Knowledge Management in Business Intelligence

Abstract

This paper explains the nature of the integration between Knowledge Management (KM) and Business Intelligence (BI) and reveals how KM is embedded in BI. There has been some confu- sion as to the relationship between KM and BI. The lack of clarity is seen to be, in part, dependent on how the two concepts are defined. BI focuses on explicit knowledge, but KM encompasses both tacit and explicit knowledge. Both concepts promote learning, decision-making, and understanding. However, KM influences the very nature of BI itself, because KM informs BI relative to organizational knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, and learning. BI knowledge and its analytics must for practi- cal purposes be understood and shared. This means that BI’s effectiveness is subject to organizational culture, which affects sensemaking and knowledge sharing. The employment of KM-based knowledge exchange protocols to facilitate knowledge sharing and the contextual understanding of BI activities is examined. Use of the knowledge exchange protocols framework is shown to provide the potential for observing how BI analytics affect decision-making tacit behavior over time. KM principles are shown to provide important elements that facilitate BI’s performance and efficacy. Keywords: