Information and Knowledge: Appunti di Sistemi

Chapter 14. Information and knowledge for business decision making

Knowledge management

Knowledge management is a process that allows organizations to generate value from their knowledge-based assets. This implies capturing and documenting what employees and other stakeholders know and developing systems that make it easier to share and use the knowledge. Organizations have begun to use information and communication technologies to help manage knowledge in order to make better decisions, improve customer service and processes, increase innovation, and intellectual capital.

Types of knowledge

The explicit knowledge can be divided into two categories: it can be expressed easily and so it is easy to manage and store. On the other hand, tacit experiential knowledge is not easy to communicate as experience. The knowledge resources can be divided into:

• Tacit conceptual knowledge that can be shared through common experience or communication.
• Systemic routine knowledge, explicit knowledge like symbols and so on.
• Explicit knowledge that has been packaged like a database.
• Tacit knowledge that is in the organization’s practices.

Knowledge management process

The knowledge management process is a cycle; in fact, the creation of knowledge restarts a cycle. It is made up of:

• Creation - There are four processes by which knowledge is created: Socialization (sharing tacit knowledge through communication or experience), Externalization (tacit to explicit), Combination (combining externalized explicit knowledge to concepts, models, or theories), Internalization (explicit to tacit and internalized by individuals). Knowledge can also be purchased by hiring expertise or acquisitions.
• Capture - Methods include interviews, observing groups, focus groups, task analysis, and so on.
• Codify - Converting tacit and explicit knowledge into a usable form. This conversion can happen through cognitive maps, decision tables, and decision trees.
• Store and retrieve - Knowledge can be stored in a variety of ways.
• Transfer and apply - To manage knowledge transfer, you must consider the sources of knowledge and the media used to transfer the knowledge.

Knowledge management technologies

Repositories have helped to manage knowledge. Some of them are:

• Communication-based tools that allow easy find and retrieve documents.
• Executive information systems and dashboards like social networks.
• Expert systems with experts guiding employees.

Decision support system (DSS)

Decision support systems (DSS) are computer-based systems that help decision-makers use data and models to solve semi-structured or unstructured problems. The DSS is divided into four categories:

• Data-driven DSS - Retrieval and manipulation of data that is stored in an organization’s data stores.
• Model-driven DSS - Provide access and manipulation of analytical models.
• Document-driven DSS