MBA Essay:知识管理对组织绩效的影响

MBA Essay:知识管理对组织绩效的影响
The impacts of Knowledge Management on Organizations Performance

在过去的二十年中，知识管理一直是一个热门话题。人们提到知识管理是影响组织绩效的重要因素。然而，重要的是要注意，知识管理不仅是一个复杂的信息技术系统。正如在本报告中讨论的，知识管理是一个集策略、工具和技术，以方便组织中的知识的创建、开发、共享和存储。在知识管理系统中，人与技术的相互作用和相互依赖。人们已经积累了他们的知识（即隐性知识），知识管理有助于把这些知识传递给对方（即显性知识）。

Knowledge management has been a hot topic in the last two decades. People mention KM as an important factor that influences the performance of the organization. However, it is important to note that KM is not only a complex information technology system. As being discussed in this report, KM is a collection of strategies, tools and techniques that facilitate the creating, developing, sharing and storing of knowledge in an organization. In KM system, there is an interaction and mutual dependence between people and technologies. People have accumulated knowledge in their mind (i.e. tacit knowledge), and KM helps to pass this knowledge to the other (i.e. explicit knowledge).
In this report, I discuss about the nature of knowledge (i.e. the differences between data, information, and knowledge), how a KM system works (i.e. based on Wiig KM cycle), as well as how KM influence the operations of an organization (i.e. in term of performance, employees, learning organization, and management).

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INTRODUCTION 知识管理导论

Data, Information, and Knowledge:
Before deeply discussing about knowledge management system, it is worth to understand the differences among data, information and knowledge.
Data consists of raw facts. For example, at Raffles International College (RIC), the numbers of students enroll in different faculty each term, the results of lecturers' evaluation (made by students), and the number of students defer a special subject are all data.
Information is a set of analyzed and organized data which have additional values beyond the value of the facts themselves (Stair R. M & Reynolds G. W., 2008, p.5). For instant, by collecting and organizing the figures occur in each term, RIC's managers realize that there are twice as many students enroll in Fashion courses as in Business courses in recent years; or students tend to defer those classes of strict lecturers or theory-oriented, and so on.
Knowledge is the awareness and understanding of relationships among concepts relevant to a particular area; and then, using the gained information to perform a specific task or to make better decision. Back to RIC, for example, by analyzing relevant information about the enrollment and students' attitude towards the subjects, the lecturers, and the school, then comparing to the performance of competitors and external environmental impacts, the school director can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current Business faculty and make instant modification.
In addition, there are two types of knowledge: tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the intangible knowledge that lies in the mind of individuals, and takes years to earn through learning, practicing and experiencing. Meanwhile, explicit knowledge is the "touchable" knowledge that can be shared and learned in tangible forms such as stories, records, books, images, sounds, and so on.

Defining Knowledge Management:定义知识管理：

According to Dalkir (2005), Knowledge Management is a systematically and coordinately process to utilize the organization's resources - i.e., people, capital, technologies, processes, and structure - in order to create, share, apply, and develop knowledge. Then, all the valuable lessons learned and best practices are stored in the corporate memory for future retrieve, as well as, support organizational learning.
Knowledge management is not neither merely information technology nor the collection of all knowledge existed in the world. Instead, it is the connected procedures to control and improve the ability of the organization to perform better as a whole through innovation, mistake learning and best experiences. Besides, an effective knowledge management system help