities. Global interest in KM, both academic and practical, has continued to increase throughout the last two decades, but as these numbers indicate, consensus on the theory underpinning KM remains some way off. In this article, first the different types of knowledge are outlined, then comes a discussion of various routes by which knowledge management has been implemented. A business process-based route, which enables people, processes and technology to fit together, is growing in popularity as the best way to deliver effective KM that is integrated into what the organization does. Some examples of the business processes route in use are then given. Finally there is a look towards the future.