People-focused knowledge management

The Societal Conundrum — What Shall We Do?
Increased reliance on and influence of knowledge as a significant
ingredient in business will lead to many changes and shifts in eco-
nomic and trade balances between nations. For example, as the
global playing field is flattened, opportunities for industrialized devel-
oped nations (North America, Europe, Japan, etc.) to obtain low-cost
goods and services from developing nations (e.g., India, Pacific Rim,
Latin America, and Africa) will be diminished.
Developed nations have been able to create and sell prized goods
and services in part as a result of high educational levels in both their
professional and rank-and-file workforces. Historically, developing
nations have provided goods with less knowledge-intensiveness at 
relatively low costs. These goods are produced by workforces with
lower educational levels who receive much lower salaries and possess
reduced qualities of life. Consequently, developed nations have
bought a wide range of goods (and to a smaller extent, services) from
developing nations at lower costs than they themselves could deliver
— to a large extent through the sacrifices of people with less eco-
nomic and political clout.
Presently, the educational gap is in the process of being reduced.
For example, at the time of this writing, India has more people with
doctorates in engineering and science than any other nation, although
it still has significant illiteracy. Educational levels in the United States
and parts of Europe seem to be stagnant or even deteriorating both
in absolute terms and compared with those in many up-and-coming
nations. At the same time, increasingly more knowledge-intensive
and sophisticated work is being outsourced to developing nations.
Immediately, the issues surface: “Which advanced and knowledge-
intensive products will the developed world be able to create and
deliver to maintain its current living standards if it falls behind in
educating its workforce?” and “What will the world look like if we
all become equally knowledgeable and empowered?”
From a societal perspective, applying deliberate and systematic
people-focused knowledge management that emphasizes enterprise
performance is both desirable and appropriate — for now. More
effective personal and enterprise behaviors will certainly provide 
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People-Focused Knowledge Management Expectations
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societal value according to current objectives. However, it is not 
clear that current objectives are appropriate for long-term societal
stability and balance (Malone & Yohe 2000; Mintzberg 2002).
As we consider the progress of our ability to manage knowledge
and to make enterprises more effective, the question arises: “What 
is the purpose of these endeavors?” The objectives for the directly
affected enterprises for the next year and the next decade are quite
clear. Narrowly, they have to do with enterprise survival and success
and quality of life for employees and their families and those directly
affected by the enterprise’s operations and functions. The broader,
longer-term objectives are not so clear. From myopic and self-serving
societal perspectives, the long-term objectives may be for selected
nations to prosper. From global perspectives, issues such as equality
among nations and “the gap in wealth and health that separates rich
and poor” (Landes 1998) start to emerge. Malone and Yohe (2000
p. 368) state it clearly: “Continued exponential and asymmetrical
growth in both population and individual economic productivity
would propel world society along a path that is environmentally
unsustainable, economically inequitable, and hence socially unsta-
ble.” Potentially, we may use the building and application of knowl-
edge and understanding worldwide as the tool with which we can
level the global playing field. This, we believe, is the real challenge
for deliberate and systematic societal knowledge management.
Unless the enterprise centers its attention and focus on people, on
their knowledge and ability to work effectively, it will be at a com-
petitive disadvantage. That will be the case whether the enterprise is
a company, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), a government
department, or a nation.
The required people-focus must address several aspects, which
must be balanced. They cover the knowledge empowerment of
employees, their decision autonomy, their need to understand enter-
prise policies, direction, strategy, and obligations to stakeholders and
society, and lastly their accountability. Many organizations have gone
overboard in one direction or another by emphasizing a single aspect
and only that one. However, that does not work. As elsewhere in life,
a balanced approach is required here as well.
Notes
1. The special issue on knowledge and the firm in the California Manage-
ment Review (Spring 1998, Vol. 40, No 3) may be of particular interest.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
2. Typical KM arenas are KM activities associated with ascertaining that
effective quality work is delivered; augmenting people and (automated)
work; educating employees; capturing, transforming, and archiving
knowledge; motivating, facilitating, and permitting employees; creating
cultural conditions; providing IT-based infrastructure; providing knowl-
edge sharing; coordinating KM efforts; conceptualizing, monitoring,
guiding, and governing KM practices and results; and managing intel-
lectual capital components.
3. Service paradigms describe what the enterprise, and individual units and
people within it, ideally should be able to do for external and internal
customers and how units and people should appear to customers through
their behavior.
4. Wiig and Wiig (1999) discuss some existing approaches and the reason-
ing behind them.
5. For an excellent discussion of ontologies and their role in KM, see 
Chandrasekaran et al. (1999).
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Appendix A
E
XAMPLES OF
K
NOWLEDGE
M
ANAGEMENT
A
NALYSIS
A
PPROACHES
Knowledge management (KM) efforts must be viewed from two
perspectives. The first and initial perspective is that of analyzing and
identifying the organization’s general and more specific knowledge-
related significant issues and capabilities. That is the perspective of
Appendix A. KM analysis approaches and tools, of which there are
hundreds, are used mostly by short and intensive discovery projects
to plan for new KM efforts. The exception is for approaches and
tools that are used to monitor effectiveness and the like of continued
knowledge-related practices and efforts. Such monitoring functions
may be permanent.
The second perspective is that of initiating and operating the KM
initiatives and practices, conducting KM to derive the benefits
desired. That is the perspective of Appendix B. KM initiatives and
practices are often long term or permanent and focus on improving
personal and structural knowledge creation, availability, and effec-
tive utilization — the value realization of knowledge. KM, as such,
encompasses both perspectives since they are interrelated and suc-
cessful analyses regularly lead to permanent KM practices.
In the following, we have selected examples of classes of KM
analysis approaches, with emphasis on approaches conducted by
people. IT-based approaches are deemphasized, with a short list of
sources presented at the end of the appendix. A table relating IT-KM
tools to KM practices is also provided.
Knowledge Vigilance Survey Approaches
An organization’s attitude toward KM and its readiness to pursue
KM can often be measured by its level of “knowledge vigilance” 
(see Table A-1). Knowledge Vigilance Surveys are quick, high-level
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information-gathering tools that seek to obtain an initial overview of
knowledge-related aspects of the enterprise’s culture and the mental-
ity of key people, including rank-and-file representatives.
Frequently, it is found that both management and rank-and-file
agree that “knowledge is the most important success factor” for an
organization. At the same time, there may be a general lack of under-
standing of how to pursue KM in ways that are both practical and