Brief Inventory of Models for Knowledge Management in Organizations

Knowledge, an intangible asset of the organization, has been identified as a key element of organizations and society to achieve competitive advantages. Given this reality, a new approach has emerged within business management: knowledge management. As a tool to represent this phenomenon in a simplified, summarized, symbolic, schematic way; delimit any of its dimensions; allow approximate vision; describe processes and structures, orient strategies; provide important data; Knowledge management models appeared. Some of the models developed for knowledge management are reviewed and its principles and contributions are presented.

Keywords: Knowledge management, models.

ABSTRACT

The knowledge, an intangible asset of organization, has been identified as a key item of the organizations and the society to achieve competitive advantages. Facing this reality, a new approach within the entrepreneurial management, knowledge management, has arisen. The knowledge management models appeared as a tool to represent this phenomenon in a simplified, summarized, symbolic and schematic way; to define some of their dimensions; to allow an approximate vision; to describe processes and structures, to orient strategies; and to contribute with important data. Some of the models developed for the management of knowledge are reviewed and its principles and contributions are exposed.

Knowledge, an intangible asset of an organization, has been identified as a key element for achieving competitive advantages, even above the tangible ones. This has led to the emergence of a new approach within business management: knowledge management.

As a tool to represent this phenomenon in a simplified, summarized, symbolic, schematic way; delimit any of its dimensions; allow approximate vision; describe processes and structures, orient strategies; provide important data; Knowledge management models appeared.

It is appropriate to point out that in the literature there are as many models as authors have studied the subject; all with common elements and differentiators, from their own contributions.

Next, some of the main models for knowledge management in the literature on the subject will be reviewed.

Methods

With the objective of obtaining a coherent and integral vision of the different existing models of knowledge management, the accessible literature on the subject under study was reviewed. In order to locate the relevant works available on the Internet, the well-known Google search engine, the journal Information Sciences, was published by the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information (IDICT) of Cuba; as well as other unpublished sources of information such as diploma work carried out at the Faculty of Communication of the University of Havana.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

According to the documents consulted, there are two ways to approach knowledge management in the different models because some are based on the measurement of intellectual capital and others on the management of knowledge itself.

This makes it necessary to address knowledge management and intellectual capital first, because both concepts are ambiguously defined in the literature and it is difficult to recognize their differences.

From the concepts offered by different authors: Artiles, 1 Ugando, 2 (Ponjuán Dante G.. Information Management. 2001. Unpublished observations), it can be said that intellectual capital is the sum of human, structural and relational capital. They are all those elements and forces, not tangible, including tacit and explicit knowledge (brands, patents, software, etc.), that within a specific strategic framework, lead to the creation of value of physical, tangible assets, and influence directly in the added value of organizations. It is the capital that resides in people’s heads. Try to convert explicit knowledge of the organization into measurable monetary benefits.

The resources of an organization can be classified as tangible or intangible. Intangible assets are those that have value without being material or physical and are located in human beings or are obtained from the processes, systems and culture of the organization.

Intellectual capital is composed of the knowledge of the organization and represents the intangible assets of a company, namely:

• Human capital: is the value of knowledge created by the people who make up the organization; in this, the tacit and explicit knowledge of the organization resides. The combination of knowledge, experience, skills, education, skills, learning, values, attitudes, and ability of members of an organization to perform the task they handle. Understands the skills and potential of workers. It includes the values ​​of the organization, its culture and its philosophy. They are not owned by the company, because they belong to the workers, when they go home they take them with them. It is the basis of the generation of other types of intellectual capital, but if the organization does not own it, it cannot buy them, only rent them for a period of time. Talking about human resources means identifying with the bearer of certain knowledge and with a potential value. At the moment in which this resource is put in function of the organization, the potential value that it had accumulated can say that it is transformed into a true human capital, it transfers its value to that of the organization to which it belongs.
• Structural capital: it is the value of knowledge created in the organization. It is determined by the culture, standards, processes and formed by programs, databases, patents, brands, work methods and procedures, models, manuals, management and management systems. It is all that is left in the organization when its members go home. It is owned by the organization. It is the systematized knowledge, explicit or internalized by the organization. It is the result of intellectual activities and, when solid, facilitates an improvement in the flow of knowledge, as well as an improvement in the effectiveness of the organization.
• Relational capital: it arises through the exchange of information with external parties, it is the organization’s relations with the agents in its environment, it refers to the client portfolio, relations with suppliers, banks and shareholders, cooperation agreements and strategic, technological, production and commercial alliances, to trademarks and to the image of the company, media and alliances. These assets are owned by the company and some of them can be legally protected, as is the case with trademarks. Depending on a relationship with third parties, it cannot be completely controlled by the organization.

Knowledge management on the other hand, is the set of processes and systems that make the intellectual capital of the organization grow.

To manage intellectual capital, knowledge management is necessary in its two dimensions:

• Hard. Harder or formalizable aspects. Within this, there are those included in intellectual capital with possible quantification: structural capital and relational capital.
• Soft. Softer or non-formalizable aspects. Within this, there is the fundamental variable of intellectual capital: human capital, that is, the treasured knowledge in the brains of employees as a result of learning.

Based on the contributions of Edvinsson, 3 Torrado del Rey, 4 and Wiig, 5 common elements and differences between knowledge management and intellectual capital management can be established.

Knowledge Management

• It relates to people, intelligence and knowledge. Human concepts.
• Try to formalize and systematize the processes of identification, administration and control of intellectual capital.
• Presents a tactical and operational perspective.
• It is more detailed.
• It focuses on facilitating and managing those knowledge related activities, as its creation, capture, transformation and use.
• Its function is to plan, implement, operate, direct and control all activities related to knowledge and the programs that are required for effective capital management.
• It is done with the objective of acquiring or increasing the inventory of intangible resources that create value in an organization and therefore, is a part of the more global concept of intangible assets management – the intangible resources of an organization generally grow due to flows of information or knowledge and tangible resources grow by money flows.
• Seeks to improve the potential of creating values ​​in the organization, through the more efficient use of intellectual knowledge.

Intellectual Capital Management

• It relates to people, intelligence and knowledge. Human concepts.
• Has a strategic and managerial business perspective with some tactical derivations.
• It focuses on the construction and management of intellectual assets.
• Its function is to consider the entire intellectual capital of the company as a whole.
• Knowledge management is located within this framework, but intellectual capital management covers much more space than knowledge management.
• Try to level human and structural capital.
• Seeks to improve the value of the organization, from

of the generation of potentialities through the identification, capture, leveling and recycling of intellectual capital. This includes value creation and value extraction.

SELECTION OF MODELS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge creation process (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) distinguishes two different types of knowledge (tacit and explicit). It is the movement and transfer of information between one and the other that explains the generation of knowledge – tacit knowledge is one that is not physically palpable, but is internal and property of each individual and explicit knowledge is that which can be expressed or represented by physically storable and transmissible symbols. The dynamic and constant mechanism of relationship between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge is the basis of the model. It announces the processes of knowledge conversion:

– From tacit to tacit (socialization process): Individuals acquire new knowledge directly from others, from sharing experiences, learning new skills through training through observation, imitation and practice.

Try to incorporate into the traditional measurement systems for management, some non-financial aspects that condition the obtaining of economic results. It offers a conceptual framework to know if the appropriate processes and people are used to obtain a better business performance. It provides a list of intangible resources that can be managed and treated from the point of view of knowledge. It proposes two fields of reflection: one of them based – strategic pretension of training – and the other operative – how to establish the hierarchy of training gaps.

It introduces into the information system available to those who make decisions, strategic variables to consider beyond the conventional ones and which may indicate substantial training gaps before forgotten or difficult to justify. The model integrates the financial indicators (from the past) with the non-financial (from the future), and integrates them into a scheme that allows understanding the interdependencies between its elements, as well as coherence with the company’s strategy and vision. Within each block, two types of indicators are distinguished: driver indicators (conditioning factors of others) and output indicators (result indicators).

The model has four blocks:

• Financial perspective: it considers the financial indicators as the final objective; He believes that these should not be substituted, but complemented with others that reflect business reality.
• Customer perspective: identifies values ​​related to customers. For this, it is necessary to previously define the target market segments and perform an analysis of their value and quality.
• Perspective of internal business processes: Analyzes the adequacy of the internal processes of the company in order to obtain customer satisfaction and achieve high levels of financial performance. To achieve this objective, an analysis of the internal processes from a business perspective and a predetermination of the key processes through the value chain are proposed. Three types of processes are distinguished: 1.- Innovation processes (difficult to measure). 2.- Operations processes. They are developed through quality analysis and reengineering. 3.- After-sales service processes. Criticize the conception of training as an expense, not as an investment.
• Learning perspective and improvement Classifies the assets related to learning and improvement in: Capacity and competence of people (employee management); Information systems; as well as Culture-climate- motivation for learning and action (fig. 2).

The model is based on the revision of a list of qualitative issues. It affects the need to develop a methodology to audit information related to intellectual capital. Intangible assets are classified into four categories, which constitute intellectual capital:

– Market assets: These are those that derive from a beneficial relationship of the company with its market and its customers and therefore provide a competitive advantage in the market. They are the cause of some companies being acquired, at times, for amounts greater than their book value. Its indicators are: brands, customers, company name, order book, distribution, collaboration capacity …

– Human assets: The importance of people in organizations for their ability to learn and use knowledge is emphasized. The third millennium worker will be a knowledge worker, who will be required to participate in the company’s project and a capacity to learn continuously. Indicators: generic aspects, education (knowledge base and general skills), professional training (skills needed for the job), specific knowledge of the job (experience), skills (leadership, teamwork, problem solving, negotiation, objectivity , thinking style, motivational factors, understanding, synthesis, …

– Intellectual property assets: These are property rights that come from the intellect. They grant an additional value that supposes for the company the exclusivity of the exploitation of an intangible asset. Its indicators are patents, copyright, design rights, trade secrets …

– Infrastructure assets: Includes the technologies, methods and processes that allow the organization to function. It includes: business philosophy, organizational culture or ways of doing things in the organization – it can be an asset or a liability depending on the alignment with the business philosophy – information systems, existing databases in the company (knowledge infrastructure extensible to the entire organization (fig. 3).

Study the relationship between intellectual capital and its measurement, as well as organizational learning. Knowledge capital is composed of a holistic system of three elements: human capital, structural capital and client capital (fig. 4).

Study the cause-effect relationships between the different elements of intellectual capital, as well as between it and business results. In this model, the three blocks that are common to most models are established: human capital, structural capital and relational capital (fig. 5).

It is not structured in types of capital but consists of five areas of focus. It provides a balance between: the past (financial approach); the present (customer approach – a different type of intellectual capital), the human approach – in the center, the first half of the intellectual capital model – and the process approach – measures a large part of the structural capital; as well as the future – the innovation and development approach – the other part of structural capital (fig. 6).

It is based on the importance of intangible assets. Identify:

• People’s competences: Includes the competencies of the organization such as planning, producing, processing or presenting products or solutions – which would be human capital).
• Internal structure: It is the structured knowledge of the organization such as patents, processes, models, information systems, organizational culture, the people who are responsible for maintaining this structure – which would be the structural capital.
• External structure: Includes relationships with customers and suppliers, trademarks and the image of the company – which would be the relational capital. These intangible assets, form what is known as the invisible balance.

For the measurement and evaluation of these, three types of indicators are proposed within each of the three blocks: – growth and innovation indicators: they reflect the future potential of the company; – efficiency indicators: they inform the extent to which intangibles are productive (assets) and stability indicators: they indicate the degree of permanence of these assets in the company (fig. 7).

It emerged as a result of the need to have a model for the management of intangible assets. It is a methodology for the classification, valuation and management of the company’s patent portfolio, as a first step, which extends to the measurement and management of other intangible assets of the company – with a high impact on financial results. The model interferes the forms of capital to generate value to the company. The structure of intellectual capital would be formed by human capital, organizational capital and the organization’s capabilities to codify and use knowledge – including culture, norms and values ​​- and client capital (fig. 8).

It responds to a process of identification, selection, structuring and measurement of assets so far not evaluated in a structured way by companies. It aims to offer managers relevant information for decision making and provide information to third parties about the value of the company. The model, therefore, aims to bring the value of the company closer to its market value, as well as to inform about the organization’s ability to generate sustainable results, constant improvements and long-term growth. Link intellectual capital with the company’s strategy; It is a model that each company must customize, it is open and flexible, it measures the results and the processes that generate them; It is applicable, relates all components, combines different units of measurement. It presents blocks based on the grouping of intangible assets according to their nature (human capital, structural capital and relational capital). Locate elements, such as the intangible assets considered, within each block. Each company, depending on its strategy, will choose specific elements and indicators to measure and evaluate the elements where the definition of indicators must be adjusted to each particular organization (fig. 9).

The concept of intellectual capital is the center of Professor Bueno’s argument, whose model is based on strategic direction through competencies. The evidence that intangible assets and assets are increasingly important for economic reality has motivated the idea of ​​knowing as much as possible the intangible capital that a company can have. In this way, this intellectual capital is estimated in the following way: it is the difference obtained between the value that the market gives to the company and the value that exists for that company.

Also, intangible capital is the valuation of intangible assets created by the company’s knowledge flows. In addition, this means that the proposal for a greater vision of the future for a company is to enrich intangible capital as much as possible, to create what has come to be called a “Strategic Management by competencies”. To structure these ideas, attitudes or values ​​are used, that is, what the company wants to be, of knowledge based on what the company does and, finally, of capabilities, which is an estimate of what it is capable of doing ( fig. 10).

It exposes the factors that condition the learning capacity of an organization, as well as the expected results. One of the essential characteristics of the model is the interaction of all its elements, which are presented as a complex system in which influences occur in every way. The organizational structure, the culture, the leadership, the learning mechanisms, the attitudes of the people, the ability to work in a team, etc., are not independent, but are connected to each other (fig.11).

It aims to measure and manage intellectual capital in organizations. This model is useful for any company, regardless of its size. He proposes to divide the intellectual capital into four blocks:

• Human capital: Includes knowledge assets (tacit or explicit) stored in people – technical knowledge, experience, leadership skills, personal stability.
• Organizational capital: It covers the assets of systematized knowledge, explicit or internalized by the organization, whether in: explicit ideas object of intellectual property (patents, trademarks); materializable knowledge in infrastructure assets that can be transmitted and shared by several people – description of inventions and formulas, information and communication system, available technologies, documentation of work processes, management systems, quality standards-; internalized knowledge shared within the organization in an informal way – ways of doing the organization: routines, culture, etc.).
• Share capital: Includes the knowledge assets accumulated by the company as a result of its relations with agents in its environment – knowledge of the relevant clients, strategic alliances of the company with customers, suppliers, universities, etc.
• Innovation and learning capital: Includes knowledge assets capable of expanding or improving the portfolio of knowledge assets of other types, that is, the company’s potential or innovative capacity. The model has a dynamic character, insofar as it also seeks to reflect the transformation processes between the different blocks of intellectual capital. Static and dynamic are integrated in the same model. A differential characteristic of this model with respect to the others studied, is that it allows calculating, in addition to the variation of intellectual capital that occurs between two periods of time, the effect that each block has on the remaining ones – human, organizational, social and social capital of innovation and learning – that is, the variation of intellectual capital, the increase or decrease of capital between each of the blocks and the contribution of a block to the increase / decrease of another block. To obtain the necessary indicators to measure human, organizational, social and innovation and learning capital, these blocks are divided into different groups according to the nature of intangible assets (fig. 12).

It recognizes the need to accelerate the flow of information that has value, from individuals to the organization and back to individuals, so that they can use it to create value for customers. Its novelty is that, from the individual perspective, there is a personal responsibility for sharing and making knowledge explicit for the organization and from the organizational perspective it also implies a responsibility with the creation of the support infrastructure for the individual perspective to be effective, Develop processes, culture, technology and systems that allow capturing, analyzing, synthesizing, applying, valuing and distributing knowledge (fig. 13).

It is an instrument of evaluation and diagnosis. The model proposes four facilitators: leadership, culture, technology and measurement; that favor the process of managing organizational knowledge (fig. 14).

Although it was created in 1988, it is a year later that it was modified to include aspects related to knowledge management, which underline the importance of innovation and learning. In the criteria Collaborating agents and resources, the management of information and knowledge was included, and in the Processes criterion the improvement and innovation were emphasized such as leadership, strategy, structure, processes, people, results and the measurement (fig. 15).

It is at the same time, a new method and strategic management tool that allows companies to benchmark their essential competencies or their intellectual capital with the best competitors in business activity. It is built around the key factors and criteria of competitiveness in the context of global markets. When used in an orderly and systematic way, competitive balances are obtained that complement and refine the economic-financial balance sheets and lead companies to obtain the maximum benefit from existing intellectual capital (fig. 16).

It allows companies to “Benchmarking” their essential innovation capabilities or their intellectual innovation capital with the best competitors in business activity. It is built around the key factors and criteria of competitive innovation in the context of global markets. When used in an orderly and systematic manner, innovation competitiveness balances are obtained that complement the economic-financial balance sheets and lead companies to obtain the most out of the intellectual capital of innovation (fig. 17).

It makes it possible to use the intellectual capital of the companies, organizations and institutions of the nearby geographical environment (clusters, microclusters or territory) to build the best possible organization in the form of a network that needs a specific business model, thus complementing the internal intellectual capital with this capital external intellectual of a relational nature. It serves to select and evaluate the different alternative locations that a given company chooses to develop its activities in order to maximize the intellectual capital of the environment in the process of building the organization in the form of a network. It shows how the intelligent company that is organized in the form of a network builds its essential competences thanks to the relationships that allow it to access the competencies and resources of other companies, organizations and institutions; some of them located within a specific cluster and others outside it. Part of the principle that relations with companies, organizations and institutions located in the cluster have a primary character because they allow joint or complementary operations with the intelligent company in question, as well as the transmission of tacit knowledge that provide a higher value (fig .18).

It constitutes a first scientific and therefore systematic approach to the professionalized management of intangible assets in cities. It is a model of management of the intellectual capital of cities that has a double focus. On the one hand, generalizing, which seeks to measure and manage the intellectual capital common to all microclusters of economic activities of the city and on the other, particularist, which aims to measure and manage the intellectual capital of each relevant microcluster of the city.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

There are common aspects among the exposed models, for example, the parts in which they make up the intellectual capital or the definitions that are made of each of the parties, but there are also a large number of differentiating elements. However, the particular importance of each model lies precisely in the concepts on which each one relies, the new ideas that are proposed, the organizational and business changes they entail. Thus, the models of Kaplan and Norton and Navigator Skandia treat in an excellent way the identification of needs and decision-making, an aspect considered as fundamental within the knowledge management system; Bueno, Canadian Imperial Bank and Andersen models work very well in the internal development of knowledge, an essential issue for knowledge management in an organization; and how the Nonaka and Takeuchi and Artur Andersen models develop the capitalization of knowledge, one of the most difficult processes in an organization.

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