Knowledge Management: Best Practices in Sharing and Preserving Valuable Knowledge

Dear Colleagues,

Knowledge management (KM) is a multidisciplinary field of research and practice that builds upon the foundations of data, records, document and information management. KM encompasses the creation, documentation, organization, transfer and preservation of valuable know-how that has been gleaned from practical experience. It is the opposite of “organizational amnesia”—we do not want to forget innovative new ideas and practices, nor do we want to learn things again (especially not the hard way). Both theory and practice go hand-in-hand in order to identify what knowledge is of value to an individual, a group/team and an organization. Once identified, this content needs to be documented, classified and well tagged for future retrieval and reuse. Organizational learning cannot occur if we cannot remember and learn from past experiences. In addition to being based on experiential learning (as opposed to “book” knowledge), KM is distinguished by its inclusion of tacit as well as explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge tends to be knowledge that is very difficult to share or transfer to others, residing primarily in people, whereas explicit knowledge has been documented in some form (text, audio, etc.). Both tacit and explicit forms of knowledge play a crucial role in ensuring that knowledge workers find and use the latest vetted and validated best practices. Conversely, KM also plays a vital role in ensuring that past mistakes are not repeated, that lessons are learned and that we always start off on the right foot—that is, standing on the accumulated collective knowledge, know-how and experience that has gone before.

The goal of this Special Issue is to provide the interested reader with a collection papers describing recent developments in knowledge transfer and preservation. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Knowledge transfer techniques: 
  • methods used to transfer tacit knowledge
  • methods used to transfer explicit knowledge
• Knowledge preservation best practices
  • Organizational learning
  • Organizational memory
  • Knowledge retention when employees leave (retirement, non-anticipated departures)
• Case studies in knowledge transfer and preservation: HR, IT and other perspectives
• Theoretical frameworks and models
• Key obstacles to knowledge transfer and preservation
  • Copyright issues
  • Cultural barriers
• Key success factors

Prof. Dr. Eric Tsui
Guest Editor

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