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Knowledge Management is the management of activities and processes for leverag‑

ing knowledge to enhance competitiveness through better use and creation of individual 

and collective knowledge resources.

Theorists have identified two different types of knowledge, and different approaches can 

be used to disseminate each type of knowledge within an organisation:

1 

Explicit

 – details of processes and procedures. Explicit knowledge can be readily detailed 

in procedural manuals and databases.

2 

Tacit

 – less tangible than explicit knowledge, this is experience on how to react to a situ‑

ation when many different variables are involved. It is more difficult to encapsulate this 

knowledge, which often resides in the heads of employees. Techniques for sharing this 

knowledge include learning stories and histories. To acquire tacit knowledge may rely on 

sharing knowledge with partners outside the company or others in different sectors. So 

knowledge management should not be considered solely as confining corporate know‑

ledge within the firewalls.

It follows that one goal of knowledge management is to turn tacit knowledge into expli‑

cit knowledge which can then be shared between employees and used to train new 

employees.

A framework for the different activities that comprise knowledge management is given in 

Figure 10.11. The main activities are: