Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management [Paperback]

Harvard Business School Press (Compiler)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0875848818 | ISBN-13: 978-0875848815 | Edition: 6

This title presents leading minds and landmark ideas in an easily accessible format. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, "The Harvard Business Review Paperback" series delivers the fundamental information today's professionals need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. The eight articles in "Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management" highlight the leading-edge thinking and practical applications that are defining the field of knowledge management. Includes Peter Drucker's prophetic "The Coming of the New Organization" and Ikujiro Nonaka's "Knowledge-Creating Company". This is a "Harvard Business Review Paperback".

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This collection of eight Harvard Business Review articles are written by leading business authors (including a contribution from management guru Peter Drucker), and together they present a solid introduction to and overview of the practice of knowledge management.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

Knowledge management-the way companies generate, communicate, and leverage their intellectual assets-has only recently emerged as the information economy's essential source of competitive advantage. The Harvard Business Review was among the first to identify the importance of knowledge management, and now the cutting-edge thinking and practical applications that are defining the field are conveniently close at hand in this timely and authoritative collection.
Includes Articles:
The Coming of the New Organization (Peter F. Drucker)
The Knowledge-Creating Company (Ikujiro Nonaka)
Building a Learning Organization (David A. Garvin)
Teaching Smart People How to Learn (Chris Argyris)
Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work (Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus)
How to Make Experience Your Company's Best Teacher (Art Kleiner and George Roth)
Research that Reinvents the Corporation (John Seely Brown)
Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best (James Brian Quinn, Philip Anderson, and Sydney Finkelstein)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; 6 edition (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875848818
• ISBN-13: 978-0875848815
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #398,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 62 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Neither current nor enlightening June 18, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Of four books purchased on Knowledge Management - this one is least valuable. Its title is a current "hot topic" but the text is ten years old and doesn't impart much knowledge.

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Need to know vs, Nice to know July 6, 2000

By Gautam Ghosh

Format:Paperback

Having recently moved into the KM area I thought this book would be a 'must read'....but as anither reviewer pointed out if you have been keeping in touch with KM from the beginning (or whatever , from '96) would not find anything earth-shattering (that's the tacit selling job of the HBR logo, right?) in the compilation.

We all have heard about Drucker's "knowledge workers" and Nonaka's "Creation of Knowledge" and Argyris and his "teaching smart people" and Dorothy Leonard's "whole organisation brain" theory ad nauseum ad infinitum!

Guess HBR should have added more value (or retros or something ) instead of just taking photcopies of their old articles and printing them together!

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Knowledge Management, a layperson's perspective November 1, 2001

By "joyfulpwc"

Format:Paperback

Knowledge Management, published by Harvard Business School Press, is a compilation of articles excerpted from the Harvard Business Review covering a period from 1988-1997. The articles in general focus on the way organizations can acquire, use, and maintain knowledge in order to remain on the cutting edge of their fields. The underlying message of this book, expressed by Peter F. Drucker in "The Coming of the New Organization (page 1)," is that future organizations must take advantage of technology to collect and track data so that data can be translated into useful information.

The manner in which companies acquire knowledge from data can vary. Ikujiro Nonaka in his article "The Knowledge Creating Company (page 21)" provides a general approach. Nonaka suggests that creating new knowledge requires, in addition to the processing of objective information, tapping into the intuitions insights and hunches of individual employees and then making it available for use in the whole organization. Within this framework is an understanding of two types of knowledge: tacit and explicit. Both of these have to exist in an organization and exchange between and within each type is needed for creation of new knowledge. Another point in Nonaka's article is that the creation of new knowledge is not limited to one department or group but can occur at any level. It requires a system that encourages frequent dialogue and communication. Similar but more defined ideas are presented in David Garvin's "Building a Learning Organization (page 47)."

Garvin's approach focuses on the importance of having an organization that learns. Garvin defines a learning organization as one that is "skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights (page 51)." He describes five activities/skills that are the foundation for learning organizations. These are systematic problem solving, experimentation, and review of past experiences, learning from others, and transferring knowledge.

"Teaching Smart People How to Learn (page 81)" by Chris Argyris, deals with the way individuals within an organization can block the acquisition of new knowledge because of the way they reason about their behavior. In order to foster learning behavior in all employees, an organization must encourage productive reasoning. One caution is that use of productive reasoning can be threatening and actually hampers the process of learning if not implemented throughout the whole organization.

Leonard and Straus in "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work (page 109)," address another way in which knowledge can be acquired. They identify two broad categories: left brained and right brained individuals, with different approaches to the same concept based on cognitive differences. Within these categories, there is great potential for conflict, which can stifle the creative process. However these different perspectives are important for full development of a new concept. Innovative companies should keep a balance of these different personality types to avoid stagnation and to encourage development of new ideas. The management of the cognitive types in a way that is productive for the company occurs through the process of creative abrasion.

One can surmise from the articles in general that data and information are valuable if they can be used to maintain the knowledge base or provide the basis for acquiring new knowledge. The organization that creates new knowledge encourages the following in its employees: creativity, a commitment to the goals of the organization, self-discipline, self-motivation, and individual exploration and identification of behaviors that may be barriers to learning. Cognitive preferences should be recognized and used to the companies' advantage. Finally, companies can learn from the best practices of others and from their customers. After knowledge is acquired, it can be disseminated for use throughout the organization and maintained in different ways.

One key method to maintain knowledge repeated in several articles is the importance of an environment that fosters innovation. Quinn et al, in "Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best (page 181)," describe this as creating a culture of self-motivated creativity within an organization. There are several ways to do this: recruitment of the best for that field, forcing intensive early development (exposing new employees early to complex problems they have to solve), increasing professional challenges and rigorous evaluations.

Another way to maintain and use knowledge is through pioneering research, described by Brown in "Research that reinvents the Corporation (page 153)." In this process companies can combine basic research practices, with its new and fresh solutions, and applied research to the company's most pressing problems. Dissemination of new knowledge can occur by letting the employees experience the new innovation and so own it. As mentioned in the article by Nonaka, creation of a model that represents the new information is a way for transfer to the rest of the organization. Also the knowledge from the professional intellect within an organization can be transferred into the organization's systems, databases and operating technologies and so made available to others within the organization. An example of this is Merryl Lynch, which uses a database of regularly updated information to link its 18,000 agents.

Yet another tool for disseminating information within an organization is the learning history, described by Kleiner and Roth in "How to Make Experience Your Company's Best Teacher (page 137)." This makes use of the ages old community practice of storytelling to pass on lessons and traditions. The learning history collects data from a previous experience with insight from different levels of employees involved and puts it together in the form of a story that can be used in discussion groups within the organization. In companies where this has been used, it builds trust, provides an opportunity for collective reflection, and can be an effective way to transfer knowledge from one part of the company to another. In addition, incentives in the form of a report in response to the new innovation and achievement awards encourages employees to learn and helps with the dissemination of information.