Knowledge Management

There are two types of knowledge: Explicit knowledge and Tacit or Implicit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Polyani, 1998).

According to "Davenport & Prusak, 1998" Explicit knowledge can be codified, communicated without difficulty, recorded, written and transferred into other formats or embedded in technology. For example in organistions manuals and specifications, routine or programmed activities are regarded as forms of explicit knowledge. Other examples are organisational publications and handouts, contracts or clearly written rules and regulations.

According to "Alavi 7 Leidner, 2001; Bhatt, 2000; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995", Tacit knowledge is content specific, abstract and difficult to articulate because of its cognitive, intuitive and technical components. For example, individual's experiences and mental models as they combine with new meanings and change their context are regarded as tacit knowledge. Other examples could be regarded as the experience of riding a bicycle or hearing a pet sound to individuals. This type of knowledge is fluid, flexible and self fortifying.

Organisations need to use the tacit knowledge found in individuals mind and then transform it into tacit knowledge held by a group and then convert it into an explicit form. The process of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by organisations is a difficult process since they will need to provide the environment that will enable the individuals to utilize their tacit knowledge and expertise in order to increase organisational performance and productivity. This means that managers will need to provide right amount of autonomy for participants and also a certain level of creative balance and other varieties to make the environment stimulating "Von Krogh et al., 2000, p179).

Knowledge Management can be defined as capturing, storing and analytical processing of data used for decision making within a business database. The broader definition of Knowledge Management is to include a type of knowledge i.e. Tacit or Implicit Knowledge that resides in individual’s mind and not carried within databases. Knowledge Management is the process of turning data into information (data in context) and further on to knowledge (use of information).

Knowledge Management is the organisationally specified systematic process for acquiring, organising and communicating both tacit and explicit knowledge of employees so that other employees may make use of it in order to be more effective and productive. Knowledge Management is an emerging set of principles, processes, organisational structures and technology applications that help people share their knowledge to meet their business objectives. The focus is on individual as the knowledge worker.