A Knowledge Management Ontology

Abstract

Knowledge-based organizations are hosts for multitudes of knowledge management episodes. Each episode is triggered by a knowledge need (or opportunity) and culminates with the satisfaction of that need (or its abandonment). Within an episode, one or more of the organization’s processors (human and/or computer-based) manipulate knowledge resources in various ways and subject to various influences in an effort to meet the need or take advantage of the opportunity. This chapter presents an extensive ontology of knowledge management. The ontology identifies and characterizes basic components of knowledge management episodes, the knowledge resources an organization uses in these episodes, a generic set of elemental knowledge manipulation activities that manifest within knowledge management episodes, and categories of influences on the conduct and outcomes of these episodes. This ontology was developed using conceptual synthesis and a collaborative methodology involving an international panel of researchers and practitioners in the knowledge management field. The ontology can serve as a common language for discourse about knowledge management. For researchers, it suggests issues that deserve investigation and concepts that must be considered in explorations of knowledge management episodes. For practitioners, the ontology provides a perspective on factors that need to be considered in the implementation of an organization’s knowledge management initiatives