دیدگاه فرآیندی مدیریت دانش در مورد انجام یک کار و نحوه انجام آن A Process View of Knowledge Management: It Ain’t What you do, it’s the way That you do it

Abstract: Knowledge management needs to consider the three related elements of people, processes and technology. Much existing work has concentrated on either people or technology, often to the exclusion of the other two elements. Yet without thinking about process – the way people, organisations and even technology actually do things – any implementation of a knowledge management initiative is at best risky, and at worst doomed to failure. This paper looks at various ways in which a process view has appeared, explicitly or implicitly, in knowledge management research and practice so far, and reflects on how more “thinking about process” might improve knowledge management in the future. Consistent with this overall viewpoint, the issues generally centre less on what a process view would suggest should be done, but rather on the way that it would be implemented in practice. Keywords: KM theory, process, KM practise, KM research 1. Introduction Knowledge management in organisations has been a well-documented activity for at least 15 years (Davenport & Prusak, 1997; Nonaka, 1994) and was being carried out for many years – probably centuries – before that. Nevertheless, many organisations – or rather their managers – still find knowledge management somewhat of an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to implementing the plans they have decided upon. As a relatively recent field, it might be thought that this difficulty results from an absence of theory, but even a brief review of the literature makes it clear that this is no longer the case. For example, there are now some 20 journals in knowledge management or closely related fields (Bontis & Serenko, 2009); while a search on ISI Web Of Knowledge™ for articles including the phrase “knowledge management” returns over 10,000 items (Edwards, Handzic, Carlsson, & Nissen, 2003; Ruggles, 1998; Serenko & Bontis, 2004). While it remains true that there is no one agreed “unified theory of knowledge management”, our conjecture here is rather that managers do not place enough emphasis on certain parts of the established theory. A description of knowledge management as consisting of people, process and technology is well known (Edwards, 2009), but we will argue that the emphasis has been too strongly on technology and people, with insufficient attention paid to the process element. A good analogy for trying to implement a knowledge management initiative in practice is with learning to drive a car/automobile. In the UK, and in many other countries, a learner driver has to pass a theory test before being allowed behind the steering wheel at all. However, there is a big difference between: doing the theory test, sitting in the front passenger seat while someone else drives and actually driving the car yourself. The first one is completely safe – the worst that can happen is that you fail the test and have to take it again. The second should be safe, too, as long as you have a reliable driver; the passenger does not have to concentrate on steering, clutch or gears, let alone other road users, and can sit back and enjoy the ride, and perhaps the view. But if you can recall your earliest efforts at driving you will surely remember the shock you received when you first had to do all these things for yourself – even if someone else was telling you where to turn, as usually happens with learner drivers. Becoming an accomplished driver needs practice and understanding in addition to theoretical awareness and knowledge. Knowledge management has much the same three stages as learning to drive. Most managers are now familiar with some of the theory of knowledge management, at least, and many of those more recently qualified at university will have studied a module in knowledge management. Those thinking about implementing a knowledge management initiative in an organisation will also probably have “sat in the passenger seat”; by this we mean that they will have read articles or books about the experiences other organisations have had when implementing knowledge management. Indeed, over Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 9 Issue 4 2011 www.ejkm.com 298 ©Academic Publishing International Ltd the last few years the possibilities for “reading” about what others have done have expanded to include message boards, forums, and blogs such as KnowledgeBoard and the activities coordinated by David Gurteen, although we do not recall having seen any knowledge management initiatives on YouTube – yet! Nevertheless, whatever the medium, when the knowledge management initiative is in another organisation, then someone else is still doing the driving. That third stage, implementing knowledge management initiatives yourself, presents a step change in difficulty. General awareness of knowledge management theory is one thing, but understanding is quite another. This leads to the commonly heard comment (see for example Tillian (2001), Carrillo & Chinowsky (2006), and the UK National Health Service library on knowledge management at http://www.library.nhs.uk/KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT/) that “we know about knowledge management as a concept, but how do we do it?” That final phrase is really the focus of this paper – how we, or they, do it. The paper is structured as follows: we first look at knowledge management theory and explain in more detail the reasons why managers should think more about process – the way things are done, rather than what is done – when implementing knowledge management initiatives. We then go on to consider what process thinking means in knowledge management terms. Finally, we look at the implications of this process thinking for knowledge management practice and research.