ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT IN
BUSINESS AND ETHICAL
ISSUES IN IS
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

 Knowledge management is a system that allows communication

of vital information within a business or organization.
 Effective knowledge management can help people find the
information they need more quickly and thereby increasing
productivity.
 Employees need to be trained in the ways of capturing,
packaging and categorizing knowledge. And they need the right
hardware and software tools to do that .
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

 a usable knowledge management system is required to maintain a

competitive advantage also.
 knowledge sharing is key to ensuring the smooth flow of business when
introducing new processes and tools, as well as ensuring security and
regulatory compliance.
 organizational learning stays apace with business changes, and that
organizational knowledge is secure.
 An IT self-service model for employees at large frees the IT department
up to truly capitalize on its function as a business partner
Knowledge management process

 Knowledge Creation: During this step, organizations identify and document any
existing or new knowledge that they want to circulate across the company. At the
first phase of the knowledge management life cycle (KMLC), information is created
or acquired internally by knowledge workers, externally through outsourcing, or
purchased from an outside source, and the mechanisms for this phase include self-
reporting, documentation, program, instrumentation, network, knowledge
engineering (Bergeron, 2003).
 Knowledge Storage: During this stage, an information technology system is typically
used to host organizational knowledge for distribution. Information may need to be
formatted in a particular way to meet the requirements of that repository.
 Knowledge Sharing: In this final stage, processes to share knowledge are
communicated broadly across the organization. The rate in which information
spreads will vary depending on organizational culture. Companies that encourage
and reward this behavior will certainly have a competitive advantage over other
ones in their industry.
Knowledge management use
cases
 On-boarding employees: Knowledge management systems help to
address the huge learning curve for new hires. Instead of overwhelming
new hires with a ‘data dump’ in their first weeks, continually support them
with knowledge tools that will give them useful information at any time.
 Day-to-day employee tasks: Enable every employee to have access to
accurate answers and critical information. Access to highly relevant
answers at the right time, for the right person, allows workforces to spend
less time looking for information and more time on activities that drive
business
 Self-serve customer service: Customers repeatedly say they’d prefer to
find an answer themselves, rather than pick up the phone to call support.
When done well, a knowledge management system helps businesses
decrease customer support costs and increase customer satisfaction
Benefits of knowledge
management
 Identification of skill gaps: When teams create relevant documentation around implicit or tacit knowledge or
consolidate explicit knowledge, it can highlight gaps in core competencies across teams. This provides valuable
information to management to form new organizational structures or hire additional resources.
 Make better informed decisions: Knowledge management systems arm individuals and departments with knowledge.
By improving accessibility to current and historical enterprise knowledge, your teams can upskill and make more
information-driven decisions that support business goals.
 Maintains enterprise knowledge: If your most knowledgeable employees left tomorrow, what would your business do?
Practicing internal knowledge management enables businesses to create an organizational memory. Knowledge held
by your long-term employees and other experts, then make it accessible to your wider team.
 Operational efficiencies: Knowledge management systems create a go-to place that enable knowledge workers to
find relevant information more quickly. This, in turn, reduces the amount of time on research, leading to faster
decision-making and cost-savings through operational efficiencies. Increase productivity not only saves time, but
also reduces costs.
 Increased collaboration and communication: Knowledge management systems and organizational cultures work
together to build trust among team members. These information systems provide more transparency among
workers, creating more understanding and alignment around common goals. Engaged leadership and open
communication create an environment for teams to embrace innovation and feedback.
 Data Security: Knowledge management systems enable organizations to customize permission control, viewership
control and the level of document-security to ensure that information is shared only in the correct channels or with
selected individuals. Give your employees the autonomy access knowledge safely and with confidence.
Knowledge management tools

 Document management systems act as a centralized storage system for digital documents, such as
PDFs, images, and word processing files. These systems enhance employee workflows by enabling
easy retrieval of documents, such as lessons learned.
 Content management systems (CMS) are applications which manage web content where end users
can edit and publish content. These are commonly confused with document management systems,
but CMSs can support other media types, such as audio and video.
 Intranets are private networks that exist solely within an organization, which enable the sharing of
enablement, tools, and processes within internal stakeholders. While they can be time-consuming
and costly to maintain, they provide a number of groupware services, such as internal directories
and search, which facilitate collaboration.
 Wikis can be a popular knowledge management tool given its ease of use. They make it easy to
upload and edit information, but this ease can lead to concerns about misinformation as workers
may update them with incorrect or outdated information.
 Data warehouses aggregate data from different sources into a single, central, consistent data store
to support data analysis, data mining, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning. Data is
extracted from these repositories so that companies can derive insights, empowering employees to
make data-driven decisions
Knowledge creation and
acquisition
 The knowledge creation process is oriented towards acquiring and
developing knowledge or replacing existing knowledge within the
organizational tacit and knowledge base.
 Knowledge is either acquired within an organization or gained from
external sources. Knowledge creation consists of initiatives and activities
undertaken towards the generation of new ideas or objects (Mitchell and
Boyle,2010).
 At the first phase of the knowledge management life cycle (KMLC),
information is created or acquired internally by knowledge workers,
externally through outsourcing, or purchased from an outside source,
and the mechanisms for this phase include self-reporting,
documentation, program, instrumentation, network, knowledge
engineering (Bergeron, 2003).
Knowledge Modification

 The knowledge modification process is based on managing an organization’s

internal and external knowledge and the conversion of this knowledge in an
accessible and usable form using information technology and information
management skills. Integration, combination, structure, coordination,
conversion, editing, review, approval or rejection, storage, organization,
maintenance, cataloguing, classification, retrieval and organizational memory
consist of major activities of the modification process. (Davenport & Prusak
1998; Bhatt, 2001; Duffy, 2001; Gold et al., 2001; Grover & Davenport, 2001;
Carine, 2003).
 The information through the modification phase is modified to meet the future
needs of the knowledge management. The support mechanisms of this phase
include editing tools, tracking, security, and version control (Bergeron, 2003).
Knowledge Use

 This is oriented towards the actual use of knowledge. Employees should

collaborate to use knowledge for the benefits of their organizations
through acquire, accumulate, seek, create, generate and capture
knowledge (Daud and Yusoff, 2010).
 The range of potential uses for knowledge is virtually unlimited
depending upon the needs and activities of the knowledge workers and
management within the organization (Bergeron, 2003).
 Feedback system, tracking system, dissemination technology, and
search technologies are the main support mechanisms for knowledge
use phase (Bergeron,2003).
Knowledge Archiving

 Knowledge archiving involves the storing of the information in an

appropriate form that ensures the security and access to this
information in the future, and this happen through information
technologies, controlled vocabularies, libraries, controlled environment,
and maintenance programs (Bergeron, 2003).
 The organizational memory resides in various forms such as electronic
databases, written documents, codified knowledge in expert systems,
organizational procedures and processes, and tacit knowledge located in
individuals brain (Alavi and Leidner,2001).
Knowledge Transfer

 Knowledge transfer is the movement of knowledge from the point of

creation or codification to the point to use (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995;
Holtham & Courtney, 1998; Alavi & Leidner, 2001).
 Knowledge transfer is ‘‘a process of exchange of explicit or tacit
knowledge between two agents, during which one agent purposefully
receives and uses the knowledge provided by another’’.
 In order to increase the value of the information and to enable
knowledge sharing, information should be transferred freely within the
organizational context using various types of media (Bergeron, 2003).
The phase of Physical transfer, and networks are the support
mechanisms for knowledge transfer.
Knowledge
Translation/Repurposing
 Knowledge Translation/Repurposing
 Here the information is translated from its original form to a form more
suitable for the user (e.g. from numerical to textual form). This simplifies
the information to suit the recipients’ specific requirements. This process
take place through outsource expertise, and information technologies
(Bergeron, 2003).
Knowledge Access

 The successful KM systems provide continuous access for authorized

users through the use of query support mechanisms. Corporate policy,
information technology, and librarian are the chief support mechanisms
of knowledge access (Bergeron, 2003).
Knowledge Disposal

 Some information will be of little or no value in the future and therefore

requires to be destroyed or stored elsewhere through established
processes and technologies in order to keep the standard body of
knowledge at a manageable level (Bergeron, 2003). Clear, coherent
procedures are applied when selecting information for disposal or
disposing them in order that valuable information does not end up being
destroyed
Ethical issues

Some of the major ethical issues faced by Information Technology (IT) are:
 1. Personal Privacy
 2. Access Right
 3. Harmful Actions
 4. Patents
 5. Copyright
 6. Trade Secrets
 7. Liability
 8. Piracy
Personal Privacy

 It is an important aspect of ethical issues in information technology. IT

facilitates the users having their own hardware, operating system and
software tools to access the servers that are connected to each other
and to the users by a network. Due to the distribution of the network on
a large scale, data or information transfer in a big amount takes place
which leads to the hidden chances of disclosing information and
violating the privacy of any individuals or a group. It is a major challenge
for IT society and organizations to maintain the privacy and integrity of
data. Accidental disclosure to inappropriate individuals and provisions to
protect the accuracy of data also comes in the privacy issue.
Access Right

 The second aspect of ethical issues in information technology is access

right. Access right becomes a high priority issue for the IT and
cyberspace with the great advancement in technology. E-commerce and
Electronic payment systems evolution on the internet heightened this
issue for various corporate organizations and government agencies.
Network on the internet cannot be made secure from unauthorized
access. Generally, the intrusion detection system are used to determine
whether the user is an intruder or an appropriate user.
Harmful Actions

 Harmful actions in the computer ethics refers to the damage or negative

consequences to the IT such as loss of important information, loss of
property, loss of ownership, destruction of property and undesirable
substantial impacts. This principle of ethical conduct restricts any
outsiders from the use of information technology in manner which leads
to any loss to any of the users, employees, employers and the general
public. Typically, these actions comprises of the intentional destruction
or alteration of files and program which drives a serious loss of
resources. To recover from the harmful actions extra time and efforts are
required to remove the viruses from the computer systems.
Patents

 It is more difficult to deal with these types of ethical issues. A patent can
preserve the unique and secret aspect of an idea. Obtaining a patent is
very difficult as compared with obtaining a copyright. A thorough
disclosure is required with the software. The patent holder has to reveal
the full details of a program to a proficient programmer for building a
program.
Copyright

 The information security specialists are to be familiar with necessary

concept of the copyright law. Copyright law works as a very powerful
legal tool in protecting computer software, both before a security breach
and surely after a security breach. This type of breach could be the
mishandling and misuse of data, computer programs, documentation
and similar material. In many countries, copyright legislation is
amended or revised to provide explicit laws to protect computer
programs.
Trade Secrets

 Trade secrets is also a significant ethical issue in information technology.

A trade secret secures something of value and usefulness. This law
protects the private aspects of ideas which is known only to the discover
or his confidants. Once disclosed, trade secret is lost as such and is only
protected by the law for trade secrets. The application of trade secret
law is very broad in the computer range, where even a slight head start
in the advancement of software or hardware can provide a significant
competitive influence.
Liability

 One should be aware of the liability issue in making ethical decisions.

Software developer makes promises and assertions to the user about
the nature and quality of the product that can be restricted as an
express warranty. Programmers or retailers possess the legitimate to
determine the express warranties. Thus they have to be practical when
they define any claims and predictions about the capacities, quality and
nature of their software or hardware. Every word they say about their
product may be as legally valid as stated in written. All agreements
should be in writing to protect against liability. A disclaimer of express
warranties can free a supplier from being held responsible of informal,
speculative statements or forecasting made during the agreement
stages.
Piracy

 Piracy:
 Piracy is an activity in which the creation of illegal copy of the software
is made. It is entirely up to the owner of the software as to whether or
not users can make backup copies of their software. As laws made for
copyright protection are evolving, also legislation that would stop
unauthorized duplication of software is in consideration. The software
industry is prepared to do encounter against software piracy. The courts
are dealing with an increasing number of actions concerning the
protection of software.