HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE - Fichier PDF

176 ❚ HRM processesTacit knowledge exists in people’s minds. It is difficult to articulate in writing and isacquired through personal experience. As suggested by Hansen et al (1999), itincludes scientific or technological expertise, operational know-how, insights aboutan industry, and business judgement. The main challenge in knowledge managementis how to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.THE PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENTAs explained by Blake (1998), the purpose of knowledge management is to capture acompany’s collective expertise and distribute it to ‘wherever it can achieve thebiggest payoff’. This is in accordance with the resource-based view of the firm which,as argued by Grant (1991), suggests that the source of competitive advantage lieswithin the firm (ie in its people and their knowledge), not in how it positions itself inthe market. Trussler (1998) comments that ‘the capability to gather, lever, and useknowledge effectively will become a major source of competitive advantage in manybusinesses over the next few years’. A successful company is a knowledge-creatingcompany.Knowledge management is about getting knowledge from those who have it tothose who need it in order to improve organizational effectiveness. In the informationage, knowledge rather than physical assets or financial resources is the key tocompetitiveness. In essence, as pointed out by Mecklenberg et al (1999), ‘Knowledgemanagement allows companies to capture, apply and generate value from theiremployees’ creativity and expertise’.APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENTThe codification and personalization approachesTwo approaches to knowledge management have been identified by Hansen et al(1999):1. The codification strategy – knowledge is carefully codified and stored in databaseswhere it can be accessed and used easily by anyone in the organization.Knowledge is explicit and is codified using a ‘people-to-document’ approach.This strategy is therefore document driven. Knowledge is extracted from theperson who developed it, made independent of that person and re-used for