In his 2005 article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, Siemens outlined a new way of thinking about learning based on the recent advances in information technology. He argues that this new theory, connectivism, supersedes previous learning theories, including behaviourism, cognitivism, and contructivism. In this post, I am seeking to further my understanding of this new theory, examine its limitations, and consider its relevance to both classroom teaching as well as knowledge management practices within organizations.

Defining Connectivism

Siemens argues that the explosion of information available on the Internet, the pace of technological, organizational, and professional change, and the vast number of online connections that can be made between individuals and groups via social media (including colleagues, friends, organizations, corporations, associations, institutions, professional communities, informal communities, etc.), have fundamentally altered the nature of how we should think about knowledge. In the past, the knowledge required for professional competence changed little over the lifespan of one’s career. A doctor or engineer could develop their skills at university, and continue to apply those same principles until they retired. Today, the pace of change is so rapid that continued competence requires ongoing learning (and unlearning), and the exposure to vast amounts of knowledge over a lifetime. In fact, the amount of knowledge required can no longer be contained within the mind of a single individual, and instead, according to connectivism, is now better stored and processed through technology. Knowledge today exists in web sites, databases, video archives, and thousands of other information repositories, both public (on the Internet) and private (within organizational intranets). Smaller amounts of knowledge are also stored within the minds of different people. One person will have tacit knowledge that differs from another person, but if they are connected to one another and able to interact, that knowledge can be shared. This sharing can take place through face-to-face interactions, but is also possible through online tools such as Twitter, Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and many more. As a result, vast amounts of knowledge are available to anyone with access to the network, the ability to navigate it effectively, and possessing a wide range of connections to knowledgeable people. For connectivists, the network itself (as the foundation for all current and future learning and knowledge) is more important than the knowledge that flows through it (which likely will be quickly outdated and irrelevant).

In the article, Siemens outlines the fundamental principles of connectivism:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting
  reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision (p. 4).

For Siemens, connectivism is a significant departure from previous learning theories because it sees learning occurring outside of the individual, within the network:

Even social constructivist views, which hold that learning is a socially enacted process, promotes the principality of the individual (and her/his physical presence – i.e., brain-based) in learning. These theories do not address learning that occurs outside of people (i.e., learning that is stored and manipulated by technology). They also fail to describe how learning happens within organizations (p. 2).

From this perspective, connectivism can be seen as bringing a unique perspective to learning theory, as well as posing interesting (and challenging) epistemological questions, such as the very meaning of knowledge and learning.

For connectivists, the starting point is always the individual learner (Siemens, 2005). The path to gaining knowledge comes through an individual, possibly with the assistance of others, establishing their own personal knowledge network of relevant information resources (e.g., valuable web sites, academic or professional journals, conferences, etc.) and information connections. These connections may consist of relationships with knowledgeable co-workers or professional colleagues, but also online Communities of Practice, mediated through web-based discussion forums, LinkedIn groups, or Twitter communities. As the individual’s personal knowledge network (PKN, sometimes referred to as a Personal Learning Network or Personal Learning Environment) matures and expands, the quality of the learning will also grow, making it increasingly valuable over time. An effective personal knowledge network can provide access to new ideas, innovations, successful experiments, failed results, and, if constructed with diversity in mind, contrary opinions that can be cause for reflection, re-consideration, and personal growth.

Jarche (n.d.) describes the development of a personal knowledge network as an ongoing process of 1) seeking new information and connections, 2) making sense of the new information encountered through integration with existing knowledge, reflection, writing, and enhancing the new knowledge, and finally, 3) sharing the results of the seeking and sense-making back to others in the network. This can serve as an effective starting point for anyone interested in establishing their own PKN, or for those responsible for facilitating a connectivist learning experience for others.

As connectivism gains in influence, such as through the special issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning recently dedicated to it (Anderson, 2011), others have begun to explore the theory further. In the issue, Kop (2011) draws attention to three important limitations of connectivism, including the ongoing need for critical literacies and the power relations on the network. To be effective, connectivism will need to explain how to best support critical thinking within the network and also challenge the unequal power relations that will inevitably appear. Second, the level of learner autonomy is another important issue. In an ideal world, adult learners are self-directed (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2005). Unfortunately, years of disempowering education in schools, colleges, and universities has often robbed adults of the ability to be self-directed, and in some cases has made them fearful of it. Connectivism is based upon the active participation of self-directed learners and therefore, explaining how this can be nurtured within dependent individuals will be an important part of its future iteration. Third, the level of presence is an important factor for connectivism:

There is a high level of presence when a participant in an online activity experiences the activity as if it were taking place in real life, without the mediation of the computer. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) argued that deep and meaningful learning results if three forms of presence play a role in education: “cognitive presence,” which ensures a certain level of depth in the educational process; “social presence”; and, in a formal educational environment, “teacher presence.” In PLE-based connectivist learning, the teacher would not necessarily be present, but one could argue that there are knowledgeable others on the Web who would take on that teacher role to a certain extent. For people to take an active, participative, and critical role in connectivist learning, they need communication and collaboration with and feedback from others, the same as in classroom-based learning (n.p.).

For Kop, all three of these issues can be mitigated through greater social interaction within a connectivist framework. For those responsible for facilitating connectivist networks, building in regular synchronous online events can be especially important to foster an important sense of community and presence among the members of the network. These could include web-based presentations, discussions, or debates as well as learner participation through question and answer sessions or other forms of online dialogue. In this way, critical new ideas can be introduced and discussed. Facilitators, as well as other learners, can also guide the less self-directed along a path to greater empowerment through demonstrated behaviour as well as mentoring or coaching. These are all important omissions from Siemen’s article, but can be accommodated within a connectivist context. As connectivism matures, and more people contribute their experiences and critiques to its core concepts, it will undoubtedly strengthen as a foundational learning theory.

Applications in the Classroom

In addition to being a theory to support self-directed learners pursuing their own informal learning, connectivism can also be used as a foundational theory to support formal learning experiences. Examples of this include the Change MOOC 2011 course offered by Siemens, Cormier, and Downes (2011) and ECI831 by Couros (2011) at the University of Regina. In both examples, the courses were completely online, and based on each student developing her or his own personal knowledge network, using open education resources freely available on the Internet (seeking), student blogs (for sense-making), and Twitter and Delicious (or Diigo) for building connections and sharing resources and reflections. Each course unit had little or no assigned readings, as students were expected to find resources of relevance to their personal learning goals, share what they found with the class, and blog about their reflections on what they drew from them. Students were also expected to post comments to one another’s blog posts to create a discussion around core concepts relevant to the course. Each week also included a guest speaker in a synchronous online classroom, speaking on a topic of importance for the general theme of the course, and ideally drawing students into discussions and activities (such as collaboratively writing or drawing on a shared whiteboard). This synchronous classroom, though less convenient for participants in other time zones, was critical for developing the effective social interactions identified by Kop that reduce a lack of presence (the instructors, guest speakers, and other students were all present in real time and were all actively engaged). These examples also involved instructors acting as facilitators, guiding students with little experience with self-direction toward becoming more responsible for their own learning goals. The active involvement of instructors and guest speakers, as well as other students, also ensured that critical thinking was taking place, and that challenging ideas and concepts were being introduced. Finally, the potential for unequal power relations was at least partially offset by students having a significant amount of autonomy over what they chose to learn, and over how they chose to approach the graded assignments. One of the most challenging elements of any formal education situation is the issue of grades. This traditionally imposes a relationship of unequal power between the student and the instructor, with the instructor typically having almost dictatorial power over the evaluation process. In ECI831, students evaluated their own assignments, reflecting on their strengths, opportunities for improvement, and assigning what they believed to be a fair grade. The instructor reviewed these self-evaluations, added additional comments, recognition of successes, and suggestions for improvement, and either accepted the suggested grade or engaged the student in a dialogue about a different grade. Although the instructor retained the ultimate power (and responsibility) for the final grade, this method of dialogue and engagement goes as far as possible within a contemporary, formal education environment to reduce this power imbalance, based upon a connectivist perspective of student autonomy, responsibility, and empowerment. Drawing in some element of peer evaluation could be a useful addition to this process, inviting students to review each other’s work, either openly or blindly. This would diffuse the power relationship further, as well as introducing students to the critical function of peer review in academic evaluations and increasingly, in the workforce, through the growing implementation of 360-degree assessments (Walker & Smither, 1999).

Widespread adoption of connectivist approaches to formal learning will inevitably face resistance. Perhaps the most controversial aspects are its insistence that the network is more important than the content, that knowledge is a process rather than an artifact, and that knowledge can reside in appliances or other people, and be retrieved as needed rather than incorporated into an individual’s memory. For many students and instructors, the focus of a course is the content and learning that content (and securing it as an artifact within one’s own memory, which Freire (1970) called the “banking” approach to education) is seen as the core reason for taking or teaching the course. Instructors are experts in their content areas and are very attached to what they know and the value of their knowledge. Accepting the fact that the content being taught will soon be outdated and that the development of a strong network for future learning (which will be necessary to remain up-to-date) is difficult to accept. Past practice was that knowledge lasted a lifetime, but the rapid pace of change has disrupted this faster than many people, both instructors and students, can adapt to.

Applications in Knowledge Management

As mentioned by Siemens (2005), connectivism is unique among major learning theories for addressing how learning can happen outside of the minds of individuals and within communities or organizations. This can make it an important theory for advancing knowledge management. In much the same way as the connectivist classroom discussed previously, a connectivist knowledge management strategy would also be based upon a foundation of individual personal knowledge networks, which would then become interconnected with other personal knowledge networks, both within and outside of the organization. Each employee would be engaged in a process of seeking (finding relevant information to perform their current tasks and introduce new ideas and innovations), sense-making (reflect on the value of the new information encountered and discuss its application to their work), and sharing (suggesting valuable resources, contacts, and ideas to other members of the organization). As in the connectivist classroom, the role of a facilitator (the knowledge manager) would be critical to the success of the program, guiding less self-directed individuals toward taking responsibility for their learning, introducing critical thinking and new ideas and connections, encouraging writing and commenting, challenging power imbalances that could arise between management and employees, and ensuring a sense of presence and social interaction through the organization of synchronous learning events, such as guest speakers or webinars. As each member of the organization developed their personal knowledge network, they would narrate their work through public writing (on a blog or wiki) to reveal what they learned and provide a record of their thoughts and actions, useful for current conversations and future reference. Knowledge sharing is an important component of this strategy as well, with each individual sharing not only their own reflections and experiences, but also pointing others toward relevant information sources and other contacts to include in their personal knowledge networks.

Developing this kind of connectivist knowledge management strategy can be an important step toward leveraging the power of informal learning in the workplace and the development of a learning organization. According to Jay Cross (2007), much of the classroom training that happens in the workplace is largely ineffective, and more informal approaches, such as those developed through personal learning networks, are significantly more useful in enhancing employee performance. Peter Senge (2001) describes a learning organization as one that is constant seeking new opportunities for growth and knowledge, and that recognizes the interconnectedness of the workplace and the wider world. A connectivist approach to knowledge management supports the development of learning organizations and the leveraging of informal learning for organizational success.

One of the challenges of developing this kind of connectivist knowledge management strategy would be for individuals to find the time to do this kind of seeking, sense-making, and sharing. People are increasingly feeling overwhelmed at work, and introducing a significant new set of knowledge management tasks could lead to resistance. For this strategy to succeed, there would certainly need to be solid support from senior management, both in terms of understanding the goals of the connectivist knowledge management strategy and management’s active participation in the seeking, sense-making, and sharing process, but also in reallocating resources to allow everyone time to participate. All tasks would need to be reviewed and some eliminated to free up time for engaging in this thoughtful and creative work. There will inevitably be costs for this as the “network of personal knowledge networks” gets established, but once operational, will add significant value through more rapid learning, greater employee engagement, higher productivity, and the
introduction of new ideas and sources of innovation and improvement.

Siemen’s theory of connectivism, first articulated in his article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, provides a new way of thinking about knowledge and learning in the context of emerging information technology and rapid change. Knowledge should no longer be considered a stable artifact to be passed from one person to another, but instead should be viewed as a process, always changing and growing. The pace of change is so rapid today that no one person can store all of the knowledge required for their professional competence, and instead must offload much of it to technology and others, as part of a personal knowledge network, available for retrieval and access at the point of need. Developing such personal knowledge networks is important for both classroom learning as well as knowledge management within organizations. These networks often require facilitation however, either through a supportive instructor or knowledge manager. If left unsupported, some networks will thrive while others will fail. With support, however, many will succeed and help individuals achieve their goals in the classroom or at work. A network of personal knowledge networks can also form the foundation for the development of learning organizations, able to rapidly adjust to changing environments and thrive in conditions of uncertainty. A connectivist knowledge management strategy can be an important tool in ensuring the ongoing sustainability of organizations in the modern world.

References

Couros, A. (2011). ECI831. Retrieved from: http://eci831.ca/

Cross, J. (2007). Informal learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire innovation and performance. San Francisco: Pfeiffer/Wiley.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Jarche, H. (n.d.). Personal knowledge management. Retrieved from: http://www.jarche.com/key-posts/personal-knowledge-management/

Knowles, M., Holton, E. F., III, Swanson, R. A. (2005). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Elsevier.

Kop, R. (2011). The challenges to connectivist learning on open online networks: Learning experiences during a massive open online course. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(3), 19-38. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/882/1823

Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency.

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning 2 (1). Retrieved from: http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

Siemens, G., Cormier, D., & Downes, S. (2011). Change MOOC. Retrived from: http://change.mooc.ca/about.htm

Siemens, G. & Conole, G. (2011). Editorial. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(3), 19-38. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/994/1820

Walker, A., & Smither, J.W. (1999). A five-year study of upward feedback: What managers do with their results matters. Personnel Psychology, 52(2), 393–423.

Knowledge Management: Libraries and Librarians Taking Up the Challenge (Hobohm, 2004) is a collection of papers based on presentations made at the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) conferences between 1997 and 2002. The first section, “Political and Ethical Implications” provides some theoretical and philosophical foundations. The second section, “Issues and Instruments”, looks at the practical application of knowledge management in libraries as well as some of the skills required for librarians to successfully take up this role. Finally, “Case Studies” includes some real world examples of knowledge management in libraries. My goal in examining this volume is to increase my understanding of how librarians have typically been involved in knowledge management, and where they are looking to go. Although over eight years old now, it is still the best collection available on knowledge management thinking in libraries today. In that time, public libraries and academic libraries have begun the transition away from the traditional warehouse model to a more dynamic, knowledge network model. Corporate libraries have been slower to take up this challenge, but could benefit from reflecting on the progress these other library sectors have made to ensure their ongoing relevance to their organizations.

Librarians and Knowledge Management

Librarians have traditionally approached knowledge management as an exercise in the collecting, cataloguing, and indexing of explicit knowledge, either generated within the organization, such as reports, memos, minutes, etc. or acquired from external sources, including journal article databases, external reports, government information, etc. Librarians then make the knowledge searchable, providing access using a variety of methods, including paper-based filing systems or online databases, offer training in effective search techniques, and answer reference questions regarding the knowledge that makes up the library’s collection (Srikantaiah, 2000; Riccio, 2011). Corporate librarians are also frequently asked to develop “current awareness” reports, pulling together related explicit knowledge on a particular topic, and making it available to executives or company teams.

In their introductory article, “Blowing Up the Corporate Library”, Davenport and Prusak (2004), argue that this is no longer good enough for the current knowledge management needs of most businesses. While these traditional tasks have been, and in many cases continue to be important, they are no longer satisfactory to meet the changing knowledge needs of corporations:

Corporate libraries in the USA have largely been left behind by the information revolution. They have performed relatively narrow functions, mainly associated with identifying and acquiring information, and have not become integrated into the major organizational processes for managing information. Most of them operate on obsolete storage-based models of information management. They have little influence and their employees are often in dead-end careers (Davenport & Prusak, 2004, p. 12).

Despite these problems, Davenport and Prusak argue that corporate libraries have a potentially critical role to play in the success of organizations. First, corporate libraries must understand the strategic goals of the organization. They must move beyond focusing on the library’s internal needs, and instead prioritize the needs of the wider organization. Only by speaking the language of business will librarians gain credibility and influence. Second, corporate librarians must get out from behind the reference desk, stop simply reacting to information requests, and actively seek out information needs throughout the organization. Finally, librarians must move from the outdated information warehouse model to being overseers of a multi-media knowledge network that draws in a wide variety of relevant and high-quality knowledge sources or nodes. Perhaps most significantly, the authors see the need to expand the understanding of knowledge sources from being only in books and electronic resources, but also to be people themselves. “The librarians or information managers in tomorrow’s organizations must realize that people, not printed or electronic sources, are the most valuable information asset in any organization” (Davenport & Prusak, 2004, p. 16). By seeing both documents (explicit knowledge) and people (tacit knowledge) as key knowledge assets, librarians can build on their traditional expertise as information organizers and managers to develop their emerging skills as connectors of people to knowledge. This conception of knowledge management as a social process reflects the work of Figallo and Rhine’s Building the Knowledge Management Network (2002), and recognizes the importance of knowledge as a process rather than as a static artifact.

In “Change of Paradigm in Knowledge Management – Framework for the Collaborative Production and Exchange of Knowledge” (2004), Kuhlen extends this argument further, stating that not only should librarians abandon the warehouse model for a networked model, but should also see knowledge management as communication management, again recognizing the importance of people as knowledge sources and the value of facilitating communication between them:

The paradigm shift in the understanding of knowledge management (towards communications) has come about because knowledge and information are no longer considered as being simply there. Information is not just the result of a particular distribution or retrieval process, using and applying existing knowledge to new problems, but is also the result of communication processes (p. 21).

As a result, knowledge can less be seen as being produced by a single author working alone, and is instead increasingly recognized as a collaborative process, involving multiple knowledge sources, building upon past experiences and research, and collectively creating new ideas and understanding. Kuhlen argues that these kinds of social knowledge networks can take place remotely through tools such as online forums and Communities of Practice, but do require coordination and management. Taking a leadership role in planning, establishing, organizing, facilitating, archiving, and evaluating social knowledge exchanges can become an entirely new role for corporate librarians that can help them regain their relevance in a rapidly changing knowledge and information landscapes.

The importance of communications as part of knowledge management is further emphasized by Wagner-Döbler (2004) in “Tacit Knowledge, Knowledge Management, Library Science – No Bridge Between?”, where he argues that codifying tacit knowledge often results in a significant loss of important contextual details, making it much less valuable for future reuse. Instead, he suggests alternative methods of capturing tacit knowledge, such as conversations, storytelling, and observations. These can all become techniques available to librarians as social knowledge managers to increase the value of the knowledge that exists within the people of any organization, reflecting the existence of knowledge as a process rather than as an artifact.

A further illustration of a knowledge management technique available to the corporate librarian is the information audit, described by Henczel (2004) in “The Information Audit as a First Step Toward Effective Knowledge Management”. An information audit is a tool to “identify strategically significant information resources, … [and] to identify those tasks and activities that create knowledge and those that rely on the transfer of knowledge from other areas of the organization” (p. 92). It includes seven steps: planning, data collection, data analysis, data evaluation, communicating recommendations, implementing recommendations, and the information audit as a continuum (making it an ongoing process).

Conducting an information audit provides an improved level of understanding of how the tasks and activities performed by the business unit, sections, and departments of the organization create knowledge and what the level of strategic significance of that knowledge may be. It has also provides a ‘map’ of existing formal and informal information transfer and communication channels and networks within the organization and between the organization and its external environment (p. 104).

Henczel extends the information audit to also include a knowledge audit, which consists of identifying the people involved in knowledge creation, transfer, and sharing, as well as any political or cultural issues that support or inhibit knowledge flows. This is an important extension of the traditional corporate role in the knowledge management process.

Unfortunately, Wormell (2004) argues that a gap exists between the skills required for modern knowledge management and what is currently being taught in library and information studies master’s degree programs.

Through several dialogues and studies, it has been identified that the industry and public sector are demanding a cadre of information professionals with knowledge and skills in technology, management, and inter-personal skills to effectively lead organizational integration and process reengineering activities…. Here a gap has been identified between the expected qualifications and what the applicants actually had in their bags (p. 112-113).

Filling this gap is of utmost importance to corporate libraries. With the traditional role of the corporate library rapidly changing with the advance of emerging technologies, an abundance of digital information, and new understandings of social knowledge processes, new librarians must be graduating with the skills and abilities to meet the challenges of the future (the knowledge network model) rather than just the ability to solve the problems of yesterday (the warehouse model). A more contemporary study of the current state of knowledge management education within Library and Information Studies programs would be a valuable source of information to measure whether progress has been made in this area. Evidence does exist however, in the changing practices of other kinds of librarianship, such as within academic and public libraries, which signifies progress in this direction.

Adapting to the Knowledge Network Model

According to Chaudhry and Higgins (2004), the skills required for librarians to adapt to the knowledge network model include having a broader strategic perspective of the overall organizational goals, leveraging information technology, understanding knowledge sources and flows, developing organizational “knowledge literacy”, and supporting the facilitation of knowledge communities and teams. Although these skills may be seen as lacking within Wormell’s (2004) study of corporate libraries, evidence of these emerging abilities is visible within both academic and public libraries.

These libraries recognized early on that their value was under threat from the changes brought about by the rapid growth of the Internet, and that the “Googlization of Everything” (Vaidhyanathan, 2011) threatened their continuing existence (Thompson, 1983). As a result, many librarians saw the need for fundamental changes in what it meant to be a librarian.

One important change was to recognize that libraries are more than warehouses of books and other information objects. This warehousing model has a long and proud history stretching at least as far back as the Ancient Library at Alexandria, and has played a critical role in preserving knowledge from generation to generation, from culture to culture. Letting go of this tradition has not been easy, but both public and academic libraries have come to recognize that, while some special collections will continue to need careful curation and preservation, the vast majority of the library collection has moved online. For the first time in human history, information is no longer scarce, but is available in abundance. Corporate libraries must also embrace this model, expanding their vision from a focus on knowledge as tangible, explicit artifacts, into an appreciation of the strategic value of the tacit knowledge that resides with the organization’s people.

The changing nature of cataloguing and indexing has also been an important challenge for academic and public librarians. In the past, every information object that was brought into the collection needed to be manually catalogued by the librarian. This allowed for the materials to be later discovered and used for future research. Today, most physical information objects coming into the library arrive pre-catalogued, and electronic resources are searchable in ways that previous generations of librarians could never have imaged. Some initial effort went into trying to catalogue everything on the Internet, but this was soon given up as an impossibility. Instead, Google and other automated indexing tools have made the discovery of billions of online resources possible. Corporate libraries need to change their focus from the detailed description of explicit knowledge to incorporating networked knowledge, both explicit and tacit, into the library. While automated tools will never provide the level of descriptive detail as a professional, manual indexer or cataloguer, the need for the level of detail is no longer required for adequate discovery.

With fundamental concept of the library as an information warehouse, carefully collected and described by the librarian, becoming a thing of the past, it rapidly became apparent that new definitions of librarianship were required. One important move in this direction was to embrace information technology rather than reject it. The value of the Internet and digital collections were unmistakable, and librarians have made it part of their new mission to ensure that access remains open and that evaluation of quality continues. As the technology platforms advance from the simple Web 1.0 static pages of information to interactive Web 2.0 online communities of knowledge exchanges, public and academic librarians continue to embrace the changes and find new ways to incorporate the technology into their core mandate of access, freedom, and knowledge sharing (Courtney, 2007; Kroski, 2008). Corporate libraries must follow this example, learning the value of social media for connecting people to information and knowledge sources, whether those are books, electronic resources, or other people.

Public and academic librarians have also been quicker to transform their spaces from book warehouses into knowledge and learning spaces. Many university libraries today include a large “learning commons”, filled with computers, tables, and comfortable chairs. These spaces, often reclaimed from bookshelves, are designed to facilitate collaborative learning between students, as well as providing students with ready access to resources (both print and electronic), learning technologies, librarian assistance, and other services, such as writing centres or counseling support (Schader, 2008). Public libraries are also transforming their spaces, reducing the size of their print collection, and focusing on the development of public spaces (often the only truly free indoor public space in a city) for learning, communication, and civic dialogue, leading to increased social capital development in the community (Vårheim, Steinmo, & Ide, 2008; Hill, 2009). Corporate libraries would do well to follow this example in transforming themselves from warehouses into networked knowledge spaces. Establishing the corporate library as the place to go for the conversations, storytelling, and observations described by Wagner-Dobler (2004), could be a critical step in re-establishing the core relevance of corporate librarians and their work to the organization.

Academic and public libraries have also embraced their instructional role. While most library users continue to be self-directed learners, librarians are also developing extensive training programs in multiple kinds of literacies, including technological literacy and information literacy (Eisenberg, Lowe, Spitzer & Spitzer, 2004). The programs support library users in becoming stronger independent learners, and help them make even better use of the library’s resources. By facilitating this kind of knowledge development, academic and public libraries are placing themselves at the heart of community learning. Corporate libraries could also benefit from establishing learning programs within their organizations, helping people better understand the ever-changing knowledge resources that are available, and how to better connect with others in a networked knowledge environment.

Public and academic librarians have also begun to understand the importance of getting outside of the walls of the library too, and have adopted an “embedded librarian” approach to working with their communities. This is very similar to Davenport and Prusak’s (2004) call to “blow up the library” by expanding beyond its immediate confines. This involves going directly to the library users, pro-actively seeking them out and asking what their information and knowledge requirements are, rather than passively waiting for them to come to the library (Hamilton, 2012; Miller & Pellen, 2005). This can include working directly with a faculty member at a university in the design of information literacy into the curriculum or going to meetings of community groups to discover what they need from the library (McCook, 2000). This kind of outreach, as part of the information and knowledge audit outlined by Henczel (2004), is an important technique to increase the visibility and importance of the corporate library as a key participant in the organizational knowledge network.

Related to this deeper understanding of the needs of the communities that they serve, public and academic librarians have also begun to better understand the needs of their funders, including library boards, city councils, or university administration. Librarians now understand the importance of aligning the library’s goals and objectives with the strategic plans of their parent organization (McNichol, 2005; Lown & Davis, 2009). In much the same way, corporate libraries too must better understand the business needs of their organizations, and ensure that the library’s goals and objectives are closely matched with the strategic plan of the parent company. Corporate libraries must be prepared to demonstrate their value to the company, not just in vague or qualitative terms, but with firm, quantitative numbers that provide clear evidence of financial value and return on investment.

Knowledge Management: Libraries and Librarians Taking Up the Challenge (Hobohm, 2004) presented a series of papers reflecting contemporary thinking on knowledge management and libraries. The most important theme that emerged from these papers was the need to re-evaluate the role of the corporate library under the changing information and technological circumstances of the Twenty First century. This includes moving from a warehouse model to a network model, which incorporates the changing nature of knowledge resources (such as moving from print to electronic) as well as recognizing the value of human communication and interaction as a critical knowledge source for organizations. In addition, the call for “blowing up the library”, meaning to expand its presence beyond the library walls is another important theme. Both of these recommendations have already adopted by many progressive public and academic libraries, and their lessons learned are available in the extensive reflective reports in the professional literature. Corporate libraries would benefit from reviewing these experiences and incorporating them into their own organizations and their own professional practice. The warehouse is an out-dated model for today’s libraries, and the network model provides a vision that can deliver value to user communities seeking knowledge as well as to ensuring the ongoing vitality of libraries and librarianship.

References

Chaudhry, A. S., & Higgins, S. E. (2004). Education for Knowledge Management – A Spectrum Approach. Ifla Publications, 108, 127-136.

Courtney, N. (2007). Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow’s user. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (2004). “Blow Up The Corporate Library”. Ifla Publications, 108, 11-20.

Eisenberg, M., Lowe, C. A., Spitzer, K. L., & Spitzer, K. L. (2004). Information literacy: Essential skills for the information age. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Figallo, C., & Rhine, N. (2002). Building the knowledge management network: Best practices, tools, and techniques for putting conversation to work. New York: John Wiley.

Hamilton, B. (2012). Embedded librarianship: Tools and practices. Chicago, Ill: ALA TechSource.

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In their book Building the Knowledge Management Network: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Putting Conversation to Work, Figallo and Rhine (2002) provide a useful analysis of knowledge management as a social process based on human interaction (sometimes facilitated via information technology, sometimes not) and offer practical advice for implementing a knowledge management strategy within an organization. Key points of the book include an examination of our understanding of knowledge, the evolving definition of knowledge management as a social process, the organizational culture that must exist for social knowledge management to succeed, the importance of tapping into knowledge from both within and outside of the organization, and the role of the knowledge manager as a connector of people and information sources within a wider knowledge network. Written in 2002, before the rise of social media, the book is a prescient description of networked knowledge environments that have only recently come into existence with the massive adoption of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and other online, interactive forums. As a result, there are many recent technological opportunities for social knowledge management that are missing from the book, but the description of knowledge as a social process, supported by technology, fits perfectly with the latest theoretical models, such Connectivism (Siemens, 2004), new social learning (Bingham, Conner, & Pink, 2010), and informal learning (Cross, 2007). Figallo and Rhine’s work allows us to better understand the importance of social connections and communities in knowledge management, a field traditionally dominated by discussions of documents and technology.

What is Knowledge?

For Figallo and Rhine, knowledge is too often thought of as simply an object that can be put into a container (such as a book, article, video, etc.) and transferred from one person to another. In much of the knowledge management literature (cite, cite, and cite), this is referred to as explicit knowledge, knowledge that has been captured and codified into some kind of container, such as a document, report, recording, or database. In fact, this would be a better description of information rather than knowledge. Instead, Figallo and Rhine argue, knowledge should be seen as a social process, emerging from conversations that take place between individuals. This is a description of the difficult to get at kind of knowledge often referred to as tacit knowledge in the literature. This position is similar to Downes (2009), who wrote:

1. Knowledge is not an object, but a series of flows; it is a process, not a product
2. It is produced not in the minds of people but in the interactions between people
3. The idea of acquiring knowledge, as a series of truths, is obsolete

Coming from this perspective, Figallo and Rhine go on to describe in their book a system of social knowledge management that focuses primarily on enabling the power of tacit knowledge within organizations and facilitating interactions amongst individuals to make it happen.

What is Knowledge Management?

If knowledge is an object that can be put into a container, whether it is a book, a report, a video, a web cast, or a blog post, then knowledge management can be the organization of these containers, allowing them to be created, searched, discovered, reused, and preserved. This has traditionally been the role of the corporate librarian, with an expert knowledge of the organization of information (or explicit knowledge), through the creation of structured taxonomies or, more recently, online tagging systems. This kind of information management however, is only one element (although still an important one) of what is now commonly known as knowledge management. If instead, knowledge is a social process, and emerges from the interactions between individuals (including tacit knowledge), then knowledge management becomes more about the facilitation of these interactions. This is important because it brings not only the information to the table, but also the meaning of that information, providing significantly more value to the organization, and a powerful input for decision-making. For Figallo and Rhine, this is exactly the kind of knowledge management they wish to build within organizations. Of course, this kind of knowledge is much more difficult to grasp than a stack of annual reports or meeting transcripts, and therefore requires new sets of skills for knowledge managers as well as a new kind of culture for the organization.

What are the Organizational Requirements for Knowledge Management?

According to Figallo and Rhine, implementing an effective strategy of social knowledge management requires a supportive organizational culture that values the conversations from which knowledge emerges, and encourages the sharing of knowledge throughout the organization. For this to succeed, senior management must be supportive. “Most people rely on guidance, clarity of mission, and good role modeling in deciding how much and how deeply they will commit themselves to adopting new practices” (Figallo and Rhine, 2002, p. 71). If management seems ambiguous to the social knowledge management process, most people will not make the effort to participate. And without the active participation of many, it will fail. According to Hasanali (2002), one of the most important ways of ensuring management support is to closely connect all knowledge management efforts to business outcomes. If a strong case can be made that implementing a social knowledge management approach will reduce costs, increase sales, enhance innovation, or meet other strategic objectives, management will be more open to supporting it. Ongoing evaluation will also be important to ensure continuing support as well.

Trust is another critical factor for knowledge management to succeed, identified by Figallo and Rhine and others (Ford, 2001, Politis, 2003; Lee, 2003). If members of the organization do not trust one another, they will not be inclined to participate in a knowledge sharing community. If the predominant values are more competitive than cooperative, people will not trust their co-workers with their knowledge and will not engage in open conversations. They will fear a loss of personal worth if they share their valuable knowledge too freely. However, in a cooperative organizational culture, sharing will be a much more natural response, and open conversations will flow more readily. This will lead to a wider flow of ideas within an organization, with the possibilities for innovations expanding as a result.

Figallo and Rhine argue that traditional command and control organizational structures will also inhibit the success of a social knowledge management environment:

The decentralized, self-organizing social communication structures required to efficiently gather and circulate the knowledge that individuals learn and develop don’t fit gracefully under the hierarchical, centrally-controlled structures that still rule most organizations (p. 62).

The development of a more collaborative business model was later envisioned by McAfee (2009) in his book, Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges, where he describes the importance of knowledge sharing built
upon the emerging Web 2.0 technologies (including blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, etc.) in more open, non-hierarchical environments.

Figallo and Rhine also recommend developing opportunities for “cross-pollination” within organizations, allowing individuals from different work units to interact, converse, and share their knowledge and experiences. This can broaden the network, develop a broader systems approach throughout the organization, and increase the opportunities for valuable knowledge to emerge. This kind of systems thinking is a critical component to developing a “learning organization” (Senge, 1990), an organization that understands that the value of the whole is greater than its parts, and that is constantly looking for opportunities for learning and developing.

Figallo and Rhine also recommend developing an organizational culture that embraces contrary opinions, allowing those who have disagreements to share them in open forums. This is similar to Fullan (2001), who also recommended listening to and respecting dissent. If the dissenting perspective has no value, it should be openly refuted, based on solid evidence. If it does have validity, it should be acknowledged, respected, and accommodated. Stifling dissent will only build resentment and distrust, which will undermine any attempts at building a knowledge-sharing environment.

Where Does Knowledge Reside?

Traditionally, knowledge management has concerned itself with knowledge that is generated within the organization. This can take the form of internal reports, meeting minutes, or transcribed personnel interviews. In a social knowledge management environment, this can also include conversations between staff members, as well as internal blog posts, wiki updates, or discussion form entries. Figallo and Rhine expand the concept of who should be involved in this social knowledge process by acknowledging the importance of external participants as well. If knowledge resides within networks of individuals, those individuals can be found both within the organization and outside of it. External participants can include customers, collaborative organizations, funding bodies or donors, community groups, investors, suppliers, or potentially even competitors. All of these groups have an interest related to the organization, each has a unique perspective and set of experiences with the organization, and each can potentially contribute valuable knowledge for the success of the organization. For example, customers have expectations that must be met for ongoing success. If customers are unhappy with the organization, it is critically important to find out why. If complaints about poor customer service are common, additional staff training may be necessary. If customers are expressing an unmet need, it may reveal an opportunity for the development of a new product or service. In addition to exchanging knowledge between the organization and external groups, Figallo and Rhine also describe the possible benefits of supporting knowledge sharing between external groups. A powerful example of this would be technical support forums, where software companies can often rely on many basic, but common (and time-consuming) customer questions being answered by other customers. When done right, this kind of customer community can be a source of valuable knowledge as well as marketing. Apple, for example, is famous for the devotion of its customer base. Just as the command and control organizational model of the past is being replaced by “Enterprise 2.0”, so too is the nature of marketing and customer relations. The communication can no longer solely exist from organization to customer, but has now expanded to include customer to organization, customer to customer, and customer to other external groups (such as regulatory agencies, environmental groups, labour organizations, etc.). Today, successful organizations must embrace a collaborative, open, and social “Knowledge Management 2.0” model envisioned by Figallo and Rhine.

Role of the Knowledge Manager

If the model knowledge manager of the past was a corporate librarian, skilled in the organization of information contained within knowledge objects such as books, reports, manuals, minutes, and transcripts, the social knowledge manager of today needs to also be a community manager. This change, according to Figallo and Rhine, requires an additional set of skills and abilities, such as being a clear and effective communicator, able to grab and hold people’s attention, being a strong facilitator, making connections between people and encouraging others to communicate, share, and learn from one another, and being a leader, inspiring others to get involved in the knowledge generation process and provide the additional value critical to organizational success. In many ways, this parallels the social constructivist model (Lambert, 1995) of the educator, moving away from being a content expert (“the sage on the stage”) toward being a “guide on the side”, encouraging others to take on a leading role (and responsibility) in organizational learning and the social knowledge management process.

Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques

In addition to outlining their theoretical approach to a more social form of knowledge management, Figallo and Rhine also provide descriptions of tools and techniques that can foster this kind of knowledge sharing within an organization. Significantly, they do caution against putting too much emphasis on technology:

When all is said and done, knowledge networking is not really about technology. A poor choice of tools for conversing online is less likely to undermine the success of your efforts than your lack of a common purpose and a clear reason for conversing online. If your group agrees upon its purpose and is motivated to get something useful out of its knowledge-sharing conversation, even the most rudimentary online interface will be sufficient at least for starting your conversations (p. 166).

One of the most important knowledge management tools for an organization is its intranet. An intranet is a web site that is only available within the organization, and therefore provides a secure location for linking online documents and carrying out private conversations. Some intranets also provide a “yellow pages” feature, allowing each member of the organization to have a person profile page, detailing their responsibilities, expertise, past and current assignments, interests, etc. This can be an extremely useful tool for connecting people within an organization to one another. While intranets can provide the home base of social knowledge management efforts, its closed nature will not facilitate networking with external stakeholders. Many organizations have both an internal intranet as well as a publicly available web site to ensure those important external communications.

Whether it is hosted privately on the intranet or publicly on the internet, Figallo and Rhine recommend the use of online discussion boards for facilitating social knowledge management processes. Online discussion boards allow users to post information or questions, and allow others to respond. This typically results in a threaded series of comments and comments on the comments, providing a simple way to have an asynchronous conversation. Discussion boards also have the advantage of being inexpensive and easy to set up. Many people have had some experience with them, or can quickly learn how to use them. The main disadvantage can be the possibility of spam attacks, which need to be monitored for, blocked, and deleted. Newer discussion board software, however, has built-in functionality, which largely eliminates this problem.

Another tool recommended by the authors is the email group. This works in a somewhat similar way to the discussion forum, allowing registered users to post questions and others to reply to the original post or to the subsequent replies. The has the advantage of bringing the message directly to each user’s email inbox, but can potentially lead to frustration, as many people are currently feeling inundated with email. Deciding whether a discussion forum or an email group is the best approach will depend upon the needs and preferences of the community.

A final tool that Figallo and Rhine discuss is instant messaging. Instant messaging, also known as online chat, has the advantage of allowing live, online conversations. These can either be one-on-one, or be organized as a group conversation. This allows for a great sense of social presence, which can foster greater participation (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000), but does require everyone to be available at the same time. It also is requires a certain amount of typing speed to keep up with the conversation, which can be a disadvantage for some. Overall, however, it can be an easy, inexpensive, and effective method for holding online conversations.

In the ten years since Building the Knowledge Management Network was written, discussion boards, email groups, and instant messaging remain common and effective conversation tools. New technologies have also emerged however, that the authors could not have predicted, but add to the social knowledge manager’s toolkit. One popular example is Skype, which not only provides free instant messaging, but also voice and video chat as well. This can significantly increase the sense of social presence between participants and is particularly useful for distributed teams and communicating with external stakeholders.

Another important new tool are online meeting rooms / classrooms, such as WebEx, Adobe Connect, or Blackboard Collaborate. Similar to Skype in that they allow for groups to meet remotely, see each other via video, hear each other via audio, and conduct “back channel” conversations via instant messaging, they also allow for screen-sharing (such as Powerpoint presentations, web sites, etc.) and group moderation. This technology can be used for one-way communication, such as a webinar to demonstrate a new product or deliver a report, or a more collaborative, interactive discussion such as brainstorming or debriefing after a project completes.

Blogs have become ubiquitous on the internet, but can also play an important role in social knowledge management. Each member of an organization can have their own blog and make the narration of their work part of their regular activities. This can keep everyone informed of what is happening in the organization, but also allows for commenting, which can be used to post questions or suggestions to the writer. All blog content can be tagged, categorized, and searched for future reference by different project teams. Blogs can be useful at every level of an organization, but can be particularly valuable from senior management, providing regular communication to all members of the organization and allowing for an open feedback channel for comments, questions, and suggestions about the future of the organization. This can, of course, be perceived as a risk in a command and control environment, but is critical to the healthy operation of a modern, Enterprise 2.0 organization.

Wikis are another useful tool for a social knowledge manager. The most well known example of a wiki would be Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. This same model can be used within an organization to collaboratively record important knowledge, such as project descriptions, lessons learned, etc. It has the advantage over a standard web site in that any registered user can add, edit, or delete content, making it a much more participatory tool. Again, this can either be perceived as a risk or an opportunity, depending upon the culture of the organization.

Social bookmarking is another tool that can be used for knowledge management 2.0. Almost all members of an organization do research on the internet, and virtually all of them will save bookmarks of important web sites to their local workstations. Social bookmarking tools, such as Diigo or Delicious, allow for bookmarks to be saved, tagged, and shared, either on the open web or to a limited group. The saved bookmarks can also be annotated to indicate the saved site’s value and possible utility within the organization. This kind of knowledge sharing is free, replicates and widens common behaviour, and can provide significant value in both the content that is recorded and in the act of sharing and discussion that it can facilitate.

A final tool to mention is the Twitter microblogging service. Twitter allows anyone to create an account and post brief messages (140 characters) and links to members of their selected community (“followers”). Although frequently dismissed as a forum of egocentric celebrity reports of breakfast choices, it has instead proven itself to be at the core of a powerful personal learning network strategy (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011), which can be broadened into a wider organizational “network of personal networks”. Free, fast, and easy to use, Twitter provides an ideal forum for knowledge sharing and focused online conversations.

Critique

Although Figallo and Rhine have provided a highly useful introduction to social knowledge management and its practical implementation, some important issues either received insufficient attention or would overlooked altogether. One area that could use further elaboration and more discussion of practical strategies is resistance to social knowledge management from senior management. The authors do pay considerable attention to the need to develop an organizational culture that is open to knowledge sharing, but a more detailed look at why managers are often skeptical or even obstructionist to social networking at work, and how to overcome this problem, would be helpful. It may be that this resistance, based on a concern of employees wasting time on Facebook and Twitter, is a more recent problem that has only emerged with the more widespread use of social media tools. Overcoming this resistance, however, will be critical for anyone planning to implement a social knowledge management strategy in the organization. As with the implementation of any kind of learning and development program within an organization, an evidence-based argument of how the program will directly contribute to the overall organizational strategic objectives and provide a demonstrated return on investment will be fundamental to the sustainability of the program.

A second area worth further exploration, and which to authors overlook completely, would be an examination of employee resistance, especially in a unionized work environment, where levels of trust may be low and suspicion of management’s motives will be quickly aroused. A theoretical understanding of where this mistrust comes from, based on critical management theory (Alvesson & Willmott, 1996), as well as practical suggestions to allay that fear such as transparency, sincere motives to benefit everyone in the organization, demonstrated widespread benefits, and not using the process to undermine labour costs or unionization (Gertler & Wolfe, 2004), would be helpful to many readers who will want to move forward with a social knowledge management plan, but will be blocked by employee or union resistance.

Conclusion

By helping us to understand knowledge as a social process, Building the Knowledge Management Network provides an important advance in the practice of knowledge management and organizational learning. Instead of focusing on documents and technologies, social knowledge management turns our attention to the people in an organization, and the knowledge that can emerge from the collaborative interactions between them. The authors provided a solid theoretical foundation for their approach, and discussed some important barriers to moving in this direction, such as the need to modernize the organizational culture from a command and control model to a more “Enterprise 2.0” perspective. The authors also shared some important examples of tools and techniques to allow for an inexpensive and rapid implementation of a social knowledge management strategy. Although newer and more powerful tools are now available, and the benefits of networked knowledge is more widely appreciated, the book remains an important introduction to this new way of practicing knowledge management. Although it may underestimate the challenges associated with implementing a social management strategy within an organization, such as the resistance that may be encountered from both above (senior management) and below (unionized employees), it still provides a valuable guide for moving forward, when supplemented with related literature from cultural change, organizational learning, and critical management theory.

References

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Bingham, T., Conner, M., & Pink, D. (2010). The new social learning. A guide to transforming organizations through social media. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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Downes, S. (2009). The new nature of knowledge. Retrieved from: http://halfanhour.blogspot.ca/2009/03/new-nature-of-knowledge.html

Figallo, C., & Rhine, N. (2002). Building the knowledge management network: Best practices, tools, and techniques for putting conversation to work. New York: John Wiley.

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http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/wiki/Federal%20Knowledge%20Management%20Working%20Group%20(KMWG).wiki/1001870main_Ford,%20D%20P%202002.pdf

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2000) Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education 2 (2-3), 87–105.

Gertler, M.S., & Wolfe, D.A. (2004). Local social knowledge management: Community actors, institutions and multilevel governance in regional foresight exercises. Futures 36 (1), 45-65.

Hasanali, F. (2002). Critical success factors in knowledge management. Retrieved from: http://polaris.umuc.edu/mts/TMAN/TMAN_636/articles/csfs.pdf

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McAfee, A. (2009). Enterprise 2.0: New collaborative tools for your organization’s toughest challenges. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.

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In Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice (2011), Kimiz Dalkir has provided an outstanding introductory text for beginners interested inlearning more about the theoretical foundations of the field, as well as offering a description of some of the ways that knowledge management can be implemented within organizations, I was drawn to the topic of knowledge management because of the clear human resource development (HRD) implications of making better use of the critical knowledge that resides within an organization’s employees, the adult learning opportunities that exist in the development of a “learning organization”, and because of my previous education in library and information studies (LIS), with its interest in information and data management within organizations. I wanted to discover how these separate fields, HRD, Adult Education, and LIS, are related and distinct from one another.Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice provided an excellent starting point for this investigation, drawing from a wide bibliography of sources in knowledge management, business, LIS, education, psychology, sociology, and other fields. Although it is dense with useful information, I have restricted this paper to a discussion of the core elements of interest to me, including the definition of knowledge management, the theoretical foundations of knowledge management, and the practical approaches to implementing a knowledge management strategy within an organization.

What is Knowledge?

Before proceeding too far with this topic, it is crucial to start with a definition of what is meant by “knowledge”. According to Davenport and Prusak (1998), knowledge is:

A fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of the knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms (p. 5).

This is distinct from “information”, which is described as “a message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or visual communication” (p. 5) or “data”, “a set of discrete, objective facts about events” (p. 5). It is important to keep these distinctions in mind when discussing knowledge management, so as not to confuse it with the management of data or information. These have specific sets of characteristics of their own which sometimes align with, and at other times are quite different from, knowledge management. The key difference is that knowledge most frequently resides within the mind of an individual, and is only made available to others through a process of codification, either through conversation, storytelling, or otherwise consciously documenting what is known. Frequently, much can be lost in this process of externalizing knowledge and is an important concern of knowledge managers. Finding the most effective and efficient ways to tap into this knowledge and make it available for the advancement of the organization’s goals is the key task of the knowledge manager.

According to Dalkir (2011) and others (Polyani, 1966; Nonaka and Konno, 1998), knowledge consists of two major forms, tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge resides in the mind of an individual, and is often difficult to describe or gain access to. Tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge through sharing, recording, storytelling, and conversation, becoming part of the knowledge of the organization, and subsequently becoming available to other individuals to incorporate into their own tacit knowledge. This gained knowledge will then inform their own understanding of future projects, decisions to be made, or lessons learned, and may later be externalized into further explicit knowledge. This results in a cycle of knowledge that continually takes place within an organization. Tacit knowledge is a critical factor in the effectiveness of an individual within an organization. Making that tacit knowledge explicit and available to others, is critical to achieving greater organizational success.

What is Knowledge Management?

Dalkir describes knowledge management as a having a broad range of definitions emerging from a wide variety of disciplines, including business, cognitive science, library and information studies, computer science, and more. Each has its own unique understanding of what knowledge management means, but at its most fundamental level, knowledge management is about acquiring knowledge for an organization and capturing, sharing, and accessing the existing tacit of individuals for the benefit of the entire organization. This is closely related to Senge’s (1990) concept of the “learning organization”, an organization that views itself as a system, with an institutional memory that can be drawn on for increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency, innovation and growth.

Ruggles and Holtshouse (1999) take the definition of knowledge management further, identifying the key characteristics as:

• Generating new knowledge
• Accessing valuable knowledge from outside sources
• Using accessible knowledge in decision making
• Embedding knowledge in processes, products and/or services
• Representing knowledge in documents, databases, and software
• Facilitating knowledge growth through culture and incentives
• Transferring existing knowledge into other parts of the organization
• Measuring the value of knowledge assets and/or impact of knowledge management

This reflects the advancement in how knowledge management has been conceptualized from a system of simply capturing and sharing knowledge into one that integrates directly into all processes of the organization, subject to ongoing assessment and evaluation.

Dalkir (2011) describes three generations in the development of knowledge management that reflects its evolving definition. In the first generation, the focus was on the containers of knowledge, the documents that recorded the explicit knowledge of individuals from within the organization. These documents were then brought together into large digital libraries, which unfortunately were seldom used and contributed little to the success of the organization.

Realizing that this top-down approach, with senior management deciding what should be recorded and shared, was largely failing, a second generation of knowledge management developed that focused more on people than on documents and databases. This bottom-up approached incorporated the concepts of “communities of practice” (Wenger, 1998), where individuals within the organization self-organized and decided what was important to share and what kinds of knowledge they needed to access. This resulted in greater employee support for knowledge management practices and greater successes in the development of organizational learning.

A third generation is now emerging which is increasing placing renewed emphasis on the knowledge content, and is attempted to better describe and organize that content, drawing heavily on the field of library and information studies. By better organizing the content of the knowledge management system, individuals are able to better find relevant knowledge and make use of it in their daily practice. I have concerns, however, that this trend may lead towards a renewed effort to institute a top-down approach, which may undermine the successes achieved in the second generation of knowledge management development. Developing a solid classification and/or tagging system for knowledge content is certainly important, but making use of the knowledge must continue to be a people-focused, bottom-up approach.

Why is Knowledge Management Important?

The nature of the global economy is again shifting. The Twentieth Century saw the change from the industrial economy to the information economy, where the importance of the Fordist assembly line was replaced with the post-Fordist information “super-highway”, allowing business to be conducted more quickly and more widely than ever before. The Twenty-First Century, however, has already begun to shift from an emphasis on information toward one based upon knowledge. Dalkir (2012) makes this point by describing the fact that an airplane manufacturing enterprise today has more value residing within the knowledge of its employees than its does within its entire inventory of planes and parts. Its competitive advantage exists in its ability to leverage that knowledge into efficiency, innovation, and excellence. This is where the key role of knowledge management must be emphasized. Without a clear knowledge management strategy, this potential competitive advantage is lessened or even lost, allowing other enterprises, with effective knowledge management strategies in place, to drive their competitors out of business, through the development of better products and reduced costs. Business, government, and the non-profit sector all ignore knowledge management at their peril.

Knowledge Management in Theory

Because knowledge management can have such a profound impact on the success or failure of an organization, it is critical that knowledge management policies and procedures are developed based on a solid theoretical foundation. Dalkir (2012) provides a useful overview of the most significant theoretical models of knowledge management.

The first described is the von Krogh and Roos’ Model of Organizational Epistemology (1995). This model is important because it was among the first to clearly distinguish between individual knowledge and social knowledge. For von Krogh and Roos:

Knowledge resides in both the individuals of an organization; and at the social level, in the relations between individuals. Knowledge is characterized as “embodied” that is, “everything known is known by somebody (von Krogh and Roos, 1995, 50). Unlike the cognitive perspective, where knowledge is viewed as an abstract entity, [their connectionist approach] maintains that there cannot be knowledge without a knower. This fits nicely with the concept that tacit knowledge is very difficult to abstract out of someone and make more concrete. It also reinforces the strong need to maintain links between knowledge objects and those who are knowledgeable about them – authors, subject matter experts, and experienced users who have applied the knowledge, successfully and unsuccessfully (p. 63).

Based on their work, we know that knowledge management requires a connection between the knowledge and the knower, between the knowledge and those that wish to/need to know, and knowers and the need to/wish to knowers.

The second model examined is the Nonaka and Takeuchi Knowledge Spiral Model (1995). This model “focuses on knowledge spirals that explain the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and then back again as a basis for individual, group, and organizational innovation and learning” (Dalkir, 2011, p. 93). Nonaka and Takeuchi describe four modes of this knowledge conversion:

1. From tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge: process of socialization

2. From tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge: process of externalization

3. From explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge: process of combination

4. From explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge: process of internalization (Dalkir, 2011, p. 66).

Understanding the different forms of conversion provides a critical understanding of how both tacit and explicit knowledge interact within an organization and allows knowledge managers to reflect on their practices to ensure all forms of conversion are being adequately supported and developed.

The Choo Sense-Making KM Model (1998) is important for introducing the concept of “sense-making”, focusing on how individuals must make sense, or develop understanding, of the knowledge that is available in the organization. This sense-making plays an important role in how decisions are made within organizations. Clearly, an absence of sense-making (or understanding) will lead to poor decisions, so efforts to boost sense-making, through developing individual’s knowledge, skills, and talents, will be critical to enhanced organizational performance.

The Wiig Model (1993) is centred on the importance of organizing knowledge to enhance its utility. Knowledge can be “public”, “shared”, and “personal”.

Public knowledge is explicit, taught, and routinely shared knowledge that is generally available in the public domain…. Shared expertise is proprietary knowledge assets that are exclusively held by knowledge workers and shared in their work or embedded in technology. This form of knowledge is usually communicated via specialized languages and representations… [and] would be common in communities of practice…. Finally, personal knowledge is typically more tacit than explicit knowledge, and is used unconsciously in work, play, and daily life (Dalkir, 2011, p. 80).

This knowledge can be organized based on its “completeness” (how much relevant knowledge is available), “connectedness” (how well-understood and well-defined are the relations between different knowledge objects), “congruency” (how consistent all the facts, concepts, perspectives, values, judgments, and other links are between knowledge objects), and “perspective and purpose” (how point of view influences our relationship to the knowledge object). According to Dalkir (2011), “the major strength of the Wiig model is that despite having been formulated in 1993, the organization approach to categorizing the type of knowledge to be managed remains a very powerful theoretical model of KM” (p. 82).

The European Foundation for Quality Management KM Model (Bhatt 2000, 2002, 2002) is important for its focus on how knowledge management can be used to meet the goals of the organization. This is an important step away from knowledge management focusing on its own goals and shifting its attention to the goals of the organization, an important source of the failure of many knowledge management efforts (Dalkir, 2011, p. 90).

From all of these theoretical explorations, we can see the growing understanding of how knowledge management can be an important component in the success of an organization. Discoveries of the different forms of knowledge, the different relationships between knowledge types and objects, the processes of knowledge transformation and integration, and the importance of sense-making, all lead to a greater understanding of organizational knowledge and knowledge management. Without this evolving theoretical lens, significant mistakes can be made that will impede the goals of the organization and the advancement of knowledge management as a critical factor in innovation and success.

Knowledge Management in Practice

With a firm theoretical basis in place, Dalkir (2011) was able to create a thorough discussion of the more practical elements of knowledge management. Based on earlier knowledge management process cycles (including the work of Meyer and Zack, 1996; Bukowitz and Williams, 2000; McElroy, 1999; Wiig, 1993), Dalkir developed his own Integrated Knowledge Management Cycle, consisting of 10 stages (pp. 53-56):

1. Knowledge capture/creation/contribution (e.g., conducting an after-action review at the end of a project)

2. Knowledge filtering/selection (e.g., establishing criteria for what to include in a lessons learned report)

3. Knowledge codification (e.g., transcribing the meeting notes and applying the appropriate classification designation)

4. Knowledge refinement (e.g., generalizing the meeting notes for wider application and relevance within the organization)

5. Knowledge sharing (e.g., publicizing the resulting documentation and making it available to others)

6. Knowledge access (e.g., storing the documents in a searchable database)

7. Knowledge learning (e.g., incorporating the lessons learned into training and orientation sessions)

8. Knowledge application (e.g., project manager initiating a new project will review past lessons learned before proceeding)

9. Knowledge evaluation (e.g., the document is reviewed, enhanced with further illustrative examples or further detail, or with better tagging or descriptive metadata to facilitate better discovery and reuse)

10. Knowledge reuse/divestment (e.g, Annual database cleanup may find the documents are no longer relevant, outdated, or otherwise no longer worth maintaining)

Following this cycle provides extremely useful direction for both new and experienced knowledge managers. It allows for a systematic process to follow, which is based on a solid theoretical foundation.

In addition to the highly practical knowledge management cycle processes, Dalkir also provides a chapter on a wide variety of knowledge management tools, outlined in this table (p. 271):

All of these tools provide a useful resource for knowledge managers to experiment with and to ultimately incorporate into their own practice. I will be exploring knowledge management tools in more detail later, when I reviewBuilding the Knowledge Management Network: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Putting Conversations to Work.

New Role for LIS Professionals

Library and Information Studies professionals have been playing an important role in data and information management within organizations for decades. Librarians are highly skilled at setting up resource discovery systems, such as databases or intranets, describing documents through tagging or metadata application, and developing organization-specific taxonomies to enhance document findability. All of these activities are critical to an effective information/documentation management strategy. As knowledge management becomes more people-focused, however, there are emerging opportunities for librarians to become increasingly involved in knowledge management as well. As a profession, librarians are increasingly expanding their expertise beyond their traditional focus on acquiring, describing, and providing access to content, and are increasingly become experts at building the connections between people and content. In addition, the librarian’s understanding of content is also expanding to include multiple forms of knowledge sources, beyond simply documents. Video, audio, as well as people (such as subject matter experts) and other organizations (such as competing or complimentary organizations) are considered sources of knowledge and within their view to provide connections between knowledge providers and knowledge seekers. This is a key role in knowledge management and presents an important opportunity for the profession and for organizations with librarians on staff. I will explore this concept further in Assignment 3, when reviewing Knowledge Management: Libraries and Librarians Taking up the Challenge.

Critique of Knowledge Management

Although I found Dalkir’s book to be extremely useful, and would highly recommend it to others, I did find two areas of concern, worthy of further investigation. First, we know from the adult education literature, and primarily the work of Cervero and Wilson (2006), that involving all stakeholders in the educational programming process is critical, both for ethical reasons involving the rights of those with less power to have a voice in decisions that directly impact on their lives, but also for reasons of effectiveness. Programs that involve all stakeholders are much more likely to succeed than those developed in isolation. I would argue that this same reasoning is valid in the development of a knowledge management strategy. All voices should be included and listened to when developing a KM strategy. Dalkir did describe how top-down attempts at KM had failed in the past, and that moving to a bottom-up approach introduced an unprecedented level of success. His description of the emergence of a new, third generation, with a focus on content over people is concerning, however. If it heralds a return to a top-down approach, it could be disastrous for the next decade of knowledge management in organizations both ethically and in terms of organizational success.

A second concern is somewhat related to the earlier criticism. Who will ultimately control the knowledge management process, and will it be conducted in the best interests of everyone working for the organization? How are the critical questions of power, interests, and equality being addressed within knowledge management? The same criticism that is directed toward much of the mainstream HRD professional community, such as their role in the “commodification and subjugation of human development to exploitive organizational interests” (Fenwick, 2004, p. 194) can be equally applied to knowledge managers. Ignoring these issues will not make them go away, and only through engaging with the research conducted by the small but growing sub-disciplines of Critical HRD and Critical Management Studies (Alvesson & Wilmott, 1996; Clegg, 1989; Fournier & Grey, 2000) will knowledge managers find answers, or at least some ethical directions, for these difficult issues. (e.g., concepts such as Alvesson & Wilmott’s “micro-emancipations” or small-scale attempts to redress injustices in the workplace). Fenwick’s call for theorist and practitioner self-reflection, however, is probably the most important starting point for introducing the concept of social justice into the field of knowledge management.

Conclusion

Knowledge management is a rich field of theory and practice, with important opportunities to contribute to the success and advancement of organizations and the wider society in which it exists. In Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice, Kimiz Dalkir has provided an essential introductory text to discover the foundations of the field and the opportunities to practice KM within organizations. Although it is lacking in attention to some of the critical social justice issues that knowledge managers should reflect upon, it is otherwise a valuable resource for both new and experienced knowledge managers alike.

References

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