Coping with Continuous Change in the Business Environment: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Technology

Aimed at knowledge management professionals and students in the field of knowledge management, information science, information systems and software engineering, the book provides answers to the 'what-is' and 'why-is' questions with regard to knowledge management. It investigates the concepts and elements, the drivers, and challenges involved in knowledge management. In the second part of the book the 'How' and 'With-what' characteristics of knowledge management are covered. Although knowledge management is primarily concerned with non-technical issues, this book concentrates on the technical issues and challenges. A new technology framework for knowledge management is proposed to position and relate the different knowledge management technologies as well as the two key applications of knowledge management, namely knowledge portals and knowledge discovery (including text mining). Key Features: 1. Best practices for a number of knowledge management issues are discussed 2. A new technology framework for knowledge management is proposed to position and relate the different knowledge management technologies 3. Written by internationally acknowledged KM researchers and practitioners The Authors: Dr Antonie Botha gained nearly 30 years of experience during his engagement with IBM. He is currently an independent IT Architect and IT Consultant, specialising in enterprise and integration architecting and knowledge management. Prof Dr Derrick Kourie is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Prof Dr Retha Snyman gained many years of experience during her engagements with various information service organisations. She is responsible for postgraduate student supervision in the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria. Readership: The book is aimed at knowledge management practitioners as well as knowledge management, information science, information systems and software engineering students at undergraduate and post-graduate level. Contents: Introduction - the new challenging business environment; the knowledge management idea Knowledge perspectives and concepts - miscellaneous insights about knowledge and why knowledge should be managed Knowledge management perspectives - conceptual, process, technology and implementation Intellectual capital - managing different forms of intellectual capital; intellectual capital domains Organisational learning and learning organisations - from organisational learning to the knowledge enabled organisation Knowledge management and Communities of Practice (CoPs) - knowledge workplace; CoPs: the organisational learning space Knowledge management best practices - best or worst practices today? A model for best practice transfer Knowledge management technology - what knowledge management technologies can do; what knowledge management technologies cannot do; positioning knowledge management and e-business Knowledge Management Technology Framework (KMTF) - KMTF enablers and technologies; KMTF applications KMTF infrastructure - communication infrastructure; knowledge bases, knowledge harvesting process.