Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning A Reader

Featuring key readings on knowledge management for graduate students and MBAs, this volume focuses on what is happening in practice. It includes seminal contributions from leading authorities and practitioners, providing a compelling picture of how knowledge and learning work in practice by including detailed examples from organizations such as Chevron, Nucor Steel, Partners Healthcare, and Xerox.

Over the past decade, knowledge and learning have emerged as the keys to economic success and as a focus for thinking about organizational effectiveness and innovation. An overwhelming majority of large organizations now engage in a wide range of knowledge and learning activities and nearly all have programs and personnel explicitly dedicated to these tasks. The volume is targeted at those new to knowledge and learning, and is filled with practical examples and focuses on the most critical issues, featuring seminal contributions from leading authorities including: * Thomas Davenport, * Dorothy Leonard, * John Seely Brown, * Sidney Winter, * W. Chan Kim, * Peter Druckard. The book is organized around the three key steps in managing knowledge: development, retention, and transfer. These sections are preceded by a section creating the strategic context for knowledge and followed by a section on the social dimensions that are often overlooked. Finally, the book looks to the future of knowledge and learning. This Reader is an accessible way for executives and students taking advanced Management Studies and executive courses to learn from the latest examples on this topic.

1 - Knowledge Management and the Knowledge-Based Economy
2 - Developing a Knowledge Strategy
3 - The Learning Curve
4 - Knowlege-In-The-Making: The 'Construction' of Fiat's Melfi Factory
5 - Generating Creative Options
6 - Partnerships for Knowledge Creation
7 - Swing Doors and Musical Chairs
8 - Organizational Memory
9 - Balancing Act: How to Capture Knowledge Without Killing It
10 - Managing Knowledge the Chevron Way
11 - Getting it Right the Second Time
12 - Making a Market in Knowledge
13 - The Performance Variability Dilemma
14 - Knowledge Management's Social Dimension: Lessons from Nucor Steel
15 - Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy
16 - Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier
17 - Knowing What we Know: Supporting Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Social Networks
18 - Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge
19 - Just-in-Time Delivery Comes to Knowledge Management
20 - Seeing Knowledge Plain: How to Make Knowledge Visible
21 - Do you Know who your Experts are?
22 - Using Supplier Networks to Learn Faster

Larry Prusak is a researcher and consultant and was the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Knowledge Management (IKM). This was a global consortium of member organizations engaged in advancing the practice of knowledge management through action research. Larry has had extensive experience, within the U.S. and internationally, in helping organizations work with their information and knowledge resources. He has also consulted with many U.S. and overseas government agencies and international organizations (NGO's). He currently co-directs 'Working Knowledge', a knowledge research program at Babson College, where he is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. Larry's most recent book (co-authored with Tom Davenport) is What's the Big Idea?, published by Harvard Business School Press in Spring, 2003. He has also recently edited a volume with E. Lesser, Creating Value with Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2003). Eric Matson is a manager in McKinsey's Institute for Corporate Excellence, where he leads research efforts to better understand the drivers of enduring corporate performance. His currently focuses on profiling the world's leading companies to better understand how they excel in selected areas such as network management, knowledge management, and talent management. Prior to joining McKinsey in 1999, Mr. Matson worked as a writer for Fast Company magazine and as a consultant for Monitor Company. His recent publications include 'The Performance Variability Dilemma' (Sloan Management Review, 2003), 'Strengthening Your Organization's Internal Knowledge Market' (Organizational Dynamics, 2003), 'Leveraging Group Knowledge for High Performance Decision Making' (Organizational Dynamics, 2002), and 'Managing the Knowledge Manager' (McKinsey Quarterly, 2001).