On Knowledge Management (original) (raw)

It is widely acknowledged that knowledge is one of the most important assets of today’s organizations. According to Davenport and Prusak (1998), knowledge is often a company’s greatest competitive advantage in a global economy. How to support the company’s knowledge-intensive work processes (e.g., quality support, product design or strategic planning) is therefore becoming a vital issue in many organizations worldwide. Identification, analysis and characterization of the knowledge-intensive work processes become essential in order to qualify a discussion of how to support knowledge management processes. This chapter presents, discusses and reflects upon findings from a study of how highly skilled actors manage information and knowledge, i.e., how information is gathered from a wide range of sources, structured according to needs and relevance for the users, and disseminated to the relevant suppliers in the organization. The aim of the chapter is two-folded: first, to contribute to t...