Peter Drucker was the most renowned management thinker of the 20th century, but his greatest insights came not from his considerable knowledge, but from his ignorance. In this excerpt from his new book A Class with Drucker, William A. Cohen, a longtime protégé of Drucker, recounts how the “father of modern management” once illustrated to his students the value of ignorance.

One of the most lucrative assets companies own could be the data they possess. The challenge is turning it into relevant, usable information. Analytics can be a powerful tool in this effort. Accenture profiles a five-step model for putting analytics at the center of corporate decision making.

Designing a manufacturing network entails devising and managing flows of innovation and know-how—not just determining what to produce and where—and organizing the resulting logistics flows.

To help corporations create knowledge more consciously, the author of Managing Flow draws on Western and Eastern philosophic traditions.

Alliances will have a major impact on management in the 21st century. In an alliance, managers will have to make difficult decisions about when to partner and with whom, as well as how to structure and manage the partnership. Those managers who can leverage information and knowledge across each stage of the alliance process will find that a knowledge-based approach is critical to the success of any partnership. Managers can take a step up their own knowledge curve by reading this article, which discusses the importance and effectiveness of sound knowledge-management practices in the context of an alliance.

Increasingly, companies are spreading “knowledge work” tasks – such as research and product development – overseas as a means to increase competitiveness, reduce costs, access new talent pools and establish a presence in emerging markets. Yet many struggle to achieve the performance to which they aspire.

This paper describes how a structured approach for understanding the link between decision-making (how work is governed) and workflow (how work is organized) can help global businesses structure their organizations effectively for knowledge work. We propose a typology of organization models comprising two dimensions: the degree of workflow across locations and the structure of decision-making responsibilities. We also present several case studies that depict organizations at different points in their journeys.

The framework we present can serve as a starting point for you to understand how strategic choices between the structures of your organization’s decision-making and workflow can help you address organizational design questions and, ultimately, achieve more positive outcomes in your global knowledge-work initiatives.

This paper surveys a number of different Knowledge Management (KM) strategies and a range of driving forces for knowledge management activities. The authors then attempt to produce a simple classification tool that will allow us to link the drivers to the KM strategies, using a number of published heuristics. Finally, a case study is presented which applies the method suggested and discuss its usefulness.

Knowledge management concerns two important activities. One is to define ways to capture and convert knowledge into a form useful within business processes. This includes the definition of knowledge objects and knowledge creation activities. The second is how to integrate the knowledge creation activities into the business process. The paper concentrates on such integration and ways to model it. The paper defines a knowledge creation process for knowledge management. It then describes ways of integrating these activities into collaborative processes. It also suggests that software agents be used to facilitate such integration.

A significant area of KM (Knowledge Management) systems research is the development of systems with the potential to bridge the knowledge application gap in organizations. In this context, an important challenge is to develop design principles intended to keep KM systems alive - updated, current, maintained - by encouraging use. In addressing this challenge, this paper reports lessons learned from evaluating KM systems in a real organizational setting. The main contribution of this research is five general design principles describing how KM systems can be integrated with everyday work to leverage user practices.

Knowledge sharing allows teams and individuals to more quickly develop solutions to difficult problems, reduce costly duplication of effort, and create new, innovative solutions through collaboration. But, most knowledge sharing practices neglect the group or individual who will receive and hopes to leverage the knowledge. Written to help the reader empathize with and understand the particular needs of the knowledge sharer, this article suggests what organizations and managers can do to support the particular needs of the other, important component of the knowledge equation, the knowledge receiver.

Employees come and go with greater frequency than ever before. When they leave, years of invaluable experience and knowledge are lost. Companies that systematically identify "key knowledge holders" and work to retain the knowledge of these employees will gain an advantage over their less farsighted peers. The retention of key knowledge takes on even greater importance as the Baby Boom prepares to retire.

CEOs do believe that knowledge can indeed heighten competitive advantage - particularly if that knowledge is of a certain kind. Preliminary findings from a study of Spanish firms, by IESE's Rafael Andreu along with Joan Baiget and Agustí­ Canals, confirm this. Yet at the same time, the authors discover a paradox: the majority of the so-called "knowledge management initiatives" deployed by firms do not seem especially well-geared toward actually harnessing firm-specific knowledge. Knowing is one thing, doing is another.

Managers who have difficulty either believing or appreciating that knowledge management delivers tangible benefits would do well to read this article by a consultant and academic at the United Kingdom's Cranfield School of Management. Mr. Murray's four-step program for delivering intangible benefits include making knowledge management a demand-led activity keyed to business results; focusing on areas where investments in knowledge management will yield the best return; ensuring that knowledge-management initiatives are seen as benefit-delivery programs, with their success level measured against desired outcomes, and managing knowledge management teams.

Metrics are essential for the advancement of research and practice in an area. In Knowledge Management (KM), the process of measurement and development of metrics is made complex by the intangible nature of the knowledge asset. Further, the lack of standards for KM business metrics and the relative infancy of research on KM metrics points to a need for research in this area. This paper reviews KM metrics for research and practice and identifies areas where there is a gap in the understanding. It classifies existing research based on the units of evaluation such as user of KMS, KMS, project, KM process, KM initiative, and organization as a whole. The paper concludes by suggesting avenues for future research on KM and KMS metrics based on the gaps identified.

It takes years for your company's best people to acquire their expertise -- but only seconds for them to leave. And when they go, they take their deep smarts -- or intuition -- with them. Here's how to make sure you keep wisdom in-house.

For nearly two decades, consulting firms, technology companies, R&D-driven corporations and other knowledge-intensive organizations have made significant investments in "knowledge management" initiatives. These initiatives are intended to facilitate the capture and transfer of company expertise as a way to spur learning and innovation. But research by Wharton management professor Martine Haas and a colleague indicates that knowledge sharing efforts often fail to result in improved task outcomes inside organizations -- and may even hurt project performance. Their research is presented in a paper titled, "Different Knowledge, Different Benefits: Toward a Productivity Perspective on Knowledge Sharing in Organizations."

Debate about the utility of knowledge management continues today. This author, a recognized authority on the discipline, suggests that as long as we adopt a good model for managing knowledge, in this case, a doughnut, its practice can give a company a decided advantage.

How do companies learn to learn? Maurizio Zollo, Associate Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD, and Sidney G. Winter, Professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, investigate this topic in a working paper. The authors identify three consistent catalysts building and reshaping organizational routines: how an organisation builds experience, how it articulates knowledge and how it codes that knowledge into task-specific tools. The combination of the three mechanisms result in the development of expertise specific to the manipulation and improvement of routines, what scholars call "dynamic capabilities."

Facing massive brain drain from the retirement of a third of its workforce, Tennessee Valley Authority generated a knowledge-retention network to conserve its intellectual capital.

This paper looks at the combination of knowledge boundaries and M&A Integration because, as the authors note, when you are dealing with something which is as personal and as valuable as knowledge, you have to overcome some sort of barriers. This is true for the co-ordination and integration between organisations after an acquisition, but also between business units within a company.

Awareness of the significance of sustainability is growing rapidly, with particular emphasis on sustainable development as an area of concern. Issues related to sustainability crosscut many boundaries, as they are both trans-disciplinary and trans-organizational in nature. A commitment to sustainable development requires enlightenment within organizations as well as at the government level, appropriate infrastructure as well as management of uncertainty and risk. Above all, a commitment to sustainable development requires sound knowledge on which to base decisions, as well as effective knowledge management approaches to support crucial processes of knowledge creation, sharing and dissemination to support sustainability issues. Knowledge for sustainability highlights the need for new knowledge, for new ways of managing knowledge, and for new work practices to support this process.

The effective utilization of knowledge and learning requires both culture and technology. Explicit information and data can be easily codified, written down, and stored in a data base. For this type of business information we have the necessary skills and more than adequate tools. Yet, simple data is frequently not where competitive advantage is found. An organization's real edge in the marketplace is often found in complex, context-sensitive, knowledge which is difficult, if not often impossible to codify and store in ones and zeroes. This core knowledge is found in individuals, communities of interest and their connections. An organization's data is found in its computer systems, but a company's intelligence is found in its biological and social systems. Computer networks must support the people networks in today's fluid and adaptive organizations -- not the other way around.

Knowledge transfer is one of the first tasks of transitioning to an outsourced model, but it's sometimes overlooked or under-planned, resulting in a shaky start to the relationship. Here's how to do it right.

The world is flat (at least the economic one). The networked world is also a "flat" world, one where work can come from anywhere and be performed anywhere. Corporate learning departments have a huge role to play in addressing the challenges of a flat world and in helping to support innovation.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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Finding the right balance between sharing and hoarding knowledge is a tricky challenge. How much should remain proprietary and how much should be given away for free? In this EBF debate a panel of business people, academics, advisers and policymakers address the question.

Authors include: Max Boisot, Jimmy Wales, Lynne Brindley, Peter McAteer, Gita Piramal, John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Thomas H Davenport and Laurence Prusak.