How Customer Knowledge Management is Becoming a Dominant Industry Trait

Knowledge Management

In the field of management, knowledge management began its journey as an element of the learning organization. According to Choo and Bontis (2002) any organization represents a bundle of various assets (especial emphasis was given on knowledge). Dretske (1981) defined knowledge as information produced (or sustained) belief. Scholars consider knowledge as a strategic resource that is hard to imitate and provides its possessor a unique and inherently protected advantage. Knowledge is created when information is given meaning by being interpreted, analyzed, synthesized, validated, and codified (Li, 2007). Discussion on knowledge management might remain unscrupulous, if data-information-knowledge hierarchy is not discussed. Generally, data is viewed as simple and isolated raw facts that would become information when combined into meaningful structures. Later on, information becomes knowledge as human perspective is added and the information is being put into a context. According to Tuomi (2000), reading a book is an excellent analogy of the data-information-knowledge hierarchy. The book contains data in its letters and words. Reading and understanding a book is a process of collecting information; eventually integrating the collected information with other related information creates knowledge.