Typology

Definition

Source

Acquired knowledge

Knowledge sourced from outside the organisation. While it may be employed for the organisation’s strategic purpose, its ownership remains outside the organisation’s domain of operations. In some cases, an organisation may purchase or graft such knowledge to its purpose for a period of time.

Common forms of such relationships will include training, contract work or consultancies.

May be rented or ‘grafted’ from an external source. This may be through formal relationships (eg. research laboratories with manufacturers), outsourcing partnerships, labour hire firms, contracts or consultancies.

Adapted

Such knowledge results from experience in a new working or operational context. The organisation and work groups adapt to new situations and conditions and so acquire the capacity (competencies, new processes or technologies) to operate in the market place. Such knowledge also enhances agility and the ability to remain competitive.

An example of the source of adapted knowledge may be retailers or companies moving from traditional approaches to business and the new requirements to trade online or complete business to business transactions.

It could also involve moving across cultures or markets in different countries.

Dedicated

Dedicated knowledge results when an organisation sets aside some staff members or process resources to develop within the business for a specific purpose. These dedicated resources balance the need to generate specific competence in one knowledge set, while also ensuring that they do not become parallel to the organisation to such an extent that knowledge cannot be integrated into the organisation’s knowledge management and information systems.

Sources may include a dedicated research team, technical experts within a work group implementing a new IT system, specialist teams or teams built for particular purposes.

Often teams of dedicated knowledge are built to commercialise or realise an immediate, short term strategic opportunity.

Fused

Bringing together people with different perspectives to work on the same project can create fused knowledge. Their very difference may be the catalyst for generating new knowledge or insights. In some cases the purpose is simply to have individuals who hold tacit knowledge or such highly specialised knowledge together in an environment whereby they can share and ‘fuse’ knowledge together. It is not uncommon for conflict to exist in such situations.

After merging its training and documentation departments, one developer of ERP software also sought to fuse their processes into one. The merged group achieved this goal but the manager noted that reaching the single process involved substantial conflict as members of one discipline would challenge the core beliefs of the other as the first would question a phase in the proposed process.

Networked

Networked knowledge is one of the most important and poorly understood forms of knowledge within the corporate world. It exists in the network of interactions and understandings created when people share information with one another formally or informally. Knowledge networking, where professional or communities-of-practice gather together or share a discipline (such as in programming, marketing, human resource development, etc.), is most often viewed as the basis for networked knowledge. This is a limited view.

Networked knowledge for an organisation exists not so much because individual employees can share information with one another and those out side the organisation, nor because they may generate new ideas and knowledge. The knowledge value of networks resides in their existence. It resides in the potential to utilise network interactions or the information resident in multiple sources to generate relevant knowledge not held by the organisation.

In a world where adequate time and space cannot be devoted to creation or acquisition of all knowledge that may be important to an organisation, networks are critical.

Sources should include interaction of community groups, individual and work groups with formal (e.g. professional associations, health and safety groups, supply chain partnerships, government regulatory or planning groups and bodies, etc.) and informal groups outside the workplace (e.g. sporting groups, local, hobby groups, etc).

Networked knowledge also resides in the social fabric of the location. This may include political stability and the well being of the work force at a particular workplace. Knowledge sourced in these settings is often studied as ‘social capital’.