Page 58 - Information Management 3rd Edition

Information Management
3.8 The difference between information management and knowledge management
Information management is a pre-planned process including collection, analysing, storing and disseminating, as you have seen earlier in this book. According to the online dictionary, knowledge is “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”. Here already you can see the connection with information. Knowledge management, according to Hajric (2018), is the “systematic management of an organization’s knowledge assets for the purpose of creating value and meeting tactical & strategic requirements; it consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge”. If we add data to this comparison, we see that from data through information to knowledge, there is a probable increase in value and employee contribution. Basically, data that is analysed, becomes information and information that is understood, becomes knowledge.
Pre-pub
Knowledge is embedded in people and they should be managed in a way that
the knowledge they possess is transferred between them with the objective of
improving not only products and services, but also productivity. The product
could potentially be proportional to the quality and type of knowledge that is
transferred. Knowledge is also in the customers and any business should make sure they tap into this source in order to satisfy their needs. Managers must not only manage information, but also the people, internally and externally of the business, who possess the information. Employees should be encouraged to participate in processes of obtaincing all releovant informpation. y
Another term “business knowledge” exists and it refers to strategic assets which includes skills, experiences, capabilities and expert insight. These characteristics are valuable for any business as they shape and guide the activities to ensure
growth and success
and make the best use of it. One key example of business knowledge is what is contained in the policies and procedures. The policies and procedures form part of the business knowledge of ‘how things are done’. Because of the dynamics in business change and quality improvements, policies and procedures are continuously refined to reflect the evolvement of business processes.
Hajric (2018) describes the main differences (Table 3.1) between information management and knowledge management as follows:
Table 3.1 Information management and knowledge management
. Manager
s must realis
e the poten
tial amongst their employees
Information management
Knowledge management
• Data and information (Numbers, facts)
• Technology (Technology driven)
• Explicit (Well-defined, easily
identifiable)
• Know what (Facts)
• Easy to copy (Easily transferable)
• Knowledge (Understanding, wisdom)
• People (Management driven)
• Tacit (Unarticulated, hard to identify)
• Know how (Experience, innovation)
• Hard to copy
(Regarding tacit elements)
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