Information and Communication Technologies: Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is a discipline aimed at enabling individuals in an organization or community to collectively acquire, share, and manage knowledge to [Page 363]achieve common goals. An organization is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to pursue business objectives and is linked to an external environment, such as a corporation, governmental or nongovernmental organization, or university. A community is a group of people who share common values and usually an identity related to location, culture, or occupation, among others.

Knowledge management requires systemic exploitation and development of knowledge assets of an organization or community for learning and continuous improvement. Learning in this context has expanded from the individual to the organizational or community level, placing more emphasis on the externalization of tacit knowledge, creation of new knowledge, and retention of knowledge assets for sustainable development and innovation.

Knowledge management is closely related to the notion of communities of practice. Communities of practice are self-organizing, informal groups whose members regularly share knowledge and learn from each other. They have a strong relationship to the social construction of knowledge. A community of practice is usually characterized by three core elements: mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire.

Knowledge management is primarily a multidisciplinary area of research and practice. Some view the origin of knowledge management in information management, whereas others emphasize the collective construction of knowledge from practice as well as learning in an organizational environment. Management theories contribute to knowledge management by stressing the growing importance of information and explicit knowledge as organizational resources, and highlighting knowledge management as a process to manage intellectual assets of the organization to create a learning organization that can adapt to changes.

Knowledge management can be regarded as a response to changes driven by globalization, advances in information technology, and the emerging knowledge economy. These changes are forcing organizations to seek new ways to strengthen their competitive advantages as continuous innovation becomes a key business goal and knowledge is seen as a core resource. Although knowledge management has become the main competitive strategy for many businesses, educational institutions have started to recognize and respond to their changing role in the knowledge-based society by incorporating knowledge management initiatives into diverse aspects of education and school reform.

This entry begins with a brief overview of the key issues in knowledge management, followed by a discussion of knowledge management’s role in organizational learning. Then, this entry explores the use of information and communication technologies for knowledge management, and concludes with a discussion of technology-supported knowledge management in education.