Customer Reviews

Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am the editor for this book and I thought it would be helpful to include an overview of the target audience and highlights of the included works in the collection.

This collection is a targetted at leaders in government, industry, or academia who are interested in starting or evaluating a knowledge management program, are currently implementing a knowledge management program, or are simply interested in expanding their understanding of knowledge management.

Featured works include:

Introduction by Margaret Wheatley on, "Can Knowledge Management Succeed Where Other Efforts Have Failed?"

A reflection by Peter Senge on what has been learned since his seminal, "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations"

Dr. David J. Skyrme on "Developing a Knowledge Strategy: From Management to Leadership"

An introduction by Bipin Junnarkar, CKO of Gateway, on "Sharing and Building Context"

A reflection by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka on what has been learned since their seminal work, "The Knowledge Creating Company"

Dorothy Leonard on "Tacit Knowledge, Unarticulated Needs and Empathic Design in New Product Development"

Dr. Karl-Erik Sveiby on "Measuring Intangibles and Intellectual Capital"

Dr. Nick Bontis on "Managing Organizational Knowledge by Diagnosing Intellectual Capital"

I am the editor for this book and I thought it would be helpful to include an overview of the target audience and highlights of the included works in the collection.

This collection is a targetted at leaders in government, industry, or academia who are interested in starting or evaluating a knowledge management program, are currently implementing a knowledge management program, or are simply interested in expanding their understanding of knowledge management.

Featured works include:

Introduction by Margaret Wheatley on, "Can Knowledge Management Succeed Where Other Efforts Have Failed?"

A reflection by Peter Senge on what has been learned since his seminal, "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations"

Dr. David J. Skyrme on "Developing a Knowledge Strategy: From Management to Leadership"

An introduction by Bipin Junnarkar, CKO of Gateway, on "Sharing and Building Context"

A reflection by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka on what has been learned since their seminal work, "The Knowledge Creating Company"

Dorothy Leonard on "Tacit Knowledge, Unarticulated Needs and Empathic Design in New Product Development"

Dr. Karl-Erik Sveiby on "Measuring Intangibles and Intellectual Capital"

Dr. Nick Bontis on "Managing Organizational Knowledge by Diagnosing Intellectual Capital"

At the start of each episode of the mysterious, brain-twisting 1960s spy/science fiction series, The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan would declare: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" This could well be the rallying cry for the perspective on knowledge management taken by the contributors to this 451-page volume. The 18 pieces are gathered into three groups covering strategy, process, and metrics. Although the volume can certainly serve well as a general introduction to knowledge management, the editors make no bones about their distinctly learning-centric (as distinct from information-centric) perspective that they take.

The information-centric approach, which has been dominant in the field until recently (and still is among consultants with IT systems to sell), emphasizes knowledge as explicit, and as susceptible of being captured, stored, and processed. The contributors to this book instead emphasize the continuous generation, acquisition and application of knowledge in its human and cultural context. This perspective permeates each of the essays and all three of the sections. Those sections begin with a classic work then move onto more contemporary thinking along compatible lines.

The "Strategy" section, which begins with two pieces by Peter Senge, examines the motivation for knowledge management and explores how to structure a knowledge management program. Takeuchi and Nonaka's classic paper, "Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation" opens the "Process" section, which looks at how managers can implement knowledge management effectively, applying it to help make existing practices more effective and to speed up organizational learning. The final section on Metrics covers the use of the Balanced Scorecard, the measurement of intangibles, and metrics for knowledge sharing.

Busy executives need not be deterred by the length of this book. They can read the opening classic pieces, then look only at those following pieces with the most relevance to their concerns and circumstances. Margaret Wheatley's introduction, "Can Knowledge Management Succeed Where Other Efforts Have Failed?", is well worth reading for her concise and lucid account of the common beliefs in organizations that have caused problems for KM. These include beliefs that organizations are machines, only material things are real, that only numbers are real, that you can only manage what you can measure, and that technology is the savior.

This book offers a learning-centered introduction to the field of knowledge management. Each of the three sections (Strategy, Process, Metrics) sets the tone with an opening essay by a well known authority in the field. Several previously unpublished essays that develop the chapter follow each opening piece. This convenient plan makes it possible for time-pressed readers to get the gist of the matter by reading only three or four essays in the area that most concerns them. It also allows readers with a consuming interest in the subject to get all of the details they could possibly desire. Some of the essays are accessible; some are quite heavy going, laden with jargon and dense academic prose that only a specialist could decipher. Thus, we are grateful that the editors have made it so easy for readers to find what they need to know in this well-organized, thorough study of the field of knowledge management.

There are certainly a few nuggets to be extracted from this volume but it is not a very compelling read. The MIT slant is obvious due to the multiple inclusions of Peter Senge. Yes there is a reprint of the seminal Balanced Scorecard article from the HBR included in this compilation but I really considered most of the papers included in this collection to be extremely uninteresting. Many of the articles provide nothing other than a state of affairs for knowledge management and while they are well researched they are totally dated. Anyone who has read a relatively recent book on the subject of KM will be familiar with the content contained within this volume. Furthermore many of these articles can be found free of charge on the internet as they were published far and wide at their inception. Sure it touches on the major components of knowledge mangement but in my opinion I found the case work to be so general that any *term of the moment* could be substituted for knowledge management. Spend your cash elsewhere.