In this final piece, we turn to a particular interest I have in managing knowledge: turning tacit, implicit, and (practical) know-how into (factual) knowledge; facilitating the horizontal transfer of knowledge; and connecting people/organizations to what they need to know and do in order to turn knowledge into a wealth-creating asset.

This is certainly not the only or the last word on Knowledge Management: for more visit http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspx and sign up for online access; also visit local initiatives at http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Annual_Report-23.phtml and a continental site at http://www.kmafrica.info/knowledgehub_links.asp).

One may well ask what the fuss about managing knowledge (rather than people) is about: is the thought that ‘knowledge is power’ not an old one? (Said by Sir Francis Bacon, 1597; see http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/knowledge/). Lowell L. Bryan changes this into a more fashionable form when he writes that ‘For companies and their employees alike, knowledge is power – and profit’, in an article on Making a market in knowledge (The McKinsey Quarterly 2004 Number 3).

In this article he questions how best to share important insights into customers, competitors, products, productions techniques, emerging research and the like across a whole company. He argues that "The truth is that the real value comes less from managing knowledge and more – a lot more – from creating and exchanging it. And the key to achieving this goal, is understanding that a company's really valuable knowledge resides largely in the heads of the most talented employees".

One answer to the question regarding the fuss about ‘knowledge’, and its purported value to people, companies and societies has to do not only with the fact that there is so much of it about, but also that it is not so easily gotten hold of. Recognizing this, however, too often leads to the creation of expensive IT systems as a way of attempting to manage knowledge. This view has come under considerable attack.

Moreover, it is in view of doing something different in our context that I organized these short pieces on Knowledge Management around: a clarification of ‘knowledge’, thinking, knowing and problem-solving skills and competencies for complex sites of exchange, and the process of research. This present focus is meant to draw these together in a specific focus on managing knowledge.

I would thus like to re-emphasize Bryan’s point by stating that it is through having the wherewithal to make it, share it, and use it, that we turn knowledge into power and profit. This is further emphasized by Leigh M. Weiss, Marla M. Capozzi and Laurence Prusak, who argue that one of the central challenges facing companies today is knowing how to get value from knowledge – especially the firm's own hard-won knowledge. They suggest that this means much more than investing in IT systems (see their Learning from the Internet Giants in MITSloan, Summer 2004, Vol.45, No.4; his article can be ordered from This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

The last introductory reference I would like to draw attention to is by Susanne Hauschild, Thomas Licht, and Wolfram Stein, who wrote: ‘Ask a group of senior executives if they regard knowledge management as very important to the success of a company. Most will enthusiastically say that they do—a response befitting one of the trendiest topics in management circles.’ They go on to say that this response does not mean that they also know what to do about it, however! They found that when comparing ‘the knowledge-management practices of the more and less successful companies, to understand how those practices contribute to corporate success, (that) successful companies build a corporate environment that fosters a desire for knowledge among their employees and that ensures its continual application, distribution, and creation’ (In The McKinsey Quarterly 2001 Number 1.)

The creation of such a desire for knowledge would seem to me a countrywide need, and not the exclusive task of managers, executives, and others specifically aiming at increased profits for their companies through the management of knowledge. I leave this at that for now.

Managing knowledge

The terms ‘knowledge industries’, ‘knowledge work’, and ‘knowledge worker’ were coined around 1960 by, among others, Peter Drucker. He is often called the most influential management thinker of the postwar era (read more about him and his work at http://www.druckerarchives.net/data/index.htm ). The point of these terms is to signal a new kind of participant in the labour force, people whose jobs require formal and advanced schooling and training. ‘Knowledge workers’ are thus the latest in a series of changes from manual labour (employed on farms and in domestic service, and later in factories and in manufacturing) to ‘service workers’ after the First World War.

It would not be accurate to characterise South Africa as a knowledge society or as having a fully-fledged knowledge economy, which obviously places special constraints on making, sharing and using knowledge in this context. But, to the degree that we are part of a world characterized by increasingly porous boundaries, and participate in global exchanges, we must aim education and training in the direction of equipping more people and organizations with the wherewithal to handle complex exchanges successfully. This is my particular interest in managing knowledge. In this regard, I turn to three specific issues I consider relevant to the local context.

Turning tacit, implicit, and (practical) know-how into (factual) knowledge

The first, obvious, task here is to engage in research (as outlined in a previous piece) so as to make knowledge of the tacit, implicit and practical know-how of relevant role-players and other participants in the work situation.

In addition, I believe researchers will have to develop a facility with the task of making explicit the mediating links between different realities; for example, between;

This is a tall order for any research project, but probably crucial if we do not want to pit differences against each other, or turn differences into false oppositions (e.g., ‘Western, imperialist, thinking’ against ‘African, indigenous thinking’). In these, no one wins.

Establishing such mediating links through research will make education in general more productive and, as such, facilitate a process of turning more people into knowledge workers, i.e. those with the formal and advanced schooling and training required for making and using (or exchanging) knowledge as a resource and asset.

The horizontal transfer of knowledge

It is common course that expertise has developed to the point that not even all ‘biologists’ or ‘economists’, for example, understand each other. This vertical development of specialities is now so narrow that cutting across these is not only crucial, but also increasingly difficult. This seems to me to underline another aspect of managing knowledge: creating roles or jobs specifically for operating between companies, and within the interstices between lines of command, control of actions and operations and between domains of knowledge. This is what I mean with the horizontal transfer of knowledge.

Creating such 'in-between' functions will however require a greater commitment to knowledge, and its creation and exchange, than is obvious from local initiatives and reports on managing people and companies.

Nonetheless, it seems obvious that one of the changes that characterises our post-geographical world relates to the fact that one named person can fulfil many functions in various (virtual) places. And, similarly, companies or organizations are no longer bound to one physical location only. As such, employing the skills, competencies, knowledge and abilities to read across domains is in fact easier than meets the eye of those who will continue to ‘see’ employees as singular bodies, placed in time and specific locale.

Connecting people/organizations to what they need to know and do, in order to turn knowledge into a wealth-creating asset

In a globalized world, distant locales, lives and cultures are brought together in both consensual and non-consensual ways. This tends to break down certainties and traditions, and brings about various tensions and conflicts which, in turn, demand ongoing, creative solutions (e.g. culturally-specific ways in conflict with universal codes and systems).

In addition, in complex sites of exchange, individual members are required to occupy many different roles (often simultaneously), and most typically, roles activated by conflicting or competing beliefs, values and operational rules (e.g. being a member of a political party versus a functionary of the State). Juggling these roles and the characteristic demands of each takes considerable adaptive and navigational abilities.

Lastly, most roles and professions available to individuals in complex sites of exchange demand very specific expertise, which is no longer stable and localized (e.g. familiarity with rapidly advancing technological and scientific bodies of skill and knowledge). These can no longer be obtained only once, through a specific period of informal and/or formal education; thus, the importance of the notion ‘life-long learning’ (visit http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=48712&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html for various education projects and goals).

It is these and no doubt other changes in, and characteristics of, working and living in a globalized world that underline the last aspect of managing knowledge I want to highlight: connecting people (of all ages and in different situations) to the resources and opportunities for learning what they need to know and do, in order to be effective in complex sites of exchange, i.e., in exchanges where knowledge is power and profit for both companies and their employees alike.

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