Opportunities and Challenges for
Information Professionals
Dr Grace Cheng
June 2005

This paper explores how the knowledge generation process is seen in the complementary and parallel concepts of organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management (KM). It then focuses on knowledge integration concepts and practices that are relevant to information professionals.
The author Identifies and highlights opportunities and challenges for information professionals in organizational settings in their support of knowledge integration.

• Information explosion
• Shorter knowledge cycle
• Knowledge-centric economy
• Knowledge – tacit
• Current demographics
• Global competitiveness
• Traditional Taylorist paradigms for management not suitable for rapidly changing and highly complex environments (McDaniel 1997).

In OL and KM

• Parallel development of both – knowledge generation through learning
• No single, unified theory for either
• Broad-based perspectives on concepts and organizational practices
• Insufficient agreement on definitions, approaches, for both etc.

• OL focuses the process through which an organization creates or recreates knowledge.
• KM is often seen as structural management of K creation, transfer & use to support learning by an organization

• Emerged in ’80s
• OL referred to as “changes in the state of knowledge”..Lyles 1992, 1988)
• A metaphor derived from individual learning & applied to whole organization
• Integrate individual learning into organizational learning – constructivist approach to knowledge, an institutionalization process (Berger and
Luckmann 1966; Gergen 1994; Schutz 1971)

• Organizations, like individuals, learn through a cycle
• Cycle starts through a sequence (Candy 1991):
– discrepancy, discomfort, challenge & conflict
– Identify problem/s
– Explore causes
– Research and analyze
– Develop solutions & implement
– Re-orientate & reform
• Reinforced by continuous conversations & practices (McDaniel 1997)

1. Individual & collective learning
2. Process / system
3. Culture / metaphor
4. Knowledge Management
5. Continuous improvement
Source: Wang CL, Ahmed PK 2003. Organisational Learning: a critical review.

• Knowledge of an individual is reflected in his actions, behaviours, decisions
• In organizations, knowledge is represented or embedded in policies, routines and processes.

• Individual learning does not necessarily lead to organizational learning (Ikehara
1999)
• Knowledge between individual and organization may be complementary, but also incongruent to each other

Emerged in mid-80s, KM is:
– Systematic generation, capture and transfer of knowledge and learning 1
– For the application and benefit of the whole organization 1
– Centred on knowledge required to perform the organization’s critical processes & tasks 1
– For creating new products & services 2
– Sustainable competitive advantage for individual & organisation 2
Sources: 1 Elayne Coakes (2003); 2 Harvard Business Review 1999

• From many fields: sociology, psychology, philosophy, information science, etc
• Interrelated focuses:
– people
– information/ content management
– IT
– organizational learning
– processes

• Culture
– Who controls and supports knowledge
– Who creates/adapts knowledge
• Competencies
– To filter and manage information
– To master ever changing technologies
– To keep up-to-date

• Knowledge generation processes
– Acquisition
– Dedicated resources
– Fusion
– Adaptation/innovation
– Knowledge networking
• Knowledge strategies
– Dependent on degree of sense-making & structured or unstructured information processing
– Largely two tracks
• technological (support K creation and sharing capabilities)
• People (support competencies to process & apply information)

1. Structured linear view
• Data ->Information->Knowledge
• Information processing activity
2. Integration, interaction and communication of tacit (expertise/insight in knowledge worker’s mind) and explicit knowledge (in document, databases, etc)

• Workers learn & manage knowledge within the communities of practice
• Learning and KM are most effective when problem-centred
• Effective KM involves visible & traceable learning process
Source: Penuel B, Cohen A. Coming to the Crossroads of Knowledge, Learning and Technology:
Integrating Knowledge Management and Workplace Learning. In: Ackerman, Pipek, Wulf eds
2003. Sharing expertise: beyond knowledge management. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, chapter
3.

For Information Professionals

Capabilities
- People
• Information literacy – educator & be educated
• Facilitate social networks, human connections, team building
• Facilitate learning (novice; experts)
- IT • Information infrastructures
• Research and produce evidence & empirical guidance to build systems that integrate with critical process

Information
& content
Management
• Add value to information
• Directories & expertlocators
• Knowledge representation
• Strengthen knowledge base for decision support

Research & development
• Evaluate KM needs & implementations
• Client focused viewpoint
• Trusted source for sharing

• Communities of practice – Support K creation/innovation activities
– Formal or informal;
– virtual or face-to-face;
– intra-organization or inter-organizational
• Relevant information technologies for sharing & virtual work
– Intranets/ webs
– Portals
– Taxonomies & ontologies
– Open technology standards
– Access management
– Collaboration software (e-mail management, TeamWare/
Groupware, Instant messaging, Voting, Web Conferencing, Wiki, blogs, etc.)
– Search engines…

• Organizational culture barriers
– Trust
– Motivation
• Technology (eg. Explicit writings, databases) cannot replace human interface
• Time constraint
– Normal business activities
– KM activities
• Achievable? Costly?
• Is connectivity enough?
• Measuring benefits of knowledge integration work

• Up-to-date, relevant, readily useable information, easily accessible by those in need
• Open communication & knowledge sharing
• Respect for intellectual property
• Motivation (incentive, reward)
• Continuous learning /training opportunities
• Work with culture, rather than change it
• Instill sense of trust
• Demonstrate real tangible results
• FOCUS ON CRITICAL PROCESS or PROBLEM that contributes to IMPORTANT GOAL/S OF YOUR
ORGANISATION
• Top management support

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply …
Willing is not enough; we must act .”
Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe

• Change alone is unchanging.
• The same road goes both up and down.
• The beginning of a circle is also its end
… adapted from HERAKLIETOS OF EPHESOS

Ackerman, Pipek, Wulf eds 2003. Sharing expertise: beyond knowledge management.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Candy PC 1991. Self-direction for lifelong learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Berger P, Luckmann T 1966. The Social Construction of Knowledge. London: Penguin.
Coakes E 2003. Knowledge management: current issues and challenges. IRM Press.
Gergen KJ 1994. Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP.
Harvard Business Review on knowledge management 1998. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press.
Harvard Business Review on organizational Learning 1999. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press.
Ikehara HT 1999. Implications of Gestalt theory and practice for learning organisation.
The Learning Organisation, 6(2), 63-9.
Nonaka I, Takeuchi K 1995. The knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese
Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Schutz A 1971. Collected Papers. 2 vols. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Sinotte M 2004. Exploration of the field of knowledge management for the library and information professional. Libri v. 54, 190-8