It suffices crucial issues on organizational adaptation, survival, and competence threatened by unpredictable environmental change.

Generally, it represents the organizational processes that aim synchronous coalition of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the ingenious capacity of human beings.

In simpler terms, knowledge management strives to make the most out of the knowledge that is available to an organization, generating understanding, incrementing awareness and knowledge in the process.

Knowledge management is an evolving discipline. While knowledge transfer (an aspect of KM) has always existed in one form or another, formally through apprenticeship, the maintenance of corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs, and — since the late twentieth century — technologically through knowledge bases, expert systems, and other knowledge repositories,

KM programs claim to consciously evaluate and manage the process of accumulation, creation and application of knowledge which is also referred to by some as intellectual capital. KM has therefore attempted to bring under one rubric various strands of thought and practice relating to intellectual capital in the economy; the idea of the learning organization; various enabling organizational practices; and various enabling technologies.

Knowledge management may be viewed from different perspectives. Techno-centric view focuses on technologies, ideally those that enhance knowledge sharing & growth, frequently any technology that does fancy stuff with information. Theoretical view concentrates on the underlying concepts of knowledge and truth. People view engages on bringing people together and helping them exchange knowledge. Process view endeavors on the processes of knowledge creation, transmission, transformation, and others.

Organizational, ponders on ‘How does the organization need to be designed to facilitate knowledge processes?’ and ‘Which organizations work best with what processes?’ And ecological contemplates the interaction of people, identity, knowledge and environmental factors as a complex adaptive system In addition, as the discipline is maturing we see an increasing presence of academic debates within epistemology emerging in both the theory and practice of knowledge management.

KM professionals may use a specific lexicon (tool to enhance knowledge in vocabulary) in order to articulate and discuss the various issues arising in knowledge management.

Knowledge Management programs are typically claimed to be tied to specific organizational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific targeted results such as improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation.

Organizations should undertake knowledge management programs. In doing so, they would gain competitive advantage that comes with improved or faster learning and new knowledge creation. KM programs may lead to greater innovation, better customer experiences, consistency in good practices and knowledge access across a global organization, as well as many other benefits.

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Ismael D. Tabije is the Publisher-Editor of www.BestManagementArticles.com, a unique niche-topic article directory that features exclusively business and management topics. For a large dose of knowledge management tips, ideas and strategies, see http://knowledge-management.bestmanagementarticles.com

Some of those technologies include decision support systems, document management systems, groupware, business modeling systems, messaging, search engines, workflow systems, Web-based training, information retrieval systems, electronic publishing, intelligent agents, knowledge-mapping tools, help-desk applications, database management technologies, enterprise information portals, data warehousing and data mining tools. Through analysis of field research, this study adds to the body of knowledge and the understanding of the relationship between organizational culture and KM. (see Career Change)

Organizational climate and culture scholars continue to explore and understand the ways organizational members experience organizations. Studies investigating causes of KM initiative failure posited that organizational culture is the main barrier to success. A survey of practitioners conducted by Knowledge Management Review 2001 found two important challenges in launching KM initiatives including encouraging cultural adoption of KM’ and encouraging people to share’.

It is concluded that the factor of managing information’ was found not to be a significant barrier to KM initiative success. In addition, the efficient use and acceptance of IT tools designed to facilitate knowledge creation, capture, storage and distribution can be constrained by organizational culture. After focusing efforts on KM information technology applications, practitioners realized the importance of the human dimensions of KM initiatives. In other words, managers should not expect software to solve knowledge integration problems. If managers are spending more than a third of their energy and money on technology, they are neglecting the important organizational factors including organization cultures.

The results of the data analysis demonstrated sufficient evidence to establish a correlation between cultural attributes and the successful implementation of KM technology and knowledge sharing. Before introducing a KM technology initiative, the organization should assess, and comprehend its cultural attributes and its KM technology profile (KMTP). The success of KM technology implementation is mediated by human behavior. This research identifies cultural attributes, which have moderate to high positive correlation with the success of KM technology implementation such as sharing information freely, working closely with others, team-oriented work, trust, fairness, and enthusiasm.

In addition, the findings suggest that organizations successfully implementing KM technology to share key talent and knowledge across the organization would value team oriented work, working closely with others, sharing information freely, and trust within the organizational culture, but not necessarily developing friends at work. Moreover, cultural attributes that have a negative relationship to KMTP include attention to detail, stability, compliance and being calm. Many organizations, which are implementing KM strategies and technologies, are yielding tangible benefits from knowledge sharing. The results of this research indicate that a high return on KM technology investment in sharing knowledge has moderate to high correlation with cultural attributes including team-oriented work, working closely with other, sharing information freely, trust, and supportive of employees.

The result of the research would be very helpful for organizations making specific KM technologies investments. Besides, this research developed a tool for assessing the success of KM technology implementation that might be useful for the practitioners. This tool could be further improved by a study identifying additional patterns of behavior that could explain why organizations were, or were not, realizing payoff from investment in KM technology implementation.

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Thomas James has an interest in Career Change Management related subjects. If you are interesting in finding out more information on Career Changes, please visit this successful Career Change site: http://CareerChange.SmartReviewGuide.com