Knowledge Management in Organizations

Introduction. Increasing globalization and the speed of global technological change have helped to highlight the importance of knowledge in the contemporary world. Thus, increasingly spoken of the "knowledge society? whose most recognizable meanings agree that it is increasingly important to the ability of individuals and institutions to build, process and apply knowledge. Some experts, including Mancera (1997), states: "... the term refers to the ability of social groups to generate and use information, acting to unforeseen situations, understand the needs of the moment and transmit them to others, adapt their own forms of organization skills and technologies unprecedented in other words, learning to learn, as a condition of survival. " In this context, the task of organizations is to develop skills to document and systematize their experiences, the challenges of open markets and technologies, and innovate, adapt and create collective knowledge and distribute it among their members. In this sense, an organization that learns to learn is also an organization that transfers information relevant to the construction of knowledge of its members, which builds intellectual capital that is reflected in the potential of its members. Several concepts have been coined to describe this change: the new society based on organizations, management and understanding, Peter Drucker, third wave, Alvin Toffler, and Naisbitt information society, to name a few.

However, regardless of the term, what is significant is that there is agreement that we are moving from an industrial society referred to another type of society based on information and management resources in organizations designed as networks of knowledge and the entrepreneurial capacity and learning, which in turn requires professionals capable of solving complex problems and deal with contingencies. In some advanced countries has shown that increasing competition for global markets, education and knowledge play an important role, while new industries (biotechnology, telecommunications, computing, among many others) rely more on the organization of knowledge and learning, natural resources, size or commodity organizations. Also, it is considered that organizational competitiveness is associated with the ability of organizations to learn and adapt faster and more relevant for applications and assume the orientations of sync with the demands of the environment. The thrust of this argument is easily understood by reflecting that offers Senge (1990), in that while it is true that people's learning does not ensure organizational learning, it is equally true that there can be no organizational learning learning regardless of the people.

In this context there is a strong relationship between competitiveness of organizations and organizational learning. In this context, the human factor prevails in organizations, as the only available resource capable of insight, assume or infer. For they are bigger and better information systems and databases, which are by newer research in the area of ​​artificial intelligence, so far not been able to think of computers as human beings capable of making decisions based on the sensitivity. We are living a revolution that, far from being a fad, is the result of uncontrollable and irreversible forces: globalization, computerization, economic and intangibilización disintermediation. As soon leads to further raised in the present study, on knowledge management in organizations. For Garvin (1998), knowledge management and sharing intellectual assets obtained with the aim of achieving optimal results in terms of productivity and innovative capacity of organizations. It is a process that involves generating, collect, assimilate and exploit knowledge in order to generate a more intelligent and competitive TISS and Lekanne Andrissen (2000) divided knowledge management, functional management of knowledge: firms, aware of the need to distribute information across the organization, are using a variety of techniques of knowledge management function with the main concern of connecting people with the system used for the distribution and transfer of information to knowledge is built.

Strategic knowledge management: a balance of knowledge of an organization with its strategy, paying attention to the impact of computing and the need to design the structure of the organization conformidad.En this sense, speak of an organization that really knowledge is the most important asset is talking about a particular organization. Not all organizations are prepared to "take advantage of? that asset better than other more conventional. The use of knowledge is the intended purpose of knowledge management. Understanding and knowledge in order to align individual and collective, with the objectives of the organization. The lure, convenience or opportunity to get started in knowledge management should reflect on some aspects of the organization, such as organizational model, culture, work environment, leadership, management systems, policies, strategies, so that the management knowledge effectively and efficiently reach expected. Probably the highest level of effectiveness and efficiency is greater the more closely resembles what our organization for several years is known as "learning organization? (Learning organization). The need for organizations to be "learning? continually arises from the brevity of the validity of knowledge.

If true and admitted is that product cycles are very short now, it is not less than the obsolescence of knowledge is produced in increasingly smaller. Therefore, knowledge management focused on the renewal is a necessary practice. In reality, learners in organizations are people. So along with an assessment of knowledge and experiences built, should be assessed learning ability. Supposing that an organization values ​​people, should assess the relationship between these above transactions. So in a learning organization is even said that fundamentally is constituted by people and their relationships. Admitted, it is permissible to say that knowledge management should be concerned and deal with relationships, too. Many organizations recognized success, I have understood, when in their architectural model for knowledge management proposed as key elements to communities of practice (people) and the flow of knowledge (relationships). The other two elements in this model are the repository (corporate memory) and navigation (search and access mechanisms). Knowledge Management Organizational Vision states that the only really competitive resource is knowledge organizations, and considers that the main task of the same should be the systematization of the processes by which employees acquire information and generate the knowledge necessary to respond to present challenges, anticipate potential future challenges and adapt to face the opportunities and threats arising from the proper interpretation of the forces that define their sphere of action (Drucker, 1968, Nonaka 1991, Garvin, 1993).

The above leads to interpret carefully what is meant by knowledge management. In this sense raises Zamora (2003), that the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) is complex, being related to a discipline that tries to cover not only individual knowledge, but also the teams and organizations as a whole. It also defines "knowledge management" as a set of activities and practices to more efficient acquisition: the ability associated with their proper use that knowledge in order to obtain the best results in the development of the activities of a particular organización.La knowledge management, according to Nonaka (1999) is defined as the identification, optimization and dynamic management of intellectual assets, either in the form of explicit knowledge contained in organized systems, such as tacit knowledge possessed by individuals or communities generates value of intellectual assets and knowledge of organizations. Often, generating value of such assets involves sharing them among employees, departments and even with other organizations in an effort to devise best practices. Raised about the definitions of knowledge management can be grouped into two approaches: highlighting their contribution to learning and organizational development and highlighting its importance in relation to their potential for generating financial resources.

Among the authors who hold the economic or cost-effective approach to knowledge management are Bukowitz and Williams (1999) who define it as the process through which organizations generate wealth from its intellectual or knowledge assets. Klason (1999) who considers that the GC is the ability to create and retain greater value from the core expertise of the organization, and Tiwana (2000) who states that the GC is the process of using organizational knowledge creation value and generating competitive advantage. Both approaches are actually complementary, and highlight the role of organization in the process of knowledge management. The organizational approach helps to understand the purpose for the company with the mastery of certain fields of knowledge, giving at the same time, the adoption of objectives and strategies to stimulate creativity in policy management of human resources training . This is not only encouraging the pursuit of technical excellence of its staff, but also the systematic analysis of organizational learning as a process conditioned by the way knowledge is used to interact with the environment.

The economic approach helps to identify the resources available from the organization, and helps to understand the relationship between knowledge, needs, products and value. The two approaches are of particular relevance to the management of organizations, in the sense that they allow you to: Understand the processes that facilitate knowledge generation and dynamics of their application in response to customer needs. Having a systematic method for evaluating the elements that make up the organization's intellectual capital. Relate directly to the intellectual capital strategies to ensure the generation of value to customers of the organization.

The systematic work on the three aspects mentioned above leads to the institutes to transcend the purely operational management of its resources and capabilities, reaching a higher level from which it can better visualize the processes and procedures necessary to make known the asset Determine the objectives and strategies of their relationship with the environment. It is, in other words, to understand how processes occur through which generate different forms of knowledge. A system that supports the efficient development of the activities that make knowledge management includes aspects such as human resources and materials dedicated to this function. infrastructure-based communication technologies and information. set of role models for the generation, formalization, acquisition, assimilation, transmission, use, ... knowledge. rules, procedures and methodologies. knowledge that has been formalized and reproduced in any medium. conocimiento.Los external sources of knowledge management systems include the following levels: Level represented by a common context that allows communication and understanding of members of the organization, taking into account issues such as "common culture of knowledge" common understanding of the strategies and objectives of the organization, etc..

Level represented by the operational aspects, including a set of rules, techniques, role models, methodological procedures and other similar concepts. Mike, defines knowledge management as "an environment within an organization that allows the collection, aggregation, management, distribution and analysis of a balanced set of information to guide decisions positively managers?. The strategic knowledge management is an emerging discipline that aims to generate, share and use tacit knowledge (know-how) and explicit (formal) existing in a given space to respond to the needs of individuals and communities in their development. This has focused on the need to manage organizational knowledge and organizational learning as key mechanisms for strengthening a region or space in relation to the visions of the future that will determine their strategic development plans in the medium and long term. Another way of understanding knowledge management in an organization refers to the process, a process which involved the planning and monitoring of strategy creation, construction, acquisition, assimilation, transformation, socialization, dissemination, classification, storage and expression of knowledge in tangible or intangible. Knowledge management involves two aspects.

On the one hand indicates the idea of ​​somehow managing, organizing, planning, management and process control to form or have certain objectives. On the other hand, speaking of knowledge shows that an organization, like any human being is subjected to a dynamic in which the exterior and the interior thereof, or receives information captures, recognizes, organizes, stores, the analyzes, evaluates and issues a response to the outside, based on this information and embodied in the total information stored seeking a result. An organizational form is to understand as "Knowledge Management? or "knowledge management? to refer to the "process of continually managing knowledge of all kinds to meet present and future, to identify and exploit knowledge resources acquired both existing and develop new opportunities?. Seen this way, it is a knowledge management that leads to the maximization of profits of the business. One of the aspects to be addressed by knowledge management is its generation, seen as a fully human from the interaction of ideas, discussion, reflection, assimilation to the life experiences and the transformation of realities.

But generation in the sense of building knowledge and building as the intellectual processes that lead to new knowledge are actually building processes in which the individual restructuring prior knowledge not only themselves but the intellectual categories with which it represents the world. So knowledge is not created (as if from nowhere spontaneously) but is built. So I insisted that the individual knowledge building built because not only changes their old knowledge to new knowledge, change their intellectual categories and thereby change it. The construction of knowledge involves the individual self. There are three basic aspects to distinguish in knowledge management is a process first, second, that he gets a result, achieving some implicit or explicit in the organization and its support and third most important success factor is people and their interrelationships. From another viewpoint is more of a learning process management, the term "Knowledge Management? has been questioned, first because it is a term that comes from the science of business, with the idea of ​​managing knowledge as if it were a resource in the organization and secondly because not all knowledge can be managed, tacit knowledge is proper and inside each person, is not codified and personal knowledge when it comes to social knowledge is a collective intellectual restructuring, impossible to administer.

You can manage the expression of knowledge but not the thought process or the growth of human intellect. Knowledge is not acquired, it is transferred (elements of management), only built. A teacher for example, can have a great willingness and intention to share his knowledge with his students and does, but his students do not receive knowledge, but only information, each is responsible for processing that information and transform it according to its own model mentally, until it becomes knowledge. Cheaz Souza Silva (2000) suggest that as early as in the following terms: "But data and information can be acquired, processed, stored, sold, etc.., knowledge is not. Even when someone shares what for him / her is her knowledge concerning some topic or problem, this comes to partners (individuals, teams, social groups) as data and information that need to be mentally and / or socially (re) configured (re) combination, or (re) arranged in confrontation with prior knowledge of these players, their current values ​​and goals / future commitments.? That is, we can not manage knowledge as if it were an object that can store and manipulate. Knowledge can develop and realize later experience, concepts, decisions and information that if it can be administered, but not the process is carried out.

Before a decision for example, a person does not get answers, build your own answers from the information received. Even when a person is just reconfiguring existing knowledge and not generate new knowledge, we can not say that this reconfiguration is generated from the existing knowledge management. What happens is that the person manages existing information and involve their ability and intellectual capacity, their environment, their values ​​and experience to absorb that information and build knowledge in his mind. That is why it is considered more appropriate to talk about construction and transformation of knowledge management. Importance of the existence of a strategy of building and socialization of knowledge. If we assume that Aristotle's statement to the effect that "All men by nature desire knowledge?, We can explain the importance of building knowledge as a natural search for people to grow, to develop. However, as organizations are comprised of people achieve their goals and the extent to which these people work for it and possess or generate the knowledge needed to do, organizations also need knowledge to grow. Having a strategy for building and sharing of knowledge is relevant in the organizational context for several reasons: - Have the mechanisms or means to manage information, construct knowledge and socialize, so that the media are made explicit and used, are process or to implement other.

- Sharing individual knowledge to transform it into social knowledge. This involves organizational learning, shared visions and leads to strengthening the organization. - Flexibility in the organization, flatten the power relations, so that all its members are motivated to propose, to innovate, to collaborate in the construction of knowledge and therefore the value creation and the revitalization of the organization. - Make the organization more responsive to members' contributions and proposed changes from the new needs or organizational learning. - Create an environment both technical and human, suitable for circulation of information. - Determine what type of knowledge is more important to the organization and what skills exist internally to its construction or reconfiguration. Evolution of GC in organizational systems. Scientific Approach: Managing knowledge has come to light precisely when organizations have evolved into another type of model behavior. The change from one organization to another theory starts from the scientific approach developed by Frederick Taylor. In this approach, workers are the same as the pieces of a mechanical gear, without imagination or creativity, work objects only, without the capacity to generate knowledge.

Taylorist The idea was to transform the tacit knowledge of workers in objective knowledge or scientific knowledge, however, in his view, experience and skills of workers meant no major sources of knowledge. Humanistic Approach: From scientific model developed by Elton Mayo humanist is based on the idea of ​​seeing human beings as "social animals? that are influenced by the context. His theory considers the development of human skills as a fundamental part to work in organizations and emphasizes human relations as a factor leading to increased productivity. It is an approach to the continuous development of knowledge workers. Chester Barnard: Later, Chester Barnard worked at the joint of the two approaches. Barnard promoted the conception of knowledge both logic and the behavior of individuals. Cheaz Joseph and John Souza (2000), argue that "Leaders create values, beliefs and ideas to keep the internal consistency of the knowledge system of the organization and managed as a cooperative system. Therefore, for Barnard were both scientific knowledge and behavioral knowledge?. Processing information: This organizational model was developed by Herbert Simon, for whom the people in an organization are information processing machines, not people who can develop behavioral or tacit knowledge.

This is a totally rational, where human beings give meaning to the information captured through their senses and store these meanings as new knowledge or use in deciding courses of action, in this sense act as information processing systems. For Simon, tacit knowledge was just a kind of noise without any valid contribution. His vision Cartesian rationalist court prevented him from perceiving the human potential to create knowledge, he failed not to perceive the human capacity to actively discover problems and generate knowledge to solve them. Learning-oriented approach: In recent years, a number of authors have begun to embrace the concept of knowledge society. Peter Drucker, for example, emphasizes constant practice of self-transformation to sustainable organizations. Although determines that the importance of tacit knowledge does not develop the process by which organizations achieve growth. Another author, Peter Senge, proposed as a model for those learning organizations learn through a new conception of leadership, mental models, shared vision and team learning, however, does not dwell on the generation of knowledge in organizations, but that they learn from existing knowledge.

Interestingly, in another context very different in Japan Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi advanced in the conceptualization of knowledge creation in organizations through outsourcing processes (conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit), internalization (conversion of explicit knowledge in tacit) , socialization (conversion of tacit knowledge in tacit) and combination (conversion of explicit knowledge into explicit knowledge). Knowledge creation processes before defining a strategy to create knowledge in the organization must be clear about the processes and phases that occur in the conversion of knowledge. Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi built a model that has become the most publicized currently defined four processes of knowledge conversion: Socialization: tacit knowledge into tacit knowledge. Outsourcing: tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Combination: from explicit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Internalization: from explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. The following describes these four processes: socialization (from tacit to tacit) is the process of sharing experiences, acquiring tacit knowledge through shared experiences. Regarding Chun Wei Choo process (1999), explains: "As apprentices learn the trade from their teachers through observation, imitation and practice, employees of a company learn new skills through training in work.? Externalization (from tacit to explicit) is the process of generating knowledge in the tacit knowledge becomes explicit concepts through the use of metaphors, analogies or models.

Chun Wei Choo For (1999), "The externalization of tacit knowledge is the essential activity in the creation of knowledge and is seen most frequently during the concept creation phase of the development of a new product. The externalization is triggered by dialogue or collective reflection. . . To extract tacit knowledge is necessary to make a mental leap and often involves the creative use of metaphor or analogy?. Combination (from explicit to explicit) is the process that synthesizes and integrates concepts explicit, systematized knowledge by integrating explicit knowledge from different sources. Thus, individuals exchange and combine their explicit knowledge through telephone conversations, meetings, memos, etc.. You can categorize, compare and classify modes in a certain amount of information available in computer databases, to produce new explicit knowledge. Internalization (from explicit to tacit) is the process of transforming explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge through which completes the cycle in the spiral of knowledge creation. It develops when they internalize the experiences that result from other processes of knowledge creation. Internalization is facilitated if the knowledge is captured in documents or transmitted in the form of anecdotes, so that individuals can re-experience the experience of others indirectly.

The four processes of transformation of knowledge relate to each other in a continuous spiral that increases the knowledge base of the actor (person or organization). Usually, the creation of knowledge begins with individuals who develop some insight or intuition about how to perform his duties better. This tacit practical knowledge can be shared with others through socialization. However, while knowledge remains tacit, the organization will be unable to exploit it further. From the perspective of the organization, the externalization of tacit knowledge into explicit concepts is essential. Finally, the new explicit knowledge created from the various modes would have to be experienced and reinteriorised as new tacit knowledge. Furthermore, Nonaka and Takeuchi pose another way to differentiate knowledge processes in an organization, propose a model for creating knowledge divided into the following five phases: - Sharing tacit knowledge is a process that takes place when persons belonging to different areas of the organization share their skills and experiences as a result of joint work to be done to achieve a common goal . To share their experiences and skills interact with each other face to face dialogues on computers that form and organize themselves in order to jointly develop shared tacit mental models.







M. Martinez