" In practice, knowledge management involves sharing such assets between employees, departments and even with other companies.
It is important to note that knowledge management is not synonymous with technology. While the idea of knowledge management has become deeply integrated with technological advances, it can exist outside of the computer era. Note Santosus and Surmacz, "while (knowledge management) is often facilitated by it, technology by itself is not (knowledge management).
Knowledge management can bring about substantial benefits to the company, underlining the importance of effective managerial organization of the process. These benefits can include a direct contribution to bottom-line savings for the company. In addition, knowledge management can provide benefits to areas as diverse as employee morale, and effective company communication.
In effectively incorporating knowledge management into organizational practices, the organizing functions of management must be able to clearly defined intellectual or knowledge-based assets. As Santosus and Surmacz succinctly note, "Not all information is valuable." In other words, the effective manager must be able to determine what information is valuable, and what is not within the organizational process.
Generally, knowledge-based assets fall into two categories: the explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge-based assets include business plans, marketing research, trademarks, and patents. This knowledge is often documented, archived, and even codified with the help of information technology. In contrast, tacit knowledge is an inherently more ambiguous and often less tangible resource. This knowledge can be seen as "the know-how contained in people's heads" (Santosus and Surmacz). Identifying this tacit knowledge can be difficult, but is an important step during the organizing functions of management.
There are substantial organizing functions of management that are related to knowledge management. The importance of these organizing functions derives from the need for the integration of knowledge management within a larger business context. Without such a context,"(knowledge management) is meaningless at best and harmful at worst" (Santosus and Surmacz).
As such, the organizing functions of management, as related to knowledge management, must be focused on specific and clear goals. These include mobilizing resources that encourage...
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