Abstract
Designing information systems from the traditional database orientation is not sufficient to cope with today’s organisational difficulties. Employees need information technologies (IT) which provide them not only with information but also with knowledge. In this context, using a knowledge management system (KMS) perspective can be appropriate. Although the potential benefits of applying this approach have been argued, there is evidence of failures when applying a KMS, caused normally by overestimating the role of technology. To suit the role of IT in KMS, a process perspective is proposed.
TopA Model Of Knowledge Management System Based On Processes
In the knowledge management field there is a well-accepted approach based on knowledge processes. Many KM definitions include knowledge processes and also there are diverse KM frameworks with a process view (e.g., Probst, Raub, & Romhardt, 1999; APQC, 1997). The present work formulates a KMS model based on a process view where the IT contribution in each process will be identified.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Business Intelligence: It is a set of tools used to manipulate a mass of operational data and to extract essential business information from them.
Competitive Intelligence (CI): Competitive intelligence aims at systematically feeding the organisational decision process with information about the organisational environment in order to make possible to learn about it and to take better decisions in consequence. In contrast to business intelligence (BI), CI depends heavily on the collection and analysis of qualitative information
Knowledge Management System (KMS): A distributed hypermedia system for managing knowledge in organisations, supporting creation, capture, storage, and dissemination of expertise and knowledge. The idea of a KMS is to enable the employees of the organisation to have access to the company’s knowledge of facts, sources of information, and solutions. Having employees share their knowledge (in brains and files) could potentially lead to more effective problem solving and it could also lead to ideas for new or improved products and services.
Knowledge Workers: A knowledge worker is anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge. For example, a knowledge worker might be someone who works at any of the tasks of planning, acquiring, searching, analysing, organising, storing, programming, distributing, marketing, or otherwise contributing to the transformation and commerce of information and those (often the same people) who work at using the knowledge so produced. A term first used by Peter Drucker in his 1959 book, Landmarks of Tomorrow .
Knowledge Creation: Is a continuous process whereby individuals and groups within a firm and between firms share both tacit and explicit knowledge. Organisational capability to create knowledge is the most important source of firms’ sustainable competitive advantage.