In this paper, we review the benefits of sketching or ad-hoc, collaborative hand drawings for knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge documentation. We have conducted a comprehensive literature review in the fields of design, psychology, and computer science that documents the multiple advantages of sketch-based approaches for managing knowledge in organizations, especially on the team-level. We argue for the complementary use of this „low-tech knowledge management‟ approach with existing digital infrastructures and tools. The article concludes with a set of propositions for practitioners regarding the use of sketching in different knowledge management contexts and with implications for future research in this area.
Unforeseen Experiences from a Balanced Scorecard Project in the Healthcare Sector
In the context of the Balanced Scorecard development in the Upper Austrian Gesundheits- und Spitals AG (gespag) the methodology of strategy maps was applied in order to build a base for the definition of relevant areas of strategic measures. When applying the methodology it turned out that it is very supportive also from the knowledge management perspective (especially 2nd Generation KM), e.g. for the explication of knowledge, cognitive mapping, the creation of a common-mindset (organisational learning), the storage of information and individual learning about strategy and systemic thinking. Furthermore, it allows organisational knowledge integration meaning that people can integrate both the explicated knowledge in their system or their work, and the appropriate “sense” of the further information provided. The intention of the article is to show that methods of strategic management, and possibly from many other fields, can also be very beneficial in a knowledge management context.
Creating Profound Change and Radically New Knowledge as Core Challenges in Knowledge Management
This paper introduces an alternative approach to innovation: Emergent Innovation. As opposed to radical innovation Emergent Innovation finds a balance and integrates the demand both for radically new knowledge and at the same time for an organic development from within the organization. From a knowledge management perspective one can boil down this problem to the question of how to cope with the new and with profound change in knowledge. This question will be dealt with in the first part of the paper. As an implication the alternative approach of Emergent Innovation will be presented in the second part: this approach looks at innovation as a socio-epistemological process of “learning from the future”.
There are many technologies calling themselves knowledge management systems in the market but most of them deal only with information management. The main difference between them is that knowledge management systems are oriented into people and participated in tacit knowledge capturing. The paper describes set of information technologies which could take part in all process of knowledge management and especially in collecting tacit knowledge.
In this paper we describe a software tool which aims at supporting the interplay between autonomous management of local knowledge within communities and the sharing, negotiation and coordination of knowledge among different (heterogeneous) communities, in order to sustain perspective making and perspective taking leading to innovation. The developed system combines methods for constructing artefacts reflecting the patterns of language use in a community (LanguageMaps) through document clustering and creation of personalised concept networks, with interactive visualisation and with the Reconciler tool for explicit negotiation and alignment of meanings between disparate concepts into ontology-like structures.
SENEKA (Service-Netzwerke für und Weiterbildungsprozesse) is a large-scale entrepreneurial and research programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education. The programme aims not only to improve the management of information flow and knowledge creation, but seeks to re-design processes of innovation and research. The pool of participating companies in this programme consists mainly of SMEs empowering their capabilities and competencies with regards to innovation management. Approximately 30 companies, mainly located in Germany and research institutes from all over Germany are working in different fields of activity seeking to find new methods and tools to improve information flow and knowledge management processes. Recent trends in information and knowledge management describe challenges the participating companies try to meet while developing these new methods and tools.