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Knowledge Management Models 93

Key Points

• Knowledge management encompasses data, information, and knowledge (some-
times referred to collectively as “ content ” ), and it addresses both tacit and explicit
forms of knowledge.
• The von Krogh and Roos KM model take an organizational epistemology approach
and emphasize that knowledge resides both in the minds of individuals and in the
relations they form with other individuals.
• The Nonaka and Takeuchi KM model focuses on knowledge spirals that explain the
transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and then back again as the
basis for individual, group, and organizational innovation and learning.
• Choo and Weick adopt a sense-making approach to model knowledge management
that focuses on how information elements are fed into organizational actions through
sense making, knowledge creation, and decision making.
• The Wiig KM model is based on the principle that in order for knowledge to be
useful and valuable, it must be organized through a form of semantic network that is
connected, congruent, and complete and has perspective and purpose.
• The Boisot model introduces three key dimensions of knowledge beyond tacit and
explicit; codifi ed, abstract, and diffused knowledge.
• Complex adaptive systems are particularly well suited to model KM as they view the
organization much like a living entity concerned with independent existence and
survival. Beer and Bennet (1989) and Bennet (1981) have applied this approach to
describe the cohesiveness, complexity, and selective pressures that operate on ICAS.
• The EFQM model introduces the major components of leadership, people, policy
and strategy, and partnerships and resources, in addition to processes, as being key
enablers of organizational success.
• The inukshuk model reprises the key enablers that form part of most KM models
and assembles these components in a highly visual and symbolic fashion to depict
the key importance that people play in KM. Canadian government leaders have
applied this model.

Discussion Points

1. Compare and contrast the cognitive and connectionist approaches to knowledge
management. Why is the connectionist approach more suited to the von Krogh KM