Preface for the Third Edition - Read

28 B. Concepts and Theories
ers have to “manage self-organization” in the sense that they encourage structures
and a culture which are suited for the observation of the market and for the implementation
of the necessary organizational changes (Heitger 1991, 118ff). Thus, the
concept is closely related to self-organizing systems.
Human resource management (HRM). In addition to theories and approaches of
organization science which explain the behavior of social systems, people-oriented
approaches represent a central element in KM. Employees create, hold and apply
knowledge. New employees bring their knowledge and ideas to an organization.
Individuals that are already members of the organization learn individually as well
as in teams and networks and participate in organizational training and development
programs. Employees who leave the organization take their knowledge with
them. These are only some examples where HRM strongly interrelates with knowledge
management 24 , provides concepts for a strategic knowledge or competence
management or is even transformed into a knowledge- or competence-oriented
HRM (Bruch 1999, 132f and 137ff).
HRM in an institutional sense denotes an organizational subsystem (e.g., HRM
department) that prepares, makes and implements personnel decisions which are
economically legitimated, basically to secure availability and effectiveness of personnel
(Kossbiel/Spengler 1992, 1950). HRM provides concepts and approaches to
describe functions such as planning of personnel demand, selection/recruiting,
training and development, compensation and benefits as well as outplacing of individuals
and to explain for example individual behavior, motivation, performance,
leadership (e.g., Staehle 1991, 718ff, Drumm 2000) which all influence the handling
of knowledge in organizations. Moreover, it is the personnel development
function of HRM which is affected most by concepts of OL and KM. Examples are
the recent founding of corporate universities in business organizations, e.g., at
Lufthansa or DaimlerChrysler, aiming at an integration of these concepts into institutionalized
personnel development (e.g., Heuser 1999).
On the other hand, HRM can help to identify the crucial knowledge base,
knowledge barriers and gaps as needed to define a KM strategy (e.g., Ryan 1995,
9). OL and KM approaches tend to use a decentralized approach to personnel
development with an emphasis on individual members of the organization and collectives.
Examples for collectives are work groups, teams as well as networks and
communities in which members learn on the job, share knowledge and thus learn
from each other. At least in a more centralized implementation of KM strategies, a
systematic, methodical planning of education and training measures will still be a
necessity and thus require traditional HRM in an institutionalized sense (Drumm
2000, 414f). HRM then shares a great part of its responsibilities with an enterprisewide
KM initiative (Wiig 1999, 159). HRM departments might be well positioned
e.g., for knowledge identification and mapping, to identify knowledge gaps and
24. See e.g., Freimuth et al. 1997, Sattelberger 1999, 18ff and 149ff, Bullinger et al. 2000,
79f, Vorbeck/Finke 2001a; for an overview of HRM software to support KM see
Koubek et al. 2000.