Foreword


With remarkable regularity a ‘new idea’ surfaces in the management community. Often it results from repackaging a long-lived management issue or truth. Conversely, the current vogue, Knowledge Management, is a genuinely new concept. In summary this involves the processes that ensure all the knowledge, explicit and implicit, that exists in the organisation is organised in a way that enables it to be accessed quickly and easily. This allows for distributed decision making so that new actions, products and services can be built from it at a pace that outstrips similar use by others. Knowledge management simultaneously meets the need to make information freely available while also enabling those with full understanding to move swiftly ahead, thereby rendering the earlier knowledge redundant. In today’s fast paced environment, it offers an essential market edge for individuals and for their organisation.

Knowledge management is frequently linked with technology, specifically computer or information technology. IT developments such as database management, bulletin board systems and web technology offer the potential for information to be gathered continuously from a vast array of sources. Also this ensures that it can be accessed in a similar way giving rise to countless permutations of inferences and new possibilities. At the same time, some researchers and gurus, mindful of the capacity of the human mind to make connections between apparently unrelated facts, have urged the study of human aspects of knowledge management rather than concentrating solely on computerisation. The focus here is on collecting the unwritten stories and mor s of organisational experience. The shared assumptions, leaps in understanding and intuition that come from standing simple information on its head, may prompt a ‘eureka moment’. In turn, this leads to breakthrough thinking.

Nevertheless, most authors and speakers about knowledge management focus on the computer systems that assist the collection of knowledge or, more accurately, information. In this book, rather than relying on technology to manage knowledge as if it were an entity in itself, Christina Evans correctly focuses on human interaction – the need to manage for knowledge: that is to organise people, such that they gather and act on the knowledge that is inherently available to them. By directing her attention specifically to HR, she puts this function at the heart of the business since leveraging knowledge effectively is a vital strategic goal of all organisations today. Clearly and directly Christina sets out the role for HR in building a culture where harvesting knowledge as opposed to simply gathering information is the norm. She shows why managing for knowledge is important, how to do it and gives practical examples. She offers guidance to encourage HR specialists to reinvent their role, to become full business partners. Most significantly, she demonstrates the crucial importance for HR to work effectively with knowledge management, the concept and the technical support, in order to create organisations that are successful tomorrow as well as today.

Val Hammond Chief Executive, Roffey Park Institute




Managing the Knowledge - HR's Strategic Role
Managing for Knowledge: HRs Strategic Role
ISBN: 0750655666
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 175

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