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What is Knowledge Management
Knowledge management involves all aspects and life stages of knowledge, starting from its creation through its preservation, including manipulation, dissemination, and its consumption. There are different perspectives to understanding and defining what knowledge management is, (Broadbent, 1998) defines knowledge management from the information profession point of view as: Enhancing the use of organizational knowledge through sound practices of information management and organizational learning She adds that the purpose of this management is to bring value to the business by creating purposeful management practices to capture information and exploit it to the benefit of the organization itself. To Broadbent (1998), the successful management of knowledge relies on two factors. First, the use of the organization’s current information. Second, the effective exploitation of the human asset of the organization, its employees, by benefiting from their thoughts, ideas, skills, and intuitions. This definition of knowledge management is not far from the strategists point of view that sees knowledge management as leveraging the knowledge asset and
making it a productive factor in achieving the organization’s goals and ensuring continues innovation, (Beijerse, 2000; Newell et al., 2009). Beijerse regards the effective use of knowledge a necessity in the modern life competition among enterprises in the knowledge economies, a competitive edge that needs to be leveraged in order to stay ahead in the business environments. To him, knowledge itself consists of three components, the explicit component, which is information, and the implicit component that is within the people, namely the attitude and the capacity. The attitude refers to the desire to create knowledge by thinking and acting and the capacity is one’s ability to transform raw data to useful information.
Davenport and Prusak (2000) highlight the importance of good sense in managing knowledge, and that successful knowledge management starts with a high-value knowledge within the organization. In their integrative view of knowledge management, they recognize that good practices in managing information systems, organizational change, and human resources practices are sources that maybe already established at the organization of which knowledge management can draw from. To successfully manage knowledge; organizations must recognize the multi dimensionality of knowledge management, it is not simply technological systems and internal processes working together, but rather the integration of the organization’s culture and change management with those systems and processes, (Ashok, 2004). Drucker (1969) shed light on the change from the economy of goods (in industrial nations) to the knowledge economy, where a big portion of a gross national income is earned by production, distribution and procurement of information. The knowledge economy needs more than the worker’s hand skills, it requires also his knowledge. Drucker explains: Today the center is the knowledge worker, the man or woman who applies to productive work ideas, concepts, and information rather than manual skills or brown.
He explains that knowledge has become the foundation of economy and the primary industry in the sense that it is which “supplies to the economy the essential and central resources for production” (Drucker, 1969). Knowledge management can be seen as a response to the changing typology of organizations as they are “increasingly stretched across time and space, reorganized around process or product line, and restructured around virtual teams and networks” (Scarbrough and Swan, 2001). Through Knowledge management, the intellectual capital can be maintained and leveraged, and the organization’s competitive advantage can be increased through the integration of their most strategically important asset; Knowledge (Quinn, 1992; Grant, 1996).
Conceptions of knowledge
In knowledge management, there are two conceptions of knowledge, the first conception views knowledge as an epistemology of possession, meaning that knowledge is a trait of the cognition of the humans, which can be developed and applied to work. The second conception views knowledge as the epistemology of practice, that is to say, knowledge stems from what people practice. It is not within the human mind, rather what people share and experience. It is bound to context and interaction among humans, (Cook and Brown, 1999). To Cook and Brown, the epistemology of possession refers to knowledge, while the epistemology of practice should be referred to as knowing, and they argue that those two forms of knowledge are complimentary to each other, they are not competing, rather one enables the other. In that view, they add that knowledge manifest in four distinct forms, the tacit, the explicit, and the individual’s and group’s knowledge, each of those four forms cannot do the work of the other, and by treating knowledge in action as knowing, we can better understand the process of learning and innovation in human groups.
1. Equivocal, that means knowledge is not one truth, and that it is open to interpretations
2. Dynamic, which meaning that it is changing and sensitive to situations and actors
3. Context-dependent, that is, each context will produce a unique knowledge, it is not rigid (Newell et al., 2009) In the processual conception of knowledge, it is bound to context and embedded in the social interaction and sharing, it is in between two conceptions of knowledge, the structural conception that views knowledge as within the mind, and the practice conception which differentiates between knowledge embedded in the cognition and knowing which is embedded in what we do, the work.
Knowledge creation models
There are several frameworks for understanding knowledge creation and knowledge types in organizations. Those frameworks present various theoretical perspectives depending on distinct conceptions of knowledge. Described below are a selection of three frameworks that distinctly vary with regard to conceptions of knowledge and approaches to managing knowledge, namely (1) Nonaka (1994); Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), (2) Blackler (2002, 1995), and (3) Spender (1996). Nonaka’s (1994) model relies on the assumption that “a fundamental task for the organization is how efficiently it can deal with information and decisions in an uncertain environment”. This gives great emphasis on knowledge itself within an organization and how it is created and shared. Nonaka’s model builds on the conception of knowledge as an epistemology of possession. It represents the process of knowledge creation as a spiral of interaction between four different patterns of interaction between the tacit and the explicit forms of knowledge, which lead to creation of new knowledge through conversion from one form to the other.
The knowledge hierarchy
The data – information – knowledge – wisdom hierarchy, known shortly as DIKW Hierarchy or simply as the knowledge hierarchy, is a fundamental and a widely used model in the literature of knowledge and information management. It is used to describe knowledge as a pyramid comprising different components, and to contextualize knowledge and explain its relationship to data, information and wisdom, (Ackoff, 1989; Newell et al., 2009). Russell L. Ackoff (1989) is often credited with proposing the model in his presidential address to the international society for general systems research. Although Ackoff’s paper did not contain the visual pyramid, his words described it clearly: Wisdom is located at the top of a hierarchy of types, types of content of the human mind. Descending from wisdom there is understanding, knowledge, information, and, at the bottom, data.
Data, is the plural of datum, it is considered the grain or building block of information. According to Ackoff, data are « symbols that represent properties of objects, events and their environment ». It has no meaning by its own, because it requires context (Chaffey and Wood, 2004).
According to the Oxford English dictionary; information are facts provided or learned by someone. Information are answers to questions. It is inferred from data and processed for a purpose (Curtis and Cobham, 2008; Ackoff, 1989). It is given a meaning by context (Groff and Jones, 2003). There are various conceptions of information.
Human information behavior and practice
Human information behavior refers to “the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking, and information use” (Wilson, 2000). The all-encompassing term information behavior was introduced into the information-seeking studies in the 1960s (Savolainen, 2007) and gained wide use in the 1990s, where before, it was called studies of information seeking and gathering or needs and uses. The recent term information behavior is preferred because it includes other information interacting activities, such as identifying information needs, selection of information, and evaluation, (Marcia J. Bates, 2010). On the other hand, Talja and Hansen (2006) define Information practice as the “practices of information seeking, retrieval, filtering and synthesis”. According to Talja (2006) a major distinguishing feature of information practice approach to information-seeking studies is that it is more sociological and contextually oriented path of research in contrast with the umbrella concept of information behavior. Savolainen (2007) notes that the focus on the practice of information rather than the behavior sheds more light on the social element of information seeking. He adds: The major difference is that within the discourse on information behavior, the “dealing with information” is primarily seen to be triggered by needs or motives, while the discourse on information practice accentuates the continuity and habitualization of activities affected and shaped by social factors Wilson’s model (1997) on information seeking behavior, Figure 10, was amended in 1994 to include Ellis’s work on information-seeking. His model illustrates the situation which gives start to an information seeking event and describes the main components of the environment and barriers, this includes the person, the role and the environment in which a situation exist and the possible barriers in the process of information seeking behavior. Ellis’s (1989) model on information seeking behavior pattern included in Wilson’s general model for information seeking behavior was a
result of his research on information retrieval system design for academic social scientists, it yielded a set of generic features that constituted the academics’ information seeking personal patterns. It is as follows: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, and extracting.
Table of contents :
Abstract
Résumé en Français
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Context of the study
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Aim and Scope
1.4 Significance of the study
1.5 Overview of the study
1.6 Assumptions
1.7 Research process of the study
1.8 Delimitation of the study
1.9 Definition of terms
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Overview of the chapter
2.2 What is Knowledge Management
2.2.1 Conceptions of knowledge
2.2.2 Knowledge creation models
2.2.3 The knowledge hierarchy
2.3 Human information behavior and practice
2.4 Information needs
2.5 Sense-making theory
2.6 Dimensions of human needs for poor people
2.7 Charity Organizations in Saudi Arabia
2.8 Geographical distribution of charities in Saudi Arabia
2.9 Supported programs
2.10 Proposed information Model
2.11 Summary of the chapter
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1 Overview of the chapter
3.2 Research design
3.3 Population
3.4 Sample and sampling procedure
3.4.1 Study one
3.4.2 Study two
3.5 The instrument
3.6 Software used
3.7 Language of the survey
3.8 Respondents
3.9 Evaluation of the instrument
3.9.1 Field pretesting
3.9.2 Expert Panel
3.10 Response rate and final dataset
3.11 Ethical considerations
3.12 Summary of the chapter
Chapter 4: Analysis
4.1 Overview of the chapter
4.2 Study one data analysis
4.2.1 Study one sample demographic characteristics
4.2.2 Missing values analysis
4.2.3 The use of information systems for donations
4.2.4 Constituents at Bir charities
4.2.5 Adaptation of a unified information system
4.3 Study Two data analysis
4.3.1 Study two sample demographic characteristics
4.3.2 Data collection and preparation for analysis
4.3.3 Sets of informational needs
4.3.4 Cases analysis
4.3.5 Set 1: Registration of new constituents
4.3.6 Set 2: Determining donation needs
4.3.7 Set 3: Confirmation of those needs
4.3.8 Set 4: Follow-up of constituents’ satisfaction about donations
4.3.9 Set 5: Long-term follow-up of constituent needs
4.3.10 Set 6: Unregistering a constituent
4.3.11 Set 7: Evaluating the impact of those donations on constituents
4.3.12 Sources of information
4.4 Dimensions of information needs and dimensions of human needs
4.5 Summary of the chapter
Chapter 5: Conclusion
5.1 Overview of the chapter
5.2 Major findings
5.2.1 Information systems use at Bir charities
5.2.2 Information needs at Bir charities
5.2.2.1 Sets of information needs
5.2.2.2 Sources of information
5.2.3 Dimensions of human development needs and information needs
5.2.4 Information model for representing people’s needs at charities
5.3 Implications of the study
References
