Personal Knowledge Management

Research on knowledge management (KM) has converged to research in personal knowledge management (PKM) that is characterised by features of the social networks. We postulated an Effective PKM Framework, which consists of the PKM processes of get, understand, share and connect (GUSC), and the cognitive enablers called method, identify, decide and drive. This paper attempts to prove the existence of the GUSC processes within a social network environment, in which the current generation of knowledge workers spends more time. The results include social network diagrams and analysis on the four processes, and significant findings that relate these analyses with the cognitive enablers.

The aim of this paper is to explore the dichotomous role of knowledge through an examination of tacit and explicit knowledge in organizational change contexts. The study's aim is achieved by an analytical review of the seminal and contemporary knowledge management literature. The paper contributes to the current body of knowledge management literature by analyzing a wide range of key literature and presenting a contemporary overview that compares the role of tacit and explicit knowledge within organizational change contexts. The findings contribute towards theoretical development in the knowledge management field by providing researchers with future research directions to build upon previous theoretical understandings and advance our collective knowledge of the research domain. The paper offers practical and pragmatic insights that will help firm managers to use tacit and/or explicit knowledge to manage organizational change. This article presents an original comparative table that summarizes and compares the key understandings and insights from across the literature sources on a range of important aspects, and then presents implications for the two knowledge typologies. The paper also presents an original research framework containing a structured database of related calls for research by the latest academic publications. Furthermore, it provides specific and informed managerial recommendations for best practice in the integration of these knowledge typologies into organizational change management.

This paper reconsiders the term Personal Information Management System PIMS and compares and contrasts it with the similar terms Individual Information System IIS as discussed by Richard Baskerville and User Generated Information System UGIS as introduced by Philip DesAutels. However, this paper contends (with Baskerville) that it is the personal work system constituted when a human user makes use of a PIMS which exhibits a systemic nature. The paper introduces specific research questions which relate to PIMS and demonstrates their emergence on the basis of reflection or reflexivity. It suggests as a potential contribution the theoretical and practical necessity for modelling a PIMS in order that the PIMS constructed using that model be maximally effective for the individual who uses it. That contention is the subject of ongoing research.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

Individuals need to survive and grow in changing and sometimes turbulent organizational environments, while organizations and societies want individuals to have the knowledge, skills and abilities that will enable them to prosper and thrive. Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is a means of coping with complex environmental changes and developments: it is a form of sophisticated career and life management. Personal Knowledge Management is an evolving concept that focuses on the importance of individual growth and learning as much as on the technology and management processes traditionally associated with organizational knowledge management. This book looks at the emergence of PKM from a multi-disciplinary perspective, and its contributors reflect the diverse fields of study that touch upon it. Relatively little research or major conceptual development has so far been focused on PKM, but already significant questions are being asked, such as 'is there an inherent conflict between personal and organizational knowledge management and how best do we harmonize individual and organizational goals?' This book will inform, stimulate and challenge every reader. By delving both deeply and broadly into its subject, the distinguished authors help all those concerned with 'knowledge work' and 'knowledge workers' to see how PKM supports and affects individuals, organizations and society as a whole; to better understand the concepts involved and to benefit from relevant research in this important area.

Personal knowledge networks have been primarily conceived by researchers with regard to the inter-firm knowledge sources between organisations, where networks are informal and personal. Instead of looking at the organisational context, some researchers investigate the intra-firm aspects at personal level of organisational knowledge networks, where knowledge management processes start and end. In a recent study on agent-mediated personal knowledge management (PKM) processes, an interview survey has been conducted to investigate the needs of organisations in tapping the personal knowledge networks among the employees by understanding the processes of managing knowledge at personal level. It also attempts to justify the knowledge sources for agent-mediation that are not only characterised by the usual knowledge repositories and databases, but also the knowledge experts within and outside of an organisation. The survey covers two main industries in Malaysia, which are Service and Education, in which the sampling of experts for respondents is made on these two industries. This paper analyses and discusses the results of this interview survey, to contribute to the domain of agent technology in mediating the human knowledge worker’s PKM processes. It then recommends future works in modelling the bottom-up approach of PKM-OKM, where personal knowledge networks manifest the organisational knowledge management with the help of software agents.

This paper presents an analytical framework for an effective online personal knowledge management (PKM) of knowledge workers. The development of this framework is prompted by our qualitative research on the PKM processes and cognitive enablers of knowledge workers in eight organisations selected from three main industries in Malaysia. This multiple-case research identifies the relationships between the effectiveness of four online PKM processes: get/retrieve, understand/analyse, share, and connect.
It also establishes the importance of cognitive enablers that mediate this relationship, namely, method, identify, decide and drive.  Qualitative analysis is presented as the findings, supported by the preceded quantitative analysis on an exploratory questionnaire survey.

Personal Knowledge and Information Management (PKIM) as an integrated approach of three concepts: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Personal Information Management (PIM) and Information Literacy (IL) is more appropriate and comprehensive approach to these issues with overlapping and supplementary areas of interests. The theoretical basis and results of the pioneering empirical studies in the PKIM field, carried out in an academic environment, are presented in this exploratory study. The development and validation of the PKIM scale, is characterised. An analysis of subject literature, discussions with experts, students and statistical methods were used in creation of the PKIM scale, which is an original instrument for measuring a self-assessment of knowledge and information skills of students. The PKIM self-assessment of Polish students of Information Science majors and related specializations was high, but not as high as was expected. Master's students reported higher level of PKIM self-assessment than Bachelor's students.

Background:
Knowledge workers within the organisations still find difficulties in searching and locating knowledge resources and experts within their own firm. For organisations with high employee turnover, such as in the construction industry, this problem is deemed to be a risk that the organisations need to solve to succeed in achieving their goals. In another similar situation, knowledge management is highly expected to be well implemented in an organisation, especially in an institute of higher learning. Having academicians and researchers who work in silo in research projects would cause redundancy and waste of expertise, if the researchers are not sharing knowledge with each other due to lack of facilities and having an environment or culture that does not encourage knowledge sharing. There should be a facilitating condition, or ‘facilitating technology’, for sharing research expertise to these knowledge workers, to create awareness for acceptance of knowledge management.

At the individual level, knowledge workers have their own way of managing knowledge, and this is considered as personal knowledge management (PKM), which has its own goals and objectives. This could lead to the collective goals and objectives of the organisation, if the PKM could be tapped in by the organisation and be made as part of the organisational knowledge management (OKM) strategy.

On the technology perspective, there is still a gap between PKM and OKM, and how technology can help mediate between the two. Using artificial intelligence, or in particular, the software agent technology, PKM can be observed at individual knowledge worker level and an agent-mediated knowledge management framework, incorporating multi-agent collaborative framework, can be modelled to identify the possible ways the agent technology could be implemented to realise the OKM strategy from its roots.

Aims:
The aim of this paper is to study the issues in personal knowledge management and how agent intelligence can be used to identify and understand knowledge experts through their behaviour, diligence and intention.

Method:
The methodology starts with literature survey and review from both aspects –PKM and agent intelligence. This is followed by an analysis on how knowledge workers manage their personal knowledge from which some hypotheses are drawn up to be quantitatively and/or qualitatively proven. A conceptual model for agent-based PKM will be formalised by applying a human-agent collaborative framework.

Results:
Expected results are in the form of cross-reference of literature in the area of PKM and agent intelligence, with summary and outlook to conclude the literature findings. Pertinent issues and problems in PKM will be identified and a model for agent-based solutions will be proposed.

Conclusion:
Organisational knowledge management (OKM) starts from the individuals and their PKM. In order to achieve success in OKM strategy, there is a need to understand how individuals manage their knowledge at personal level. Agent intelligence can be used to tap into this PKM realm in order to locate and understand the behaviour, diligence and intent of the knowledge experts, and to match the knowledge and/or knowledge expert seekers.

Possible Applications or Implications:
Focus of area to be further developed by researchers, in terms of modelling a framework in the aspect of PKM for an agent-mediated knowledge management research. Agent technology could help knowledge workers to achieve their personal goals, and this can be further defined using a multi-agent collaborative framework.

This document summarises the principal themes in Mark Gregory's PhD and post-PhD research programme. The title of the thesis is: "What is the contribution of personal information management systems (PIMS) to the working model and personal work system of knowledge workers?" The principal conjecture is that each of us has a personal working model which is supported by a personal work system enabled by a personal information management system. For some people, these are well defined; for most they are not even explicit. By means of structured self-reflection aided by conceptual knowledge modelling within the context of a process of action learning they can be surfaced (made more explicit) and can then be improved. The thesis can be summarised as: Each knowledge worker learns to improve both their individually-enacted, open and continuously evolving knowledge model and the organisation system which informs and is informed by their daily work.

This paper introduces personal information management systems PIMS as a mechanism used to support the personal knowledge management of knowledge workers. It identifies PIMS with the previously-identified individual information systems IIS of (Baskerville 2011) and the user generated information systems UGIS of (DesAutels 2011). It suggests that PIMS / IIS / UGIS are only useful insofar as they enable properly informed initial action, action to correct errors, and reflective learning. The authors critically review the literature concerning the relationships between data, information and knowledge.

The problem of intergenerational cooperation in the workplace is becoming increasingly important, especially because of the ageing workforce. The article presents the issue of companies facing the challenge of changing a work environment that has to be tailored to the characteristics of each individual generation in the workplace. Generational differences and similarities are explained in more detail, especially in relation to work, followed by a consideration of stereotypes and age discrimination in the work environment. The article illustrates the problem of stereotypes related to age at a selected company. In focus groups we found several positive as well as negative stereotypes regarding age in the workplace, which we use in a research questionnaire especially designed for this study. The questionnaire was completed by 394 employees, and the results used to provide answers to the following research questions: Are there stereotypes within the company about the characteristics of different generations? And do different generations have different foundations regarding the company's expected attitudes towards their work? The results show that in the focal company there are mostly positive stereotypes regarding age. We also found out that there are no significant differences between the different generations regarding the company's expected attitudes towards their work. The respondents of all ages expected these attitudes to be based on similar foundations. KEYWORDS generations at workplace, characteristics of generations, older workers, age management, age-related stereotypes and discrimination, work attitude of different generations

As knowledge workers, we engage daily in meta-cognitive processes through which we build our own personal knowledge concerning our own cognitive processes and learning-relevant properties of knowledge, information or data. The commonly accepted understanding that data is transformed into information and information then feeds or becomes knowledge does not encompass the reality of personal knowledge management across all areas concerned by knowledge creation. There is an insufficient level of understanding of how to make the best use of information systems to extend the power of knowledge workers to think and to create. Systematic self-observation in parallel with action research might prove to be efficient and scientific qualitative methods allowing for gathering accurate descriptions of one’s own experience while managing personal knowledge. It may also assist with the subsequent design of information systems that would truly help knowledge workers create, make explicit and enhance their knowledge.

In this article, we propose a solution to the challenges of working with digital primary and secondary sources in political research. Thanks to the increasingly rapid pace at which sources are created and digitized, we have at our disposal an unprecedented volume of empirical data on past events, processes, and ideas. Recent hardware and software developments allow political scientists to access, organize, and search these sources more easily and accurately than ever. At the same time, the proliferation of online sources has exacerbated the problem of information overload. To alleviate it, we propose using the new generation of personal knowledge management software (PKMs) to create a networked database of sources and annotations and link them to one another. These accessible digital tools allow for the easy and intuitive retrieval and comparison of pertinent details in our sources without losing touch with the sources' broader context and ‘thick’ description.

... REFERENCES [1] Issa Shehabat, Saad A. Mahdi and Kamel Khoualdi, “ E-Learning as Knowledge Management approach for Intellectual Capital Utilization”, Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education – TOJDE, January 2008, ISSN 1302-6488, Volume 9, Number 1, PP ...

This present study aims to discover how  “better” to manage personal information  – both in what William Jones calls KFTF, keeping found things found (Jones 2007); and how  “better” to get things done  GTD (Allen 2003). Based on observation of various mechanisms used to support the personal knowledge management of knowledge workers, it identifies PIMS with the Individual Information Systems IIS of (Baskerville 2011) and the User Generated Information Systems UGIS of (DesAutels 2011). It suggests that PIMS / IIS / UGIS are only useful insofar as they enable properly informed initial action, action to correct errors, and reflective learning.

Summary In this paper we present a detailed set of e-tivities framed in a learning design context. The etivities use Internet tools for teaching Personal Knowledge Management skills (PKM) to adult learners. PKM practices and the related required skills are strictly related to learning-to-learn competencies, which have been identified as key to grow an adequate attitude to lifelong learning. Internet technologies, on the other hand, are seen as having an undisclosed potential to let people more easily and effectively jump into the “lifelong learning-to-learn” experience. The learning to learn competence makes people aware of how and why they acquire, process and memorise different types of knowledge. The results here introduced are rooted in the development of a theory related to Personal Knowledge Management skills presented in previous works, in which such competences are divided into two main groups: Basic and Higher Order PKM skills. The e-tivities introduced in this paper can pr...

Today, knowledge and intellectual capital of the organization are the main factor in competition and, in other respects, these supply chains compete with each other, and thus organizations must work to integrate the entire supply chain in an integrated manner in coordination with other members of the chain. On this route the integrated management of supply chain knowledge is important both in improving the functional characteristics of the chain and in promoting the integrity of the supply chain the present paper focuses on supply chain review and others the evolution of that pendulum then discusses its management and its role in the supply chain. The theoretical review of the subject literature shows that the role of knowledge management in supply chains is not only undeniable, but with the development of information and development technology.

This present study aims to discover how “better” to manage personal information–both in what William Jones calls KFTF, keeping found things found (Jones 2007); and how “better” to get things done GTD (Allen 2003). Based on observation of various mechanisms used to support the personal knowledge management of knowledge workers, it identifies PIMS with the Individual Information Systems IIS of (Baskerville 2011) and the User Generated Information Systems UGIS of (DesAutels 2011). It suggests that ...

Introduction. The concept of the personal knowledge and information management is based on the overlapping and supplementary areas of interest of: information literacy, personal information management and personal knowledge management. The empirical studies, started in Poland and recently conducted in Germany were focused on students' activities regarding knowledge and information management in the context of learning and studying. Method. A structured questionnaire was used, which consisted of 30 statements; the respondents indicated their agreement via the 5-point Likert scale. Both groups of respondents stemmed from similar academic environments (in the east of Poland and Germany). Analysis. The statistical methods: test t and analysis of variance were used along with the qualitative interpretation of numerical results. Results. The majority of differences between German and Polish surveyed students were observed in knowledge and information organizing and selecting. The assessment of the usefulness of skills and knowledge gained during studies was relatively high in both groups. Conclusion. Personal knowledge and information management research may be a contribution to the theory of some disciplines, e.g.: information science – due to an example of knowledge and information behaviour studies and confirmation of the need of redefinition of information science into information and knowledge science.

Świgoń Marzena (2014). Personal knowledge and information management (PKIM) behavior – in the light of the comparative studies among Polish and German students. Information Research. Special Supplement: Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2-5 September, 2014: Part 1, (paper isic17). Retrieved from http://InformationR.net/ir/19-4/isic/isic17.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/...) Information Research; IF 2013: 0,660, 5YearsIF: 0,925;

Wikis are becoming popular knowledge management tools. Analysing knowledge management requirements, we observe that wikis do not fully support structured search and knowledge reuse. We show how Semantic wikis address the requirements and present a general architecture. We introduce our SemperWiki prototype which offers advanced information access and knowledge reuse.

The current observation in collaborative technology witnesses the changing trends from email and short messaging system (SMS) to social network and mobile apps, for almost every task including personal tasks, group tasks, and even organisational tasks like making important decisions on-the-go. As a concurrent control function, managers now depend on mobile apps to instantly decide by connecting to their resources (i.e. connections or contacts) in the palm of their hands.

Despite the recent studies on knowledge sharing practices over social media within organisational boundaries, there is a gap in the realm of mobile apps regardless of the wide use of smartphone features by managers. Since the concepts of knowledge sharing and knowledge management are relevant to the process of making organisational decisions, it is believed that there is a trend in managing organisations using mobile devices and applications, which is not limited to social media alone.

This paper uses the concept of personal knowledge management (PKM) to analyse the patterns of sharing and managing knowledge among knowledge workers over mobile devices. A model called the GUSC Model is proposed to outline this pattern, and this is expandable to the tasks of making decisions among managers.

The concept embodying agent-mediated personal knowledge management (PKM) manifests a bottom-up process of organisational knowledge management (OKM) in achieving collective goals. Exploiting this concept from the perspective of crossing organisational boundaries and into the realm of social network, the concept of social intelligence is proposed. Social intelligence has been defined in many aspects, one of which is the sociability characteristics of a software agent in performing tasks over a social network. In modelling the PKM framework, intelligent agents are assigned with tasks to assist their human counterparts, where the PKM processes are enacted as a series of getting, understanding, and sharing knowledge and connecting to others for knowledge, over the social network. The critical issue is to identify and ‘locate’ knowledge experts for further enlightenment of one’s personal knowledge. Considering the advantages of social network and the congruence between PKM processes and Nonaka’s SECI model, the emergence of social intelligence is investigated in this paper by analysing the responses to a questionnaire survey on PKM processes. This paper also discusses the limitations of this research vis-à-vis the current practice in which the e-mail is predominantly used to manage personal knowledge. In resolving the issues identified, a nodal approach to agent-mediated PKM is proposed to model the emergence of social intelligence, where knowledge workers work cooperatively with software agents in a virtual workspace called a node. It then analyses the processes by characterising these nodes as intelligent social entities.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore the dichotomous role of knowledge through an examination of tacit and explicit knowledge in organizational change contexts.Design/methodology/approachThe study's aim is achieved by an analytical review of the seminal and contemporary knowledge management literature.FindingsThe paper contributes to the current body of knowledge management literature by analyzing a wide range of key literature and presenting a contemporary overview that compares the role of tacit and explicit knowledge within organizational change contexts.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings contribute toward theoretical development in the knowledge management field by providing researchers with future research directions to build upon previous theoretical understandings and advance our collective knowledge of the research domain.Practical implicationsThe paper offers practical and pragmatic insights that will help firm managers to use tacit and/or explicit know...

This study aimed to assess the reaction-based satisfaction level of Kuwait University’s students regarding the utilization of some PKM tools in their academic studies and its influence on managing their knowledge. A total of 100 undergraduate students from the College of Education participated in this research. Regardless of students being not aware at all about KM, PKM, and PKM tools. Yet, the fact is that the results showed a significantly positive, affirmative, and encouraging feelings, attitudes, and perceptions with respect to using PKM tools for academia and personal life as well (i.e., yielded an agreement ratio about 95 percent). The majority of the participants did consider PKM tools as being appropriate and useful to their work/study. They also did believe that PKM tools are important constituents for success in the global knowledge society. Thus, most of the participants were highly satisfied with PKM tools and, accordingly, their reaction-based satisfaction level was pos...

Knowledge workers have different applications and resources in heterogeneous environments for doing their knowledge tasks and they often need to solve a problem through combining several resources. Typical personal knowledge management (PKM) systems do not provide effective ways for representing knowledge worker's unstructured knowledge or idea. In order to provide better knowledge activity for them, we implement Wiki-based sociAl Network

The concept of Personal Knowledge and Information Management (PKIM) is based, among others, on two theories: Personal Information Management (PIM) and Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), which hitherto were both subjects of separate studies. Moreover, the concept of PKIM is related to IL, which is a concept of information skills and com-petences of individuals — a person who manages knowledge has to be information literate. Some of the empirical studies results in the ¯eld of PKIM, started in Poland and recently continued in Germany, are presented. As the research method an unstruc-tured questionnaire with open questions was used. Given the results of the survey as well as taking into account the subject literature, the concepts of PIM, PKM, and Information Literacy (IL) seem to be compatible and connected with each other. Our respondents perceive Knowledge and Information as well as knowledge management (KM) and information management (IM) in the context of learning and studying as integrated areas of interests. Although they do see di®erences between them, interconnections and relations seem more important. Furthermore , KM and IM are recognized as tools of coping with information overload. All aspects that have repercussions on KM and IM are related to three categories: personal characteristics, environment (macro and micro environment), and knowledge and information sources.

ABSTRACT Intellectual capital (IC) is a key strategic asset of the modern organization and a major – if not the only – sustainable source of competitive advantage. Existing literature propagates a variety of methods for assessment of intellectual capital. Unfortunately, awareness of and interest in the assessment of intellectual capital far exceeds its use in practice. This paper argues that, due to the complexities involved in selecting and implementing an appropriate method or combination of methods for assessing intellectual capital, knowledge management support systems are needed for managing the evolving body of knowledge concerning such assessment.

This paper addresses human resources utilization at the university environment. We address the design issues of e-learning courses that can capture the teacher knowledge. The underlying objective is that e-learning is a key knowledge and major resources for many universities. Therefore, the design of e-learning should be an important part of the university knowledge management process. Teachers ' knowledge in any important topic or field should be managed in a way that the university can benefit from it in case of teacher leaving or retired. Hence, intellectual personal knowledge management will be explored through the development of e-learning systems. Some concepts from the Artificial Intelligence field can be used in developing such systems. The potential for utilizing human knowledge in the university environment will optimize the resources and can be of cost effective and quality assurance factors and provide the university with a sustainable competitive advantage. Assurin...