Fundamentals

• Knowledge transfer is an integral part of organizational life.

• It represents the transmission of knowledge (conveying the knowledge of one source to another source) and the appropriate use of the transmitted knowledge.

• The goal is to promote/facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking.

• It can involve accessing valuable/scarce resources, new expertise, new insight, cross fertilization of knowledge and can create an organizational environment of excellence.

• Collaboration implies the ability to connect diverse assets into unique capabilities in pursuit of new opportunities mainly for organizational growth.

• Knowledge transfer can be done by working together, communicating, learning by doing, using face-to-face discussions, or embedding knowledge through procedures, mentoring, or documents exchange.

• Knowledge can be transferred from repositories to people, from team(s) to individual(s), and between individuals.

• Factors:
  • From where the knowledge is transferred: data warehouses, knowledge bases, experts etc.

  • The media used: LAN, wireless transmission, secure/insecure lines, encrypted/plain text etc.

  • To where the knowledge is transferred: Another computer system, a manager, a customer etc.

Figure 8.1: Partial view of a Knowledge Management System for Transferring and Sharing Knowledge Applications

Some organizations know what to do, but for various reasons ignore the available information and perform differently (creating the knowing-doing gap). This problem should be recognized to help organizations making corrections and setting up a knowledge transfer environment for the benefit of all the employees.