Strategy as Practice & Leadership : Section B: Strategic Knowledge Management - Essay Example

Although business managers drive business strategies, this paper will evaluate knowledge management from an organizational strategy and activity theory that relates to the actions carried out by people. The activity theory presents a context for analysing daily human activity whereby information and communication make a strategic contribution. Moreover, the paper will evaluate knowledge management and its relation or influences both the organization strategy and its performance taking into consideration the knowledge management processes, developmental organizational processes like innovation, teamwork, decision making and collective and individual learning.

In the modern information age, information and knowledge are key determinants of competitiveness in organizations; therefore, modern organizations have the task of implementing effective knowledge management system. Many organizations have come to the realization that knowledge management is a considerable source for competitive advantage. Moreover, many scholars conclude that organizations can obtain competitive advantage from other resources such as knowledge management apart from the usual internal and external environmental factors.

These resources are not only tangible like capital, land and labour, but also often intangible like experience and creativity (Hasan, n.d); this has been a challenge to competitors lacking these intangible resources as they cannot be imitated, providing a competitive edge to the ones possessing them. Knowledge is considered a corporate asset; therefore, knowledge-based activities are principal internal functions inside an organization. Knowledge and its ability to create competitive advantage are dependent on various dimensions, one of which is examined in the essay regards the extent to which knowledge is either explicit or tacit.

For instance, explicit knowledge is palpable and can be articulated verbally or through writing. This form of knowledge refers to what an organization knows, concerning the knowledge necessary for carrying out activities, which is component that leads to tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge has complex interactions and interdependencies with explicit knowledge, and it regards expertise, which is intangible and not easily expressed in words like personal experience and creativity (Sass, 2012). Knowledge management is crucial in business activities; but, according to what activity theory stipulates knowledge management is not a stand-alone in” itself”, but rather it is a complement to the other business activities in an organization.

Knowledge management is core to most business activities and plays a vital role as a value adding tasks like customer relations management. Activity theory considers these actions even though they are not core business activities in themselves (Easterby-Smith and Lyles, 2003). The last stage in the chain of command in activity theory involves procedures where knowledge management is considered as the principal tool for automating the processes of knowledge management inside organizations. Activity theory is based on the concepts of internalization and externalization that recognizes that every aspect of knowledge is socially created, and considering such process learning usually takes place both at personal and societal stages (Brown and Paul, 2000).

Internalization and externalization distinguishes tacit from explicit knowledge, and elaborates the process through which knowledge is