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The Phenomemnon of Knowledge Management: What

Does it Mean to the Information Profession?

by Marianne Broadbent

Knowledge Management: An Emerging Concern

Knowledge management is emerging as a key concern of organizations,

particularly those who have already redesigned their business processes and
embedded a total quality approach into their practices. Major consulting
firms are now gearing up to add knowledge management to their lines of
business.

What does this mean to library and information service professionals? Does
it mean that the nirvana of public appreciation and value is here? After all,
don't librarians organize and provide access to knowledge? Is it yet another
management fad of the type referred to by Hilmer and Donaldson1 that
promises to be the technique to manage organizations smartly and
effectively? Does it reflect a shift of balance in the business world to an
emphasis on the knowledge end of the data-information-knowledge
spectrum? Is knowledge management just a new income stream for
consulting firms when other buzz words lose their luster? Or perhaps
knowledge management is an oxymoron, and it will be followed in a few
years by "managing wisdom" when neither are really possible.

This article explores the phenomenon of knowledge management from the

viewpoint of a management academic with a professional background as a
librarian. My perspective is a critical and informed one--laced with a healthy
dose of scepticism. In the early to mid 1980s, I struggled with defining the
field of information management, of identifying the differences amongst
data, information and knowledge, and the implications of these differences
for professional education2. Some of the knowledge management hype
creates a distinct feeling of déjà-vu.

For the past four years, I have been involved in extensive international
research examining the information technology infrastructure capabilities of
organizations. A significant part of that research is now focusing on the
nature of the capabilities required to provide a sound basis for successfully
managing knowledge processes, professionals, and knowledge work. In the
past two years, I have been a participant in the invitational symposia of
several consulting firms in the United States and Australia as they shape
their knowledge management practices.

I have multiple agendas in addressing library and information professionals

on this topic:

z to provide a lens through which to view this emerging phenomenon

z to explain how other communities of interest are perceiving

knowledge management

z to stimulate thinking and discussion about the role of library and

information service

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z professionals and the role of libraries in the management of

knowledge

z to encourage library and information service directors to lead by

example in managing the

z knowledge of their organizations, colleagues, and staff to challenge

readers to tell us how they are managing knowledge now

My aim is not to engage in the esoterics of what knowledge management is

and is not, but rather to inform and to prod with a pragmatic, selective, and
eclectic review and examples from international firms.

As a well trained academic, I start with an explanation of what knowledge

management is from the literature--but from the literature of management
practice and consulting rather than academia. Examples of firms which
(overtly) practice knowledge management are given. These are from a
business and large firm perspective as they are amongst our international
research sites. The nature of knowledge and knowledge work processes and
their challenges is explored.

The role of organizational information politics provides a useful backdrop

for understanding why some organizations will succeed and some will fail in
their efforts to improve their management of knowledge. We conclude with
some comments on which groups have claims on this emerging
phenomenon.

Clarifying the Notion of Knowledge Management

Knowledge is increasingly seen as a primary business asset3 and knowledge

management as a key differentiator between firms in the late 1990s4.
Integral to the implementation of knowledge management is understanding
the organization's information flows and implementing organizational
learning practices which make explicit key aspects of its knowledge base.
Knowledge management is not about managing or organizing books or
journals, searching the Internet for clients or arranging for the circulation of
materials. However, each of these activities can in some way be part of the
knowledge management spectrum and processes.

Knowledge management is about enhancing the use of organizational

knowledge through sound practices of information management and
organizational learning. The purpose is to deliver value to the business.
Figure 1 shows the relationship between these four components, indicating
that knowledge management is more than managing information flows.

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It rests on two foundations: utilizing and exploiting the organization's

information (which needs to be managed for this to occur); and second, the
application of peoples' competencies, skills, talents, thoughts, ideas,
intuitions, commitments, motivations, and imaginations5.

To appreciate the challenges of knowledge management, we need to

understand what knowledge is and how it gets transmitted. A useful way to
think about knowledge is as enriched information with insights into its
context6. We explain by example what this means to organizations.

A mid-sized manufacturing firm we call EstateCo knew that one of its

products was not selling well and they did not understand why this was so. It
had taken many years and dollars to develop. Their management information
systems gave accurate information about how much of the product was
selling and where it was selling, but no insights into the reasons why or what
they could do about it--except where the firm was trialing a feedback
approach with field staff.

This consisted of both face-to-face debriefings with sales executives and

then an electronic discussion database involving the sales executives, field
staff, marketers, and product developers. All field staff in the trial group had
laptop computers and mobile phones and were able to readily dial in to the
firm headquarters. Following the debriefings and further suggestions from
the electronic discussions, some minor but important changes were made to
the product. A renewed effort was made by the sales staff in that area and
was successful. The turnaround time of six weeks was less than one third of
the usual time it would have taken for this review process to be completed.

Capturing the insights of field staff about why the product was not attractive
to customers, and making this accessible quickly to marketers and product
developers, was an example of utilizing knowledge which might otherwise
remain with the sales staff. It would remain in the minds of the field staff
and not made explicit, captured and then factored into decision-making
processes.

The fact that a sales person or reference librarian knows something about
why products or services are not utilized the way the organization desires is
not of itself organizational knowledge. It becomes organizational knowledge
when there are management processes in place which capture that often
personal, tacit, front-line information from which others in the organization
learn and make decisions. This is the meaning of knowledge management--
purposeful management processes which capture often personal and
contextual information that can be used for the organization's benefit.

EstateCo's use of the field staff is just one component of the firm's integrated
approach to knowledge management.

Expertise Centered Management for Business Benefit

Knowledge management represents a quantum shift for most organizations.

It is a form of expertise-centered management focusing on using human
expertise for business advantage.

When senior managers and consulting firms refer to the benefits of

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knowledge management, it is not from some altruistic perspective that

people and organizations should have a better knowledge base. It is, to quote
a recent symposium, about "leveraging knowledge for business impact"
where considerable thought has gone into how good knowledge management
practices can improve the competitiveness and financial performance of
firms and ways in which this can be measured.

Knowledge management practices aim to draw out the tacit knowledge

people have, what they carry around with them, what they observe and learn
from experience, rather than what is usually explicitly stated. In firms that
appreciate the importance of knowledge management, the organizational
responsibilities of staff are not focused on the narrow confines of traditional
job descriptions. Managing knowledge goes much further than capturing
data and manipulating it to obtain information. The aim of knowledge
management is for businesses to become more competitive through the
capacities of their people to be more flexible and innovative7. These
characteristics are organization-specific, the context is critical, and they are
hard to imitate--attributes which deepen the sustainability of knowledge
management as a competitive advantage.

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

The distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is critical in

appreciating the scope of knowledge management and how it differs from
information and data management. Nonaka8 refers to the spiral of
knowledge where new knowledge always begins with the personal. For
example, a researcher has insights that lead to a new patent. A manager's
informed and intuitive sense of market trends becomes the catalyst for
utilizing the patent in a new type of product. The factory supervisor draws
on both experience and rethinking processes to develop a new process which
brings the product to the market more quickly. In each case the tacit
knowledge of an individual becomes explicit as part of the firm's
management processes.

Nonaka identifies four basic patterns for creating knowledge in any

organization:

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From Tacit to Tacit. When one individual shares tacit knowledge with
another in face-to-face contact.

From Explicit to Explicit. When an individual combines discrete pieces of

explicit knowledge into a new whole, such as a finance manager collecting
and synthesizing information and opinions from different parts of the
organization then putting this into a financial report..

From Tacit to Explicit. This extends the organization's knowledge base by

codifying experience, insight, or judgement into a form which can be reused
by others.

From Explicit to Tacit. When staff begin to internalize new or shared

explicit knowledge and then use it to broaden, extend, and rethink their own
tacit knowledge.

The real challenges in knowledge management occur in the last two patterns
of knowledge creation: going from tacit to explicit and explicit to tacit.
These patterns are often easier to recognize in everyday life, for example, in
parenting, in relationships. It is worth reflecting, how often does this type of
knowledge creation occurs in your organization? What conditions are
conducive to encouraging such forms of managing knowledge?

Boynton has developed a useful schema of knowledge forms and presented

these in the form a knowledge map depicted in Figure 29. The knowledge
map has three knowledge domains or levels (tacit knowledge, explicit
knowledge, and information) and four knowledge locations. These locations
represent the extent of knowledge diffusion: individuals, groups, the
organization as a whole, and inter-organizational locations. No organization
can or should simultaneously attack all of the forms presented in Figure 2.
The objective is to selectively address those areas on the map which would
achieve the maximum benefit for the organization. This can take many
forms, such as increasing the organization's competitiveness, client service
levels, customer value, or other critical strategic objectives.

First Steps in Managing Knowledge

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Four steps in getting started in knowledge management are described by

Boynton10

z Making knowledge visible

z Building knowledge intensity
z Developing a knowledge culture
z Building knowledge infrastructure

These four steps are outlined in Figure 3. They are interdependent in that
embarking on one without the others will hinder the acceptance and success
of knowledge management as a major organizational focus.

Some well-run organizations have been doing these four steps for many
years, while others are beginning to recognize their importance and the
extent to which they need to be integrated with how work gets done. The
need for this holistic approach is not dissimilar to many other management
techniques11.

Knowledge Management is Not New

To what extent does your organization already have one or more of the four
steps in place? Libraries, as information-based services, should understand
the importance of each of these steps and some are taking the lead in their
organizations with the encouragement of senior management. Others wait to
be asked, which I suggest has never been a wise tactic!

In delineating the four steps above, Boynton is clear that knowledge

management is not new. It is something that good firms have been practicing
for many years. But few have understood its importance or seen knowledge
management as a purposeful management technique with multiple
dimensions and impacts.

The firms which are currently being cited as leaders in knowledge

management in the United States, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, and Australia
have also been leaders in the careful application of other management
techniques. Knowledge management is an evolution of their management
practices, not something they have suddenly discovered which can be
implemented in six months. Having recognized the importance of
knowledge management and knowledge work processes, they find that they
already have some of the foundations well implanted in their people and
organization. They do not see knowledge management as a 'solution' but as a
way to better use the expertise within and available to their organizations.
These organizations span many areas: finance, pharmaceuticals, engineering,
automotive manufacturing, service industries, consulting firms, healthcare,
and public service organizations.

How Do You Recognize Knowledge Management

Organizations which understand--or at least where their senior management

understands--the importance of knowledge management have the
characteristics of learning organizations with well-managed information
flows. In a major study of managing knowledge completed by the Economist
Intelligence Unit and IBM Consulting Groupl2, a composite set of
characteristics of learning organizations was developed. These

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characteristics focused on the organization's behavior in four areas:

leadership, culture, managing people as assets, and structures and processes.
The complete list reads like organizational nirvana, and discussion of the last
two areas only is included here.

Managing People as Assets

An essential theme in managing knowledge effectively is the understanding

the importance of people as organizational assets. While this might be
slightly offensive to some, life is generally much better for employees when
they are seen as assets than as items of expenditure--that goes for academics,
librarians, clerks, couriers, mechanics, and senior executives.

Figures 4 and 5 list the characteristics of learning organizations gleaned

from the Economist study. No firm with which I am familiar has all of these
characteristics. However, the data gathered by the Economist Unit suggests
that the greater the number of these elements an organization embraces, then
the closer it will be to becoming a learning organization which "manages
knowledge for business success."

Most senior library and information service staff will have no difficulty with
this list at all--from an intellectual perspective. Librarians and library
directors can be wonderfully analytical and enjoy the discussion of ideas and
have warm feelings about how important people are in a people-intensive
industry. The managerial and supervisory reality though is usually
something quite different. Being able to practice effective people
management is quite different from understanding how important it is. For
example, ask yourself these questions:

How many of these characteristics are actually recognizable in your

organization and/or in your library?

What parts of the budget disappear in tight times and who gets to participate
in which professional development opportunities?

Where is money actually spent and what message does this convey to staff in
tough times?

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From whose perspective are you answering? If you are the library director, I
suggest you delegate obtaining the answers to one of your staff--one who
has security of employment, or is perhaps retiring soon. It is no use simply
doing it with the senior management team. They will often have a very
inflated idea of how well people are managed. But don't bother doing
anything if you are not going to act on the results--no matter how pleasant or
unpleasant they might be. It just raises expectations which, when they are
not met, lead to greater cynicism and more jaded staff.

Structure and Processes in Place

Checking the extent to which your organization's structure and process

characteristics match those of learning organizations is probably easier than
assessing the nature of people management. Figure 5 lists the structures and
processes that learning organizations tend to have in place.

In a large research project we recently completed on the role and payoff of

investments in information technology infrastructure13, we found that
several firms understood and practiced the notion of knowledge as a
business asset. These tended to be large firms operating in multiple locations
and often multiple countries and for whom rapid product development is a
necessary core competence.

These firms understood the importance of the accessibility and sharing of

business information, the rapid dissemination of knowledge, the role of
communication and collaboration among employees, and designed both
human and computer-based systems to achieve these goals. The Swiss-
headquartered pharmaceutical firm Hoffmann-LaRoche (Roche) and the
Tokyo-headquartered manufacturer, Honda, are two firms which exhibited
characteristics integrating their leadership, culture, human resources
approach, and structure and processes.

Mapping and Accessing Knowledge at Hoffman-LaRoche

Roche embarked on implementing knowledge management practices in

early 1990 as part of its commitment to excellence and innovation in
managementl4. Roche's business goals were defined as the first step and
these were to get more drugs to market and to get them there as quickly as
possible. Before the knowledge management program began, Roche was
often the fastest to market, but was not consistently so.

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Roche evaluated its explicit knowledge in key areas, particularly its product
development plans and the implementation of those processes. The firm
found that it did not always communicate consistent key messages and
sometimes included contradictory, ambiguous, and inappropriate
information. Roche concluded that its employees did not have access to the
company's knowledge and were not adequately sharing knowledge or a
vision of its products. As one effort to overcome this, Roche's knowledge
management project team developed a corporate knowledge map to capture
and enable access to the rich pool of knowledge that was buried within the
company. The components of the knowledge map included:

Rewritten guidelines--outlining key customer or regulator

requirements A question tree--charting the questions that
customers want answered Contents--framing how a company
should answer customer questions Knowledge links--mapping
who should share what knowledge with whom, within the
company "Yellow pages"--listing people who have knowledge
and expertise

These components made explicit much of what was previously assumed--

erroneously--to be more widely known. The map corrected inaccurate
information which had been passed on, and identified tacit knowledge, such
as knowledge links and yellow pages, which is often not in a form others can
access or re-use. Roche uses the groupware product, Lotus Notes, as an
enabler for facilitating knowledge management practices.

Leveraging Communication for Sharing Expertise at Honda

Honda is a large transnational firm with automotive design and

manufacturing teams in multiple locations, trying to balance pressures of
greater localization and globalization of its operationsl5. Honda provides an
example of the linkages between many business processes and the
recognition of the importance of human communication in managing

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knowledge.

Honda has taken a two-pronged approach to increasing both its turnover and
profitability: each region has clear strategies within a firm-wide context, and
is heading towards self reliance in production capabilities; at the same time,
Honda is improving its already strong research and development (R&D)
capacity and implementing lower cost development strategies in its two
major locations--Wako-shi (Tokyo) and Los Angeles--to enhance its
competitiveness. Essential to Honda's approach has been the development of
multi disciplinary redesign teams and the supporting infrastructure which
enables those teams to quickly capture, convey and share their knowledge
and development work utilizing sophisticated communications networks,
particularly between Wako-shi and Los Angeles.

Honda's competes largely through product leadership. "We like to challenge

the spirit with originality and creativity," stated the General Manager of
Honda's worldwide Systems Division. "We are putting more emphasis on
R&D in major locations around the world, but with strong links for checking
and testing specification and mutual learning with our Japan-based R&D."

Increasingly, Honda has recognized the need for greater localization,

particularly in styling, but in the context of sharing expertise and the
learning in a firm committed to globalization of its operations. Honda has
gone through several phases in its international business operations and
refers to its current directions as glocalization. This refers to global
operations which are increasingly self-reliant and able to source locally or
from other regions, depending on the most efficient and effective
arrangement.

Honda's long term strategies focus on innovation in automobile development

and production technologies, exploiting new markets, expediting global
operations and stabilizing the business against currency fluctuations.
Honda's business maxims reflect these strategies and the commitment to
glocalization and include:

Continuous innovation and originality in creating and developing new

products

Rapid creation and adaptation of products for major regional markets

Expediting global operations through maximizing the synergies of

production and operations in many countries

Continuing focus on reducing the cycle time from R&D through production
and marketing

Staff of the highest caliber who excel in working together

Commitment to minimizing cost in all areas within the context and

constraints of the above maxims

These business maxims, with their emphasis on product leadership, R&D,

and cost minimization result in information and technology principles which
stress information consistency, accessibility, and the importance of

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communication networks. These principles include:

Information flow throughout Honda should allow all parts of the company to
more easily and quickly spot trends and use these to Honda's advantage

Honda R&D staff in different parts of the world need ready access to each
other to be able to communicate their ideas and output to their colleagues

Communication systems must facilitate high quality person-to-person

interaction amongst R&D staff and between R&D, production, operations
and marketing personnel

Communication systems must support the transfer of sophisticated design

concepts, data, and documentation in a high quality and cost-efficient
manner

This selection of Honda's business, information and technology objectives

shows the links between the importance to Honda of managing its
knowledge base and the expertise to speed development processes. Honda's
infrastructure capability includes a full-service communication network and
the management of selected databases (sales, finance, and part ordering) on a
global basis. In each of these areas, there are considerable synergies and the
systems are required for the effective sharing of information.

Honda's approach to infrastructure investments is highlighted in the efforts

made to establish and then upgrade Honda's international network system
(INS-III) in the past four years. The network, now named Pentaccord, was
developed with three basic functions:

International telephone/fax communication between Japan and major

overseas sites using an extension number

International high-speed LAN-to-LAN communication using standard

international protocols (TCP/IP)

International high-speed HOST-to-HOST communications (IBM SNA)

Further functions were quickly added driven by strategic needs for enhanced
interpersonal communications amongst R&D staff. These included an
expanded international electronic mail facility and the commencement of
multimedia communication. The network provides the capability for state-
of-the-art design and styling work to be shared amongst major centers,
particularly Los Angeles and Wako-shi. This has made a major difference to
both the speed and type of design developments which can now take place.
Photographic and digital images can be transferred with very high
resolution. The styling changes suggested by say, Los Angeles R&D
designers, can now be checked for specifications and feasibility in Wako-shi
in a short time.

The System Division and R&D groups are now experimenting with further
multimedia applications. "We know that person-to-person communication
and informal communication, is critical in our business--both in the design
and development area and amongst senior managers, "explained the Systems
Division's General Manager. "Our people get to know one another quite well

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as many come to Japan or go on exchange to Los Angeles or Belgium for

training. Some forms of communication need the richness of seeing the
person and how they react to various suggestions. We see multi-media as an
avenue for supporting high bandwidth technical information and human
communication needs in the future." Honda increasingly sees its approach to
information and communications systems supporting global shared values,
flatter management structures and the transparency of information
throughout the company.

Honda's sharing of expertise, rapid exchange of R&D knowledge, and

technical and human communications capabilities reflects the structures and
processes of a learning organization concerned with managing its knowledge
and expertise base for competitive advantage. The successful
implementation of such an approach assumes that the firm

actively encourages the free flow of relevant information between key

individuals and groups. However, this is often not the case and in discussing
knowledge management a caveat is essential: know the information politics
of your organization before embarking on a knowledge management
program. We traverse the important issue of information politics in the final
part of this paper.

Knowledge Work, Libraries, and Librarians

The basis of how organizations compete--their core competencies--

increasingly center around managing knowledge and knowledge workers.
Where an organization's performance is heavily reliant on knowledge work
then knowledge management is pivotal. Knowledge work emphasizes the
use of professional intellect in activities which use individual and external
knowledge to produce outputs characterized by information contentl6.

In a useful analysis of how to apply a process view and improvement

objectives to knowledge work, Davenport, Jarvenpaa, and Beers17 explain
that knowledge work is about the acquisition, creation, packaging or
application or reuse of knowledge. Some examples of each of these types of
knowledge work are:

Acquisition: Finding existing knowledge, understanding requirements,

searching among multiple sources and conveying it in an appropriate form to
a user, such as competitor intelligence;

Creating: Research activities in a pharmaceutical firm, creative processes in

advertising, writing books or articles, making a movie;

Packaging: Publishing, editing, design work;

Applying or using existing knowledge: auditing, medical diagnosis;

Reuse of knowledge for new purposes: leveraging knowledge in product

development processes, software development.

But to what extent do librarians and information specialists measure up as

knowledge workers? Or is information just work?

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Knowledge work is characterized by variety and exception rather than

routine and is performed by professional or technical workers with a high
level of skill and expertise. So do all library and information specialists
qualify? Those who exercise their intellects in any of these types of activities
are knowledge workers. If your work can be or is totally routinized, then you
are an administrative worker, not a knowledge worker. If you describe what
you do as organizing things for others to access, you come close to being an
administrative worker rather than a knowledge worker.

Knowledge work is inherently hard to manage. Davenport summarizes the

challenges in taking a process approach to knowledge work:

Variety and uncertainty in inputs and outputs

Unstructured and individualized work rules and routines

Lack of separation among process, outputs and inputs

Lack of measures

Worker autonomy

High variability in performance across individuals and time

Lack of information technology support

These challenges underlay the difficulty in managing knowledge itself. As

work becomes more knowledge intensive, richer forms of communication
become more important, as indicated in the experiences of Honda mentioned
earlier. We need to know more about the people in our organizations, their
expertise and the nature of their work. Groupware technologies, such as
Lotus Notes, become critical to organizations where successful business or

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service delivery rests on cooperation and coordination between knowledge

workers. This is particularly the case where professionals in teams handle
multiple clients and/or are geographically dispersed. As in Honda,
technology can support knowledge work processes, but it must support and
augment rather than replace human collaboration.

Information Politics and Knowledge Management

Organizations aspiring to manage their firm's knowledge base and develop

the necessary information technology infrastructure capabilities need to
understand their current approach to information politics. The politics of
information in your organization (the library and information service and/or
its host organization) might negate the value of attempting knowledge
management practices and suggest a rethinking of the organization's
approach to information management as a necessary first step.

Information politics is a natural aspect of organizational life. It needs to be

recognized, and, if possible, consciously and constructively managed to
achieve organizational goals. Initiatives such as knowledge management
programs and the development of supporting capabilities usually rest on
assumptions about how people in the organization generate information and
their attitude to sharing information. These assumptions are often poorly
based. In many firms, the reward systems, promotion patterns, and the
behaviors modeled by executives, are quite inconsistent with learning
organization characteristics and aspirations to be a "knowledge based"
organization.

A useful diagnostic for reviewing the type and impact of information politics
is the five model typology described by Davenport, Eccles, and Prusak18.
These models outline different sets of circumstances and their impact on
information access, efficiency, and quality. They are summarized in Figure
6. In medium and larger organizations, several models might co-exist in
different parts of the firm.

Three of the models, technocratic utopianism, anarchy, and feudalism are

less effective than the other two, monarchy and federalism, in the purposeful
and constructive management of information and knowledge. It is difficult to
see how the characteristics of learning organizations sit with, for example,
the anarchy model of information politics. With no information management
policy, individuals see the information they possess, both formal and
informal, as theirs to own and manage. Even if the organization

decreed that information had to be shared, this would almost certainly be

interpreted as explicit knowledge only, with no conduit or motivation to
share tacit knowledge.

The nature of internal competitiveness and the level of internal political

turbulence also plays a role here. Some organizations act as though their
major competitors are other parts of their own organization rather external
firms or agencies. This is often reinforced by reward systems that focus on
individual performance only, despite the fact that the organization might
espouse notions of "empowerment" and "team based work groups."

Organizations with a strongly feudal or anarchist approach to information

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would find it difficult to gain value from investments in the infrastructure

capabilities necessary to support knowledge management. Where the feudal
model is prevalent, justification processes would not accommodate decisions
about the needs of the whole organization, rather than that of its specific
parts. Thus there is an iterative factor at work here: organizations with more
extensive infrastructure capabilities would be more likely to be monarchist
or federalist in their information politics. These are the same models of
information politics which lend themselves more readily to the
implementation of knowledge management.

An appreciation of the dynamics of information politics in your firm or host

organization is most useful in planning how to achieve your goals--or in
taking a pragmatic decision that your organization just would not be able to
provide an appropriate foundation and environment for the practice of
knowledge management. There are too many potentially rewarding areas on
which to expend one's energies rather than those which are doomed to
frustration. To paraphrase a famous quote: change what you can, then accept
what you can't change, or leave the organization. Anything else is bad for
your health and well being--and for those around you.

Concluding Comments

The impetus for expressing these thoughts on knowledge management and

knowledge work came from two main sources:

Invitations to address library and information managers which forced me to

articulate the relevance and application of my current research, executive
education and consulting activities to library and information management

Discussions with and observations of librarians and information

management colleagues who are struggling with the notion of knowledge
management and trying to link it to what they thought they had been doing
all these years.

These experiences reminded me of intense discussions with several MBA

students with backgrounds as industrial engineers or systems analysts. Both
groups thought they had been doing Business Process Redesign (or Design)
for years. They had been tackling business processes, but from one
perspective only. Similarly, librarians have excellent skills in organizing and
codifying information sources and making these accessible to others. This
represents the top layer of the knowledge map (information) rather than tacit
and explicit knowledge.

Librarians are generally driven by a desire to provide access to information

sources and match this desire with values that assume information sharing is
a good thing. In a recent wide-ranging and stimulating address, Warren
Horton19, Director-General of the National Library of Australia, and IFLA
executive member, drew attention to these two facts about the library
profession. Librarians are involved in a continuing search for excellence in
organizing and codifying information sources. This is embodied in efforts to
make access to electronic publications "intelligible and accessible." The
second fact is that the library and information profession rests on "a bedrock
of very solid and long term values." Both of these attributes are important
for the practice of knowledge management. But they are not sufficient. They

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need to be harnessed in two directions: towards specific organizational

objectives that provide greater value to customers and clients; and, second,
in the way in which library and information services are themselves
managed.

Knowledge management is not owned by any one group in an organization,

nor by any one profession or industry. But if librarians and information
specialists want to be key players in the emerging knowledge management
phenomenon, they need to understand the multiple perspectives of the other
players. Some of the journal articles referenced at the end of this paper are
useful starting points in coming to grips with the language and concepts
behind knowledge management.

Knowledge management requires a holistic and multidisciplinary approach

to management processes and an understanding of the dimensions of
knowledge work. Knowledge management should be the evolution of good
management practices sensibly and purposively applied.

References

1. Hilmer, F. G. & Donaldson, L. Management Redeemed: Debunking the

Fads that Undermine Corporate Performance. New York: The Free Press,
1996. Reviewed in Australian Library Journal, 45:4, February, l997.

2. See for example Broadbent, M. "Information Management and

Educational Pluralism,' Education for Information, 2:3, September 1984,
209-227; Broadbent, M. & Koeing, M. "Information and Information
Technology Management: Converging Concerns and Literatures", Annual
Review of Information Science and Technology 1988. Edited by Martha
Williams, Volume 23. Published for the American Society of Information
Science by Elsevier, 1988, 237-270.

3. Movizzo, J. Executive summary introduction to The Learning

Organisation: Managing Knowledge for Business Success, The Economist
Intelligence Unit and IBM Consulting Group: NY, 1995.

4. Drucker, P. Managing in a Time of Great Change. Truman Alley Books -

Dutton: New York, 1995.

5. Harari, O. "The Brain Based Organisation", Management Review, 83:6,

June 1994, 57-60.

6. Drawing on definitions from Ernst & Young's Knowledge Management

Survey, 1996.

7. The Learning Organisation: Managing Knowledge of Business Success,

The Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM Consulting Group, 1995,
[Executive Summary, p17].

8. Nonaka, I. "The Knowledge Creating Company", Harvard Business

Review, November- December 1991, 96-104.

9. Boynton, A. "Knowledge Management Map", extracted from "Exploring

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Opportunities in Knowledge Management", Knowledge Management

Symposium: Leveraging Knowledge for Business Impact, IBM Consulting
Group, Sydney, November 1996.

10. Boynton, A. "How to Get Started with Knowledge Management",

extracted from "Exploring Opportunities in Knowledge Management', Ibid.

11. For example, those interested in a well developed holistic approach to

BPR, including the 'people part', are encouraged to read Charles Lee's
account of the implementation of BPR at the large US telecommunications
firm GTE. See Lee, C.R. "Milestones on a Journey Not Yet Completed:
Process Re-engineering at GTE", Strategy and Business, Fourth Quarter
1996, Issue 5, 58-67.

12. Ibid, p.17-18.

13. Weill, P., Broadbent, M. & St. Clair, D. "Information Technology Value
and the Role of IT Infrastructure Investments'. Competing in the Information
Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice. Edited by J.N. Luftman, Oxford
University Press: New York, 1996, 361-384; Broadbent, M., Weill, P.,
O'Brien, T. & Neo, B.S. "Firm Context and Patterns of IT infrastructure
Capability", Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on
Information Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, December 15-18, 1996. ICIS, 174-
194; Broadbent, M. & Weill, P. "Management by Maxim: How Business
and IT Managers Can Create IT Infrastructures", Sloan Management
Review, 38:3, Spring 1997, 77-93.

14. Seeman, P. Real-World Knowledge Management: What's Working for

Hoffmann-LaRoche, Boston: Centre for Business Innovation; Ernst &
Young, 1996, CB110.

15. The Role of Information Technology in International Business

Operations: The Case of Honda Motor Company, by Marianne Broadbent,
Melbourne Business School, 1995; Honda's Civic Lesson, Business Week,
September 18, 1995, 26-28.

16. Davis, G. & others, Conceptual Model for Research on Knowledge

Work, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, MISRC Working Paper
MISRC-WP-91-10, 1991. Quoted in Davenport, Jarvenpaa & Beers, Ibid.

17. Davenport, T.H.; Jarvenpaa, S.J.; & Beers, M.C. "Improving Knowledge
Work Processes", Sloan Management Review, Summer, 1996, 53-65.

18. Davenport, R.H., Eccles, R.G., & Prusak, L. "Information Politics",

Sloan Management Review, 34:1, Fall 1992, 53-65.

19. Horton, W. "Most Important for the People: Australian Libraries and the
Profession", Australian Library Journal, 45:4, November 1996, 256-273.
[Opening Address to the Australian Library and Information Association
Biennial Conference, Melbourne, 6-11 October 1996].

Dr. Marianne Broadbent is director of the IT Executive Program for Gartner Group Pacific.
She was formerly a professor in the Management of Information Systems at the Melbourne
Business School, University of Melbourne, Australia. She is co-author of the book,

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Leveraging the New Infrastructure: How Market Leaders Capitalize on IT, to be released by
Harvard Business School Press in July 1998. Broadbent may be reached via e-mail at:
marianne.broadbent@gartner.com.

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