Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

The Knowledge Clinic: Concepts, Methods and tools to
Support Productive Knowledge Management in Companies
Gaby Neumann 1 and Eduardo Tomé 2
1
Technical University <strong>of</strong> Applied Sciences Wildau – Engineering Logistics –
Germany
2
Universidade Lusíada de Famalicão – Department <strong>of</strong> Economics – Portugal
gaby.neumann@th-wildau.de
eduardo.tome@clix.pt
Abstract: In order to better manage knowledge for making it become productive and unlocking its developmental
potential a comprehensive set <strong>of</strong> concepts, methods and tools is required that helps companies in purposefully
intervening in <strong>the</strong>ir core processes. Challenges mainly consist in <strong>the</strong> wide and ever growing variety <strong>of</strong> those
supportive means, missing guidance in selecting appropriate methods and tools, <strong>the</strong> need for adapting <strong>the</strong>oretical
concepts to a certain company environment while implementation, requirements for predicting efforts and impact
from knowledge-related interventions. Therefore, <strong>the</strong> paper introduces and elaborates <strong>the</strong> concept <strong>of</strong> a
“knowledge clinic” that is meant to support companies in <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge investments in <strong>the</strong> same way as any
process <strong>of</strong> medical treatment with <strong>the</strong> human body is organized: diagnosis, healing, cross-checking. In particular
<strong>the</strong> paper motivates <strong>the</strong> approach, discusses its <strong>the</strong>oretical background, explains its structure and way <strong>of</strong>
working, and derives conclusions on implications on change processes at company and economy levels. With
this <strong>the</strong> paper wants to contribute to step forward on <strong>the</strong> road to support organizations in dealing with and
pr<strong>of</strong>iting from knowledge.
Keywords: knowledge-based development, knowledge clinic, knowledge management maturity diagnosis,
change processes.
1. Introduction and motivation
Knowledge has been on <strong>the</strong> agenda since <strong>the</strong> mid 1990s, but still hasn’t unfolded its full potential in
<strong>the</strong> organizational practice. Even worse, in many companies and industrial sectors, like e.g. logistics,
knowledge management (KM) did become a buzzword indicating a big (technological) wave around
<strong>the</strong> turn <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> millennium (obviously) without any particular benefit to (most <strong>of</strong>) <strong>the</strong> companies. This
has been caused by <strong>the</strong> variety <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>oretical concepts related to knowledge and its management
without clear suggestions and guidelines on how to deal with it, implement it in a certain company
setting and link it to <strong>the</strong> company’s day-by-day challenges. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, managing knowledge and
benefiting from this was said to be a technological issue only or at least mainly with a large number <strong>of</strong>
KM projects and initiatives being launched that focused on <strong>the</strong> introduction <strong>of</strong> certain information
technology such as knowledge data bases, intranet, information storage and retrieval functionality etc.
– and failed because <strong>of</strong> being too single-dimensional, forgetting about <strong>the</strong> people as key stakeholders
and shareholders in any knowledge-creating and knowledge-dependent process, and also because <strong>of</strong>
being too short-term focused with regard to measurable impacts and especially financial returns.
According to “The 2002 Knowledge Management Hype Cycle” (Caldwell and Harris 2002) this
development <strong>of</strong> KM obviously follows <strong>the</strong> typical evolutionary path <strong>of</strong> any technology-driven
implementation process from innovation trigger up to <strong>the</strong> peak <strong>of</strong> inflated expectations and pretty
much down again to <strong>the</strong> trough <strong>of</strong> disillusionment (see Figure 1). From <strong>the</strong>re a slow recovery process
starts via <strong>the</strong> slope <strong>of</strong> enlightenment finally leading to <strong>the</strong> plateau <strong>of</strong> productivity. Based upon this,
Caldwell et al. (2003) predicted <strong>the</strong> following fur<strong>the</strong>r evolution:
By 2005, knowledge workers will move fluidly among teams, assignments and communities <strong>of</strong>
practice within 70 percent <strong>of</strong> knowledge-based businesses (0.8 probability).
Through 2006, more than two-thirds <strong>of</strong> enterprises that successfully implement real-time
enterprise capabilities will also have successful knowledge management programs (0.7
probability).
By 2006, more than two-thirds <strong>of</strong> enterprises with proven revenue-enhancing quality management
programs, such as Six Sigma, will have incorporated information quality management measures
into those programs (0.8 probability).
According to this and based upon an online survey with 540 participating companies in <strong>the</strong> Germanspeaking
area (see Fraunh<strong>of</strong>er 2005), wide-scale KM implementation in companies across all
industrial sectors at a realistic, productive level could have been expected to be achieved in <strong>the</strong>
middle <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> previous decade (see Figure 1). But looking into a certain industrial sector, as for
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