Personal Knowledge Management - Essay Example

REFLECTION REPORT ON PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT By Location Reflection report on personal knowledge management Introduction In the last semester, we learned about Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Knowledge Management (KM), their definitions, characteristics of knowledge management, and the way effective management can positively contribute towards the success of an organization. By definition, knowledge management refers to the process of creating, capturing, sharing, and efficiently making use of knowledge, where most applicable to improve performance and to learn in an organization. In other words, one can define knowledge management as a concept used by organizations to comprehensively and consciously gather, organize, share, and analyze the available knowledge in terms of documents, resources, and skills of employees (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 34). After completion of the semester, the aim of this assignment is to write a reflective report that consolidates all my learning and personal knowledge management experiences over the semester. Knowledge management enhances success in organizations in several ways. Throughout the semester, I came across a range of information about knowledge management and learned that knowledge management comprises of an array of practices and strategies that most organizations use to create, identify, share, and enhance adoption of experiences as well as insights (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 43). These experiences and insights comprise of knowledge, which is personified in people or entrenched in organizations as either practices or processes. Additionally, for an organization to become successful, it is a must for it to actively the available knowledge in order to enable it promote its decision-making strategy and capabilities (Wallace 2007, P. 43). Moreover, knowledge management builds learning organizations through making routines for learning, stimulates organizations’ cultural change as well as innovation. Throughout the semester, I came to understand that for those organizations that put knowledge management systems in place, they facilitate better and have informed decision-making through sharing the most effective practices, increasing progress, discussing failures and success, and experiences (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 37). Moreover, knowledge management creates a culture whereby every individual can assess him or herself, his or her unit, their organizations thus looking for the necessary ways of improvement. In personal knowledge management, one can define learning as the means of gaining knowledge and skills through experience, study practice, or taught by another person. People acquire knowledge through experience whereby developing one-step enforces development of the next step resulting to a long-term experience. The course made me understand that; motivation is a very vital characteristic of learning. Motivation is important in learning since it helps and individual to complete all the tasks that are necessary for his or her learning and understanding (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 47). In successful conditions, motivation enables an individual to achieve exactly what is best for her or him and have an interest to do better in future after completion of the study and even use the achieved knowledge to help others. Before the beginning of the semester I was feeling interested to understand how I can manage knowledge and how organizations can manage knowledge as well as its usefulness towards success of an organization. At the end of the semester, I was able to realize that knowledge management is not an easy task as I thought before. People should acknowledge that knowledge is not an object that one can capture after it leaves one’s mind. In addition, it does not just become information again to be interpreted to knowledge. There is nothing called knowledge management but people who are knowledgeable; knowledge refers to useful information. According to Takeuchi & Nonaka (1995), knowledge is about commitment, beliefs, and action that enable one to achieve a particular goal. In addition, knowledge is about sense, relational, and being context-specific. All these aspects of knowledge portray the vital role that people play (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 39). People play a very vital role in knowledge management since without human beings there is no knowledge because they are the ones who create, interpret, process, and distribute it. Therefore, the focus of KM lies on people, and not about knowledge or information (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 49). Therefore, the phrase knowledge management in the real sense it is incorrect. Managing knowledge means in fact managing human beings for knowledge management objectives. The discipline of knowledge management is another issue that I was interested to know during the semester. Many people even the professionals seem to have little knowledge about KM. Some people say that this is another management fad following the re-engineering one of the year 1990. Most people argue that knowledge management is simply information that companies that have an interest of selling their ideas or products using a new name advocate or re-pack (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 65). Before the beginning of the semester, I had come across many books that have contradicting and varying information about knowledge management. However, the completion of this semester has really helped me understand the exact meaning of knowledge management. However, knowledge management needs further research and study since it seems that this is not a well-developed academic discipline (Debowski 2010, P. 45). Besides, many people think that information technology plays a major role in knowledge management. However, most authors show differences on the responsibility information technology plays in knowledge distribution and sharing. Some authors advocate that information technology connect people with effective reusable codified information. Another group of people argues that information technology has little or nothing to with knowledge management (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 41). The success of knowledge management lies on appropriate culture but not on information technology. However, people have the nature of creating and using tools. Therefore, we should not deny that information technology has positive effect towards knowledge management since it shows aspects of human being complexity. There are different forms in which people share knowledge. Knowledge sharing can take place even without the use of information technology. The only natural way of communicating is face-to-face communication. When people are unable to meet each other, they can share knowledge through sending letters, although this mode of communication is time consuming. The advancement of information technology has really helped to enhance the means of knowledge sharing; for instance, people are currently using telegraphs, telephones, fax machines, televisions, social media networks, and many others to share knowledge (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 50). The invention of information technology tools and the use internet makes sharing of knowledge inseparable from computer technology. The three main areas which information technology contributes towards knowledge sharing are information resource management, knowledge base creation, and shared technologies. Information technology serves as a catalyst that facilitates and enables the entire process of sharing knowledge, although suitable organizational environment is yet essential (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 67). However, after the completion of the semester, I learned that culture serves as the most essential aspect in the field of knowledge management. Knowledge sharing requires an appropriate culture as well as a set of characters whereby people will be able to share knowledge like a portion of their daily activities. For instance, British airways acknowledged that culture was the main barriers that highly affected its learning and knowledge sharing (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 43). Therefore, it decided to establish an appropriate environment where learning and knowledge sharing was made unproblematic. British Airways decided to establish appropriate facilities to enable its staff have easy access to knowledge such as libraries, meeting rooms, and training rooms to enhance the organization’s culture. According to my experience from the semester, I assert that, knowledge management is all about people. Therefore, it is up to people to determine how to manage knowledge, although, with the aid of technology advent. The current use of internet plays a very crucial role in knowledge management. Internet is a very essential and influential knowledge management since it allows access of various information sources as well as network group discussions that are beyond any form of normal capabilities of human beings (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 53). The only way that organizations can ensure useful knowledge management is through stimulating and accepting cultural changes and innovations. In the modern global and complex nature of business environment, this kind of knowledge management system helps organizational managers to embrace change as well as encouraging insights and ideas, often leading to innovations not only for big organizations but also for local pop and mom business managers. Tacit knowledge management is one of the topics that I wanted to know more during the semester. Before the beginning of the semester, I used to consider all knowledge as tactic, though there are disagreements from many studies trying to interpret this view. One of the related views is; how do organizations understand what they have no idea? This is relating to the ideas that we learned during the semester. However, managing tacit knowledge is not an easy task (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 46). With the help of the knowledge I gained after completion of the semester, I can suggest two approaches that one can use to handle tacit knowledge (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 74). The first approach is conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge through repositories, documents, processes among many others. The second approach is through enhancing the flow of this knowledge through establishment of sharing culture, socialization, appropriate people interaction, and human resource management. The first approach can be effective with the aid of information technology (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 57). The second approach needs further research of tactical planning adopted from the SECI model. This approach involves cultural shift, needs effective management, communication and interpersonal skills often built on trust. Knowledge sharing was another useful knowledge I gained in the course of the semester. According to the context we learned in the semester, I understood knowledge sharing as the act of providing and making knowledge available to other people within an organization. One of the challenging problems that most knowledge organizations face is that of knowledge sharing. In most cases, knowledge sharing in many organizations requires corporate culture changes. Most organizations prefer using appraisal systems as the most effective way of sharing knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 51). However, in my own view, the results of this method can affect salaries and promotions although their usage results to cultural development. I learned that sharing knowledge with other people could help me improve my initials ideas because this results to exchange of ideas and inputs. Collaborating and sharing knowledge with colleagues, will contribute towards my success since these colleagues will assist me to meet my goals. Therefore, sharing of knowledge does not mainly mean sharing great thoughts. It entails improving the way things should be done through sharing the small things whereby in return I will acquire relevant knowledge from them (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 75). Moreover, interpersonal trust is important when sharing knowledge during at workplace, with friends during class, and with strangers since it requires me to know how to trust. Most of us during our childhood were told the consequences of trusting strangers and going over the hurdle one needs self-discipline. However, there is need of acquiring knowledge from strangers since one is able to learn new ideas. People claimed to have tacit knowledge are those who are able to share their ideas with the other people are trustworthy than those who are not willing to share the tacit knowledge they own (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 61). Through the SECI model of Takeuchi and Nonaka, I was able to understand that knowledge creation is a constant process that involves interactions of explicit and tacit knowledge. The four forms of knowledge sharing interact through a spiral way of creating knowledge. Some of the benefits of the SECI model are; acknowledges the vibrant nature knowledge as well as knowledge creation and provides people with appropriate management framework of the applicable processes (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 57). However, SECI model also has disadvantages. The model is based on Japanese study, which mainly relies on tacit knowledge. One of the criticisms of this model is that one can jump some steps, that is, start from a particular step, and end in a different step. Managing organizational culture and its creation was another important lesson in the semester. According to this context, there are factors that influence creation and management of organizational culture. These factors include, preferences, founder’ values, and demands of industry. A culture of a company during its early stage is predictably independent to the background, personality, biases, and values of the founders or the founder (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 77). For instance, when an entrepreneur starts up a business, he or she is the one who determines the rules and regulations of the organization, the organization’s structure, and the type of employees he or she will employ. While the value of the founders influence the Company’s corporate culture, the demands of the industry also plays a vital role. Companies operating within one industry sometimes may have very varying cultures (Awad & Ghaziri 2007, P. 67). The industry demands and characteristics play the role of creating similarities amongst organizational cultural practices. Throughout the semester, I came across a range of information about knowledge management and learned that knowledge management comprises of array of practices and strategies that most organizations use to create, identify, share, and enhance adoption of experiences as well as insights (Raman 2003, P. 54). For an organization to become successful, it is a must for it to actively the available knowledge in order to enable it facilitate its decision-making strategy and capabilities. In successful conditions, motivation enables an individual to achieve exactly what is best for her or him and have interest to do better in future after completion of the study and even use the achieved knowledge to help others. Lastly, personal knowledge management and knowledge management are essential factors towards success of an organization. For an organization to meet its goals and objectives, it should set strategies on how to manage the available knowledge. It is also beneficial for an organization to establish effective means of processing, creating, and sharing information with other organization in order to gain new ideas. Additionally, for an organization to become successful, it is a must for it to actively the available knowledge in order to enable it facilitate its decision-making strategy and capabilities (Nonaka & Takeuchi 2004, P. 63). Throughout the semester, I came to understand that for those organizations that put knowledge management systems in place, they facilitate better and have informed decision-making through sharing the most effective practices, increasing progress, discussing failures and success, and experiences. However, the completion of this semester has really helped me understand the exact meaning of knowledge management (Becerra-Fernandez & Leidner 2008, P. 79). Managing organizational culture and its creation was another important lesson in the semester. Conclusion The context of this semester points out a number of significant factors about knowledge management and personal knowledge management. In addition, all chapters had a sense of the meaning of knowledge management and the ways in which one can successfully use knowledge for competitive benefits and enhance organizational success in modern world. (Takeuchi & Nonaka 1995, p. 67) argue that culture is the main factor that results to a successful knowledge management. However, it is essential for individuals to ensure the use of technology in organizations since information technology supports knowledge management activities. Technology is nothing if an organization does not have knowledgeable workers to add value. Although it is vital to make use of tools in projects and in organizations for the benefit of the organizations, people should always understand that without good management of organizations relationships, knowledge management will not contribute towards the benefits of an organization.   Bibliography Nonaka, I, & Takeuchi, H 2004, Hitotsubashi on knowledge management. Singapore [u.a.], Wiley. Awad, EM, & Ghaziri, HM 2007, Knowledge Management. Delhi, Dorling Kindersley, Licensees Of Pearson Education In South Asia. Becerra-Fernandez, I, & Leidner, DE 2008, Knowledge management an evolutionary view. Armonk, N.Y., M.E. Sharpe, Inc. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=435221. Debowski, S 2010, Knowledge management. New Delhi, Willey India. Raman, AT 2003, Knowledge management: a resource book. New Delhi, Excel Books. Wallace, DP 2007, Knowledge management: Historical and cross-disciplinary themes, Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited. Read More