Putting Knowledge Networks Into Action

The concepts and theories of knowledge management and networks are well documented. Yet there are few, if any, guidelines on how to implement knowledge management within an organization, especially focusing on how to manage knowledge in a network environment. This book visualizes paths that allow one to make connections between theories, concepts and concrete actions. It shows how to integrate these different roots into a holistic view on managing knowledge in networks. It develops a methodology which will support the reader to move concrete steps forward towards building and maintaining knowledge networks in his organization.

The concepts and theories of knowledge management and networks are well documented. Yet there are few, if any, guidelines on how to implement knowledge management within an organization, especially focusing on how to manage knowledge in a network environment. Putting Knowledge Networks into Action visualizes paths that allow one to make connections between theories, concepts and concrete actions. It shows how to integrate these different roots into a holistic view on managing knowledge in networks. It develops a methodology that will help the reader move towards building and maintaining knowledge networks in his or her organization.

Knowledge management (KM) is about managing the lifecycle of knowledge consisting of creating, storing, sharing and applying knowledge. Two main approaches towards KM are codification and personalization. The first focuses on capturing knowledge using technology and the latter on the process of socializing for sharing and creating knowledge. Social media are becoming very popular as individuals and also organizations learn how to use it. The primary applications of social media in a business context are marketing and recruitment. But there is also a huge potential for knowledge management in these organizations. For example, wikis can be used to collect organizational knowledge and social networking tools, which leads to exchanging new ideas and innovation. The interesting part of social media is that, by using them, one immediately starts to generate content that can be useful for the organization. Hence, they naturally combine the codification and personalisation approaches to KM. This book aims to provide an overview of new and innovative applications of social media and to report challenges that need to be solved. One example is the watering down of knowledge as a result of the use of organizational social media (Von Krogh, 2012).

"This book illustrates, compares, and discusses models, perspectives, and approaches involved in the distribution, administration, and transmission of knowledge across organizations"--Provided by publisher.

This collection of papers from the 2007 International Conference on Knowledge Management, organized by the Executive Academy of the Vienna University of Economics jointly with the International Knowledge Management Society (IKMS), the Austrian Society for Technology Policy (™GTP), the Platform Knowledge Management (PWM), the Society of Learning (SoL Austria), the Competence Centre for Knowledge Management Linz, the Austrian Computing Society (OCG), Business Innovation Consulting (BIC-Austria) and Knowledge Management Associates (KMA), represents recent outstanding work by researchers and practitioners in the field of knowledge management.