People-focused knowledge management

The Business Environment Is Under Pressure
Already, we see increased requirements for better knowledge in the
workplace to deliver competitive knowledge-intensive work.
Demands for customized and more sophisticated products and ser-
vices have increased. Globalization pressures have changed business
— and correspondingly work — worldwide. Nations that earlier sup-
plied manual labor have started to compete with Europe, Japan, and
North America by offering competent intellectually based work.
Thanks to the Internet, knowledge workers everywhere can access
the latest information on advanced concepts, methodologies, and
business issues. However, technology access is still far from uniform,
and most people in Africa, Asia, and South America may have to
wait a long time before they are fully competing in the workplace.
Even so, to maintain their viability, institutions and nations that 
have long been the intellectual leaders will need to build and apply
intellectual capital much better. They increasingly must manage
knowledge systematically.
Other developments that are causing changes in business and work
are the new cognitive science understandings of how people make
decisions and work with their minds (Cannon-Bowers & Salas 1998;
Klein 1998, 2002; Wiig & Wiig 1999); new management and oper-
ational practices; improvements in information technology (IT); and
powerful and practical artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. We are
learning what motivates individuals and how to integrate individual
goals with those of the enterprise. We are discovering the value of
new ways to organize work and interpersonal networking to maxi-
mize opportunities for people to deliver their best. In addition, we
are obtaining practical experiences about how to manage knowledge
in different KM arenas.
2
With all these forces pressuring business, we have learned to prepare
our workforce better, automate many routine functions, and organize
work in ways that allow us to deliver higher quality products and 
services more effectively. The nature of work is shifting toward more
complex work (see Chapter 1), with identifiable targets for intelligent
automation in routine areas and potentials for application of greater
understanding and expertise in more demanding work.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management Expectations
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Handling all work tasks competently and with outcomes that fulfill
quality requirements requires that the organization and systematiza-
tion of work and individuals apply all required resources effectively.
Hence, among proactive enterprises, increased efforts have been
made to make individuals, and therefore the enterprise itself, act as
effectively as possible.
Management teams are unwilling and unable to allocate resources
to new directions unless they promise to deliver clear and important
benefits. Hence, they continue to ask specific questions such as: “Will
active KM allow us to deliver a more competitive service paradigm?”
“Will active KM make it possible to create more competitive 
products?” “Will active KM improve the effectiveness of work and
thereby reduce operating costs, allow us to be more responsive,
improve our market image, and otherwise become more successful?”