Managing Information Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Managing Information - Essay Example Leibold et al. (2002) assert that during last three decades the world has gone through the important turning period in its economic, political and social history, which is related to the increasing appreciation of new values, such as openness, freedom, interdependency, networking and collaboration. It is accompanied by the acceleration of technological changes and impetuous development of computer and electronic communications. In the organisational context these processes entailed significant shifts in strategic management thinking and implementations: from information to knowledge and wisdom; from bureaucracies to networks; from training / development to learning; from local / national to transnational / global and meta-national; from competitive to collaborative thinking; from single and multi-connective relationships to bio-corporate relationships (Leibold et al. 2002: p.14). All these changes clearly reveal that the current era of the global economy is primarily based on knowled ge and intellectual assets rather than on material and financial assets. This era is often called New Economy or Knowledge Economy (Drucker 1994; Davenport & Prusak 1998), where knowledge is considered as a key organisational asset, which ensures sustainable competitive advantages for companies (Alavi & Leidner 2001). Companies in its turn also represent a new form of organisations, which exploit specific organisational structures and new information technologies, and base their business upon a development of core competencies through knowledge and expertise sharing and organisational learning. This paper is aimed to discuss modern concepts and approaches related to management of knowledge in organisations, and critically assess the role of Knowledge Management in creation of sustainable competitive advantages of enterprises. 3.0 Key Findings 3.1 Supporting Knowledge Management Understanding Knowledge in Organisations Knowledge in organisations is considered as â€Å"any text, fact , example, event, rule, hypothesis, or model that increases understanding or performance in a domain or discipline† (Liebowitz & Beckman 1998: p.49). Another useful definition of knowledge is â€Å"a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insights that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. In organisations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents and repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms† (Davenport & Prusak 1998: p.5). Allee (1997: p.62) explains that when information is involved in the larger context of meaning, when it is analysed and linked with other information, when it is referred to existing patterns, social and cultural biases and interpretations – then it becomes knowledge. So, evidently, knowledge can be organised and classified, having the properties of an object. At the same time, â€Å"knowledge can be viewed as a process of transformation through creation, adaptation, enhancement and application† (Allee 1997: p. 47). Or, in other words, â€Å"knowledge is the process of knowing, a reflexive process that takes data and information, in a social context, mixes the ingredients and factors [experience, judgment, common sense, rules of thumb, values and beliefs, basic truths, context, best practices, emotions, desires] to generate new data, information, and/or knowledge†