Glossary of Knowledge Management Terms
Links to other KM Glossaries
Balanced Scorecard System (BCS):
method of measuring performance of a firm beyond the typical financial
measures. Links corporate goals and direct performance measures
in a framework specific to a firm, and is one method of measuring
the impact of knowledge management. (2)
Best Practice: those practices
that have produced outstanding results in another situation and
that could be adapted for our situation. (2)
Calculated Intangible Value:
an "elegant way to put a dollar value on intangible assets" uses
a measure of the company's ability to outperform an average competitor
that has similar tangible assets as the firm's value of intangible
assets. Uses the following steps: 1. Calculate average pretax
earnings for three years; 2. Go to the balance sheet and get the
average year-end tangible assets for three years; 3. Divide earnings
by assets to get the return on assets. 4. For the same three years,
find the industry's average ROA; 5. Calculate the "excess return"
by multiplying the firm's assets by the industry ROA and subtracting
them from the firm's pretax earnings; 6) calculate the three year
average income tax rate and multiply it by the excess return,
this results in the premium attributable to intangible assets;
7) calculate the net present value of the premium by dividing
the premium by the company's cost of capital. (7)
Case Based Reasoning: a branch
of artificial intelligence that attempts to combine the power
of narrative with the codification of knowledge on computers.
Involves extraction of knowledge from a series of narratives,
or cases, about the problem. (1)
Collaborative Tools: tools such
as groupware that enable both structured and free-flow sharing
of knowledge and best practices. An example is Lotus Notes. (2)
Communities of Practice: aka
affinity groups; A) informal networks and forums, where tips are
exchanged and ideas generated. (7)
B) a group of professionals, informally
bound to one another through exposure to a common class of problems,
common pursuit of solutions, and thereby themselves embodying
a store of knowledge. (8)
Core Capabilities: A) constitute
a competitive advantage for a firm; they have built up over time
and cannot be easily imitated. They are distinct from both supplemental
and enabling capabilities, neither of which is sufficiently superior
to those of competitors to offer a sustainable advantage. (6);
B) bestow a competitive advantage on
a company . .. . distinctive, firm-specific, or organizational
competencies; resource deployments; or invisible assets. (6)
Core Rigidities: refers to the
idea that a firm'ss strengths are also – simultaneously
– its weaknesses. The dimensions that distinguish a company
competitively have grown up over time as an accumulation of activities
and decisions that focus on one kind of knowledge at the expense
of others. Companies, like people, cannot be skillful at everything.
Therefore, core capabilities both advantage and disadvantage a
company. (6)
Customer Capital: the value of
an organization's relationships with the people with whom it does
business, or the value of its [the companies] franchise, its ongoing
relationships with the people or organizations to which it sells.
(7)
Data: A) set of discrete, objective
facts about events. Data is transformed into information by adding
value through context, categorization, calculations, corrections,
and condensation. (1);
B) facts and figures, without context
and interpretation. (2)
Enabling Capabilities: necessary
[to enter a market] but not sufficient in themselves to competitively
distinguish a company. (6)
Enablers of Knowledge Management:
systems and infrastructures which ensure knowledge is created,
captured, shared, and leveraged. These include culture, technology,
infrastructure, and measurement. (2)
Experience: refers to what we
have done and what has happened to us in the past. (1)
Explicit Knowledge: formal/codified
. . . comes in the form of books, documents, white papers, databases,
and policy manuals. (2)
Human Capital: the capabilities
of the individuals required to provide solutions to customers.
(7)
Information: A) a message, usually
in the form of a document or an audible or visible communication
. . . meant to change the way the receiver perceives something,
to have an impact on his judgment and behavior . . . it'ss
data that makes a difference. (1);
B) patterns in the data. (2)
Intellectual Capital: refers
to the commercial value of trademarks, licenses, brand names,
formulations, and patents. (2)
Knowledge: A) a fluid mix of
framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert
insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating
new experiences and information. It originates and is applied
in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded
not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational
routines, processes, practices, and norms. Key concepts of knowledge
are experience, truth, judgment, and rules of thumb. (1);
B) actionable information. (2);
C) a defined body of information . .
. depending on the definition, the body of information might consist
of facts, opinions, ideas, theories, principles, and models (or
other frameworks) . . .. also refers to a person'ss state
of being with respect to some body of information. These states
include ignorance, awareness, familiarity, understanding, facility,
and so on. (4);
D) the integration of ideas, experience,
intuition, skill, and lessons learned that has the potential to
create value for a business, its employees, its products and services,
its customers and ultimately its shareholders by informing decisions
and improving actions. (5)
Knowledge Interrogators: aka
corporate librarian and knowledge integrator; person responsible
for managing the content of organizational knowledge as well as
its technology. [they] keep the database orderly, categorize and
format documents and chucking the obsolete, and connect the users
with the information they seek. (7)
Knowledge Management: A) make
an organization'ss knowledge stores more accessible and useful.
(3);
B) a business activity with two primary
aspects: (1) treating the knowledge component of business activities
as an explicit concern of business reflected in strategy, policy,
and practice at all levels of the organization [and (2)] making
a direct connection between an organization's intellectual
assets is both explicit [recorded] and tacit [personal know-how]
is and positive business results. (4);
C) conscious strategy of getting the
right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping
people share and put information into action in ways that strive
to improve organizational performance. (2)
Learning Organization: term popularized
by Peter Senge's the Fifth Discipline meaning a corporate culture
that cherishes continuous improvement.
Market-to-Book Ratio: common
method of valuing knowledge intensive companies. Equal to (price
per share X total number of shares outstanding) divided by book
equity, which is the equity portion of a company's balance sheet.
(7)
Rules of Thumb: shortcuts to
solutions to new problems that resemble problems previously solved
by experienced workers. (1)
Signature Skill: an ability by
which a person prefers to identify himself or herself professionally.
(6)
Structural Capital: A)_legal
rights to ownership: technologies, inventions, data, publications,
and processes [that] can be patented, copyrighted, or shielded
by trade-secret laws. (7)
B) strategy and culture, structures
and systems, organizational routines and procedures - assets that
are often far more extensive and valuable than the codified ones.
(7)
Supplemental Capabilities: those
that add value to core capabilities but that could be imitated.
(6)
Tacit Knowledge: A) [knowledge]
developed and internalized by the knower over a long period of
time . . . incorporates so much accrued and embedded learning
that its rules may be impossible to separate from how an individual
acts. (1);
B) informal/uncodified . . . found in
the heads of employees, the experience of customers, the memories
of past vendors . . . highly experiential, difficult to document
in any detail, ephemeral and transitory. (2)
Technological Capability: term
used to encompass the system of activities, physical systems,
skills and knowledge bases, managerial systems of education and
reward, and values that create a special advantage for a company
or line of business. (6)
Value Proposition: the logical
link between action and payoff that knowledge mangement must create
to be effective. Customer intimacy, product-to-market excellence,
and operational excellence are examples. (2)
Sources:
(1) Working Knowledge, Thomas
H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, Harvard Business School Press,
1998
(2) If Only We Knew What We Know,
Carla O'Dell and C. Jackson Grayson, Jr., The Free Press, 1998
(3) Moore,
John, Knowledge Management 101
(4) Barkley, Rebecca O. and Murray,
Phillip C., What is Knowledge Management?
(5) http://www.km-review.com/knowledge/articles/01i.asp
(6) Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building
and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, Dorothy Leonard,
Harvard Business School Press, 1995.
(7) Intellectual Capital, Thomas
A. Stewart, Doubleday, 1997
(8) Brook Manville with McKinsey &
Co. as found in Intellectual Capital
LINKS TO OTHER
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT GLOSSARIES:
http://www.bus.utexas.edu/kman/glossary.asp
http://knowledgecreators.com/km/kes/glossary.asp
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is213/s99/Projects/P9/web_site/glossary.asp
http://www.fourthwavegroup.com/
http://www.ktiworld.com/pdf/kmglossary.pdf
**Extremely detailed**
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/ressources/eglossp.asp
http://hale.pepperdine.edu/~gyperry/km1/glossary.aspl
FAQ ABOUT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT:
http://www.bus.utexas.edu/kman/answers.asp
http://www.sveiby.com.au/FAQ.asp
LINKS TO TECHNOLOGY GLOSSARIES:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/glossary.aspl
http://www.squareonetech.com/glosaryf.aspl
http://www.pctechguide.com/glossary/glossary.asp
http://www.euro.net/innovation/Management_Base/Mantec.Dictionary..aspl
http://www.ultra160-scsi.com/dictionary/dictionary.shtml
http://www.dslcenter.com/glossary.asp
http://www.wcom.com/tools-resources/communications_library/http://www.ispmenu.com/
http://www.oasismanagement.com/TECHNOLOGY/GLOSSARY/
http://www.netlingo.com/
http://www.lawsocnsw.asn.au/technology/faq/faq-Glossari.aspl
http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/surfschool/lingo/lingotoc.aspl
http://www.jaderiver.com/glossary.asp
http://ww.webpromote.com/tools/glossary.asp
http://www.gnofn.org/~tlewis/glossary.asp
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.aspl
http://www.ugeek.com/glossary/glossary_search.cgi
Other languages:
http://cadenza.org/search_engine_terms/
Multiple languages
http://www.info.gov..hk/itsd/glossary/ea.asp
English/Chinese