People-focused knowledge management

Insufficient
Allocation of Time
Just-in-Time
Learning
Increase
Greater
Management
Sophistication
Automation,
ERP, BPR, ...
ICs Increasingly
Important
Globalization
Pressures
Service Makes
the Difference
Sophisticated
Customers
Sophisticated
Competitors
Knowledge
Management
People-Centric
Management
Intangible
Asset
Management
Mentality
Integrative
Management
Advanced
IM & IT
New
Demands
New
Competitors
New
Technologies
New
Practices
New
Markets
Inadequate
Knowledge and
Understanding
Inadequate
Sense of
Contributing
Impersonal
Relationships
Knowledge
Transfer Is
Difficult
Concepts Are
Remembered
Better than Facts
Hi Quality
Products
Work Is
More
Complex
Competition
Is More
Demanding
New Management
Approaches
Conventional
Education and
Training Are
Inadequate
Workers
Demand Greater
Involvement
Changes
Are Faster
and Faster
Enterprise
Performance
Figure 1-3
Enterprise performance is a function of many factors. Copyright © 1999
Knowledge Research Institute, Inc. Reproduced with permission.
ch01.qxd 5/3/04 2:27 PM Page 13

---

services. These changes make traditional work management
and organization less effective in the new environment.
2. The nature of business has changed, and the competitive envi-
ronment is more demanding as a result of changes caused by:
— Increased dependence on intellectual capital (IC) assets —
that is, assets of personal competitive knowledge, expertise,
understanding, and assets of structural intellectual capital
— to create and deliver competitive customized products
and services. This contrasts with earlier business models
that were focused on financial and physical capital.
— Pressures from globalization. Quality and highly competent
suppliers from across the world are able to transcend geo-
graphical boundaries to compete nearly everywhere.
— Competitive differentiations based on product uniqueness,
which are increasingly being based on product capabilities
supported by related service arrangements that often are
highly targeted and customized.
— Better informed customers who have an improved under-
standing of their needs and therefore impose greater require-
ments on suppliers. Today, customers also have a greater
choice of suppliers than previously.
— Competitors who are increasingly becoming more sophisti-
cated and smarter.
3. New and more complex management, operational, and techni-
cal approaches and practices are introduced to deal with the
new challenges. Many practices are based on practical experi-
ences with what works and what doesn’t. Others are based on
new theoretical insights from fields ranging from information
and management sciences to cognitive and social sciences.
Together, they give enterprises greater competitive capabilities
and an improved ability to perform and succeed. The new tools
constitute a challenge by themselves since they require new
understanding, initiatives, and efforts. The tools include:
— New generation knowledge management (NGKM)
5
prac-
tices that cover modern management theories and practices,
human capital management (HCM), intellectual capital
management (ICM), and the dynamic facilitation, manipu-
lation, and control to create, organize, deploy, and apply
knowledge to meet enterprise objectives. Emerging KM
practices are based partly on recent cognitive science 
understandings of human capabilities, such as conceptual
14
People-Focused Knowledge Management
ch01.qxd 5/3/04 2:27 PM Page 14

---

blending and concepts for learning, conceptual skills 
transfers, decision making, problem solving, and personal
motivations. The new practices are significantly based on
successful experiences when applying KM in advanced
enterprises.
— People-focused knowledge management that becomes more
explicit based on a better understanding of the nature of
intellectual, knowledge-intensive work, how situation-
handling and effective actions rely on knowledge such as
mental reference models, and people’s actions and behav-
iors in general. It also becomes more explicit by the real-
ization that enterprises do not behave and respond as
machines — they are social systems.
— In the proactive enterprises, intellectual asset management
mentality
6
that is becoming a cultural cornerstone caused 
by the widespread concern for how better knowledge is 
built and leveraged — through personal and company invest-
ments, collaboration, and deeply entrenched and practiced
tradeoffs between short-term facilitation and long-term
strength.
— Integrative management that involves proactive perspectives
and integration of strategic, tactical, and operational views
and activities between business units, departments, and 
individuals. Integrative management relies on extensive 
and effective communication, the introduction of incentives,
and cultural changes to motivate required behaviors. It also
introduces asset-based management mentality, principles,
and measurement systems applied to intangible assets to
maximize their value over time.
— Advanced information management and technology
(IM&IT), which focuses on intangible as well as tangible
asset-based management principles for information and
includes a wide range of technologies such as:
— Artificial intelligence (AI) for automatic reasoning
— Collaborative and groupware environments
— Content management
— Corporate history repositories and other approaches
— Customer relations management (CRM)
— Data mining
— E-learning
— Electronic performance support systems (EPSSs)
— Enterprise resource management (ERM)
Competing in the Global Economy Requires Effective Enterprises
15
ch01.qxd 5/3/04 2:27 PM Page 15

---

— Enterprise value creation (EVC)
— Extensive automation of routine business functions
— Interactive computer-based training (ICBT)
— Internet and intranet portals
— Knowledge management support systems (KMSSs),
including knowledge capture systems and knowledge
deployment systems
— Supply chain management (SCM)
The introduction of new management approaches and capa-
bilities facilitates efficient and effective work; that is, execution
of individual and group activities. Some approaches also
provide direct support — even offloading — of mental tasks
such as summarizing and organizing information and, to some
extent, reasoning.
The new management approaches are not automatically easy
to adopt. For many managers, professionals, and crafts people,
pursuing and implementing the new directions and practices
present problems. The approaches require depths of expertise
and involvement in professional disciplines that often go
beyond current business practices. The ability to handle the new
approaches requires learning and development of new perspec-
tives by managers and staff — efforts that may exceed the
energy and availability of the people involved. Hence, only
highly motivated and proactive parties appear to adopt the new
approaches.