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Karl Sveiby is a veteran of studies in knowledge management and is acknowledged as being the first person to write about the ‘knowledge organization’. [1] He is an Honorary Professor at the Macquarie School of Management in Sydney, and owner of his own firm of consultants, Sveiby Knowledge Management.
As one of the original thinkers on knowledge management, Sveiby has developed a unique understanding of the subject and its evolution. Sveiby uses a 2x2 matrix to help describe different approaches to knowledge management that he has observed since the 1980s.
Source: ‘What is Knowledge Management?’ at www.sveiby.com
Sveiby has observed that organizations implement knowledge management initiatives at either the individual or organizational level.
They do so using one of two main approaches, which Sveiby labels the IT-track and the people-track.
Sveiby describes the IT-track of knowledge management as the management of information. Those that specialize in the IT-track generally have IT backgrounds and usually develop complicated systems to handle huge amounts of information. This form of knowledge management has come under fire in the business press over the last few years for being over-complicated and expensive, and has even been labeled as a trick to ‘reinvent the wheel’. Although the IT approach is theoretically sound, firms had difficulty coping with the practical implications, and many which invested heavily in these types of systems have yet to see the benefits.
Sveiby describes the people-track as the management of people. The theory underpinning this type of approach is usually based on psychology, philososphy and management theory. This approach is gradually becoming more popular with consultants as organizations become weary of over-complicated technology-based solutions. Consultants taking the people approach generally view knowledge as a process rather than an entity. Sveiby views this track as potentially the most fruitful. He believes that only through developing people can an organization harness the full potential of its knowledge base.
Sveiby notes that the difference in the two approaches highlights the difference in understanding of knowledge management itself. Although many view the subject to be approaching maturity, there is no universally understood description or definition. Consequently, the two broad schools of thought tend to confuse each other (and those studying the subject) by using separate sets of terms and descriptions.
Sveiby himself regards the term knowledge management as misleading. He sees knowledge as a ‘human faculty’ which cannot be managed directly and prefers the phrase ‘knowledge focused’ to describe organizations that are keen to harness the power of their intellectual capital. Using a term he coined in the 1980s, he calls these organizations ‘knowledge organizations’.
Knowledge organizations are focused on developing the quality of understanding, interaction and ‘bandwidth’ of the human infrastructure. Sveiby defines bandwidth as the “trust between people and between management and employees”. Just as the IT infrastructure has been heavily invested in by many organizations to manage information, Sveiby believes that more investment should be made in organizations’ human interaction.
Sveiby has spent considerable time amassing a bank of companies that are leading the way in initiatives for managing knowledge. These initiatives can be described using one of three main headings:
1. External Structure Initiatives
Sveiby describes these initiatives as those that attempt to gain competitive advantage by collecting information and knowledge from customers.
2. Internal Structure Initiatives
These initiatives attempt to build a culture which encourages the sharing of knowledge within the organization.
3. Competence Initiatives
Sveiby describes these initiatives as those that have developed careers based on competencies in knowledge management.
Sveiby remains a leading thinker on the subject of knowledge management. Along with Peter Drucker, he was one of the first to acknowledge the importance of knowledge as a competitive asset, and the first to define and describe what modern organizations aspire to be: knowledge organizations.
References[1] Sveiby, K., and Risling, A. (1986).
The Knowhow Company [online]. Liber. Available
here. [Accessed 24 August 2023.]
