Organizations have to manage their knowledge resources effectively to perform well in competitive markets. However, as products, services, and processes become more complex, knowledge within organizations is highly diverse, dynamic, and distributed across different people and multiple technical systems. Conventional knowledge management (KM) approaches are often not capable of addressing this complexity. To support organizations in handling the diversity, dynamics, and distribution of knowledge -- and thus, enable them to better manage and exploit their knowledge resources -- we present a socio-technical framework for organizational KM that is based on theories from information systems engineering, psychology, and sociology. The framework integrates the following technical, social, and managerial aspects of KM: (1) The technological formalization of knowledge (How does technology make existing knowledge available?); (2) the social organization of knowledge (How is knowledge socially distributed and linked across different people?); (3) managerial practices for exploration and exploitation of knowledge (How do organizational rules and structures support KM?). More specifically, we suggest application-oriented modeling techniques for the formalization to make knowledge available to both people and machines. Furthermore, we include transactive memory systems (i.e., knowledge about who knows what and communication between people to use that knowledge) in our framework to foster the identification and usage of relevant knowledge distributed among different individuals. As technological and transactive memory systems operate within an organizational context, we finally include institutional reflexivity, a model for reflecting and stabilizing changing requirements and practices for organizational KM. The framework was pre-evaluated with two independent expert groups consisting of managers, engineers, and researchers with a background in innovation management and KM. Based on our theoretical framework we further suggest a tool for the systematic questionnaire-based diagnosis of KM practices in organizations. We conclude that technical, social, and managerial aspects must be addressed simultaneously to successfully organize and exploit existing knowledge.
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Organizations have to manage their knowledge resources effectively to perform well in competitive markets. However, as products, services, and processes become more complex, knowledge within organizations is highly diverse, dynamic, and distributed across different people and multiple technical systems. Conventional knowledge management (KM) approaches are often not capable of addressing this complexity. To support organizations in handling the diversity, dynamics, and distribution of knowledge...
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