Summary

This chapter has discussed the key economic, technological and social changes that collectively have led to information and knowledge becoming a key source of competitive advantage. With the increasing emphasis on service, as opposed to manufacturing, innovation and speed to market have become key differentiators in today’s global business world.

The ability to learn to do new things (i.e. products, services, processes) and then deliver more quickly than competitors is crucial. To do this organisations and individuals need to become better at information management, as well as managing different types of knowledge: ‘know how’, ‘know who’ and ‘know why’.

In many organisations there is still confusion about what managing knowledge is really about. This has caused confusion regarding responsibilities for managing an organisation’s knowledge. For organisations to move forward on their knowledge management journey there needs to be greater acknowledgement that:

Knowledge resides in people, not in systems, although systems contain valuable data and information that can help the knowledge process, and

Knowledge creation is fundamentally a social process, it is created through the interactions between individuals as they go about their daily lives.