In the present-day world, when people have reached the level at which the humankind deserves being called the informational civilization, managing information becomes one of the most important processes.
Hence the need to coordinate the knowledge acquisition processes and stream them the required way appears. Moreover, the interest in the processes of knowledge acquisition, processing and storage has increase over the past few years, launching a million of theories concerning knowledge acquisition processes and the means to control them.
In his book Knowledge management in theory and practice, Kimiz Dalkir splits the knowledge management procedure in several stages that are required to process a specific bit of information for its further application. Speaking of the significance of these processes, one must admit that each of them serves a certain purpose and, therefore, their significance must not be underrated.
They make a chain of reactions in a human brain, and, once one of these processes is taken out, the chain is broken. Hence, every single element serves its purpose and is extremely important. However, when considering the stage at which the interruption into the process and its further cancellation leads to the most drastic events, one must take a closer look at the knowledge production processes in the McElroy KM cycle (Dalkir, 2005).
To the given stage, new knowledge is being produced, which the goal of information processing actually is. Therefore, the given process is the most important. As Cope and Freeman explain, “Demand-side KM is focused on knowledge production, the demand for new knowledge” (Cope & Freeman, 2002, 39).Since during the stage of knowledge production processes, new knowledge is generated, the given stage is crucial for the KM process.
Another peculiar stage that the KM process involves is the one at which various problems are solved. At the given stage, the key decision points are made, which means that the stage of decision making is the point at which the acquired knowledge are tested and applied to practice.
Previously only a theoretical concept, the acquired knowledge obtains a practical foil for its further use, thus, completing the knowledge management cycle. On the one hand, it can be argued that the given process is far from being significant, since it does not presuppose either acquiring any additional knowledge, or analyzing the information in order to evaluate it and shape into a specific theory. Indeed, there are little to no discoveries that can be made in the process of knowledge application.
In addition, the process of testing a certain theory has nothing to do with obtaining the information, which alone means that the given stage does not have much in common with information processing. On the other hand, though, the process of knowledge application can and must be related to the knowledge management cycle, since it presupposes the use of the newly acquired information. When defining the most significant stage in a KM process, one has to choose the issue that is going to be taken as the goal of the KM cycle.
For McElroy, the goal was to pout the acquired knowledge to practice: “For McElroy, the role of KM is to enhance an organization’s capacity to learn and adapt” (Cope & Freeman, 2002, 39). If the goal is to make efficient use of knowledge, which is exactly the point that McElroy made, the process of knowledge application should be considered the most important one in the KM cycle.
Reference List
Cope, B. & Freeman, R. (2002). Developing knowledge workers in the printing and publishing industries. Melbourne, AU: RMIT University.
Dalkir, K. (2005). Knowledge management in theory and practice. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.