Abstract:

This report is the results of the first ever research project to investigate the roles and skills required to create and maintain a knowledge environment. Much has been written about the theory of knowledge management and how it is being implemented, but until now little was known about the knowledge leaders and their teams, the skills that they needed and the new skills that were required throughout the organisation to enable a knowledge culture.

It identifies and defines the key generic roles required to create and maintain a knowledge culture:

• Defines the skills required in those generic roles;
• Identifies a core set of skills – ‘information literacy skills’ – that are required throughout the organisation to enable knowledge creation, flows, sharing and utilisation, and that need to be embedded in the core competencies of any knowledge organisation;
• Confirms that whilst the term Knowledge Management may be losing it’s capital letters, the concepts behind the term are fundamental to the future success of organisations in all sectors.

The report is based on the results of a major international research project looking at the roles and skills required to successfully implement knowledge management. The research was jointly funded by TFPL and the UK government’s Library and Information Commission and was carried out between November 1998 and June 1999.

The aim of the research was to identify the skills essential for creating and sustaining a knowledge culture – a culture where knowledge and information are valued and where knowledge creation, sharing and utilisation are a natural and instinctive part of business processes.

To achieve this aim TFPL identified organisations from around the world and from all sectors, that were already implementing knowledge management, or equivalent, initiatives. 500 organisations were identified and contacted and undertook in-depth case studies on some of those that had the most advanced programmes. We identified the roles that had been created to support the knowledge management initiatives, the skills and combinations of skills required in those roles, and the additional skills required across the organisation to ensure that the initiatives worked efficiently and effectively.

The results and conclusions of this work are presented in this report in the context of the emerging knowledge economy.

Author(s):

TFPL Director, Sandra Ward, explores trends since the publication of the report in her article Mobilising Knowledge: Skills for working in knowledge environments.

Contents:

• chapter 1 – Context – the knowledge economy
• chapter 2 – The corporate response – knowledge in action
• chapter 3 – Knowledge processes and information complexity
• chapter 4 – Information literacy
• chapter 5 – Knowledge management structures and roles
• chapter 6 – Skills and competencies for the KM team
• chapter 7 – Developing skills for the knowledge economy
• appendix A – Background and methodology
• appendix B – Bibliography

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