課文主文、單字與專業術語
The emergence of the knowledge economy signifies that organizations' know-how is becoming more important than the sources of traditional economy. Moreover, knowledge is now regarded as the most strategically important resource and learning the most strategically important competence for business sectors. Thus, knowledge assets must be managed carefully, systematically and with expertise to guarantee company survival.
Knowledge management is defined as the process of persistently managing knowledge of all kinds to meet existing and emerging needs, to ascertain and utilize existing and acquired knowledge assets and to develop new opportunity. It may also be defined as the identification, optimization and active management of intellectual assets to create value, increase productivity and achieve and maintain competitive advantage. Knowledge management involves the sharing of knowledge and some processes. In 2002, Tiwana has identified these processes as find, create new, package and assemble, apply, reuse and revalidate knowledge.
There are two types of knowledge: tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is highly personal, developed from experience, and hard to document. It is, therefore, difficult to communicate and share. Explicit knowledge, on the other hand, is formal and systematic. Most of explicit knowledge may be documented. All the knowledge published in books, manuals or on a web-site is explicit knowledge. This knowledge is easy to communicate and share. The traditional education and training program has been focused on the communication of the existing explicit knowledge or introducing "what we know, we know." Sharing and management of tacit knowledge or "what we know, we do not know" is, on the other hand, extremely inadequate.
Many large companies have established a point of responsibility for knowledge management within the organization, and have made resources accessible in terms of budget, staff, and IT infra-structure. Whether those resources are adequate or not is difficult to evaluate. Different companies have different needs and different priorities; hence, blanket proposals on knowledge management expenses are impractical. An organization needs to develop an implementation plan that covers both the short- and long-term needs.