Strategic Knowledge Management: Importance of Knowledge, Communities of Practice, Performance Measurement, Intellectual Capital and Social Networking

[STRATEGIC
KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT]

STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 1
Strategic thinking requires a strong strategic knowledge base because without that the
strategic thinking would lose its actual meaning as the strategies based on the knowledge.
Many business structures defined to evaluate the significance of system of knowledge in the
business area also the application of business design system and strategic system thinking.
Generally, the system focuses on the four main pointers usually named as the knowledge
management, communities of practice, performance measurement, and the intellectual capital
and social networking these actually help the organisations or the business firms to get a
competitive advantage and the competitive edge in the market for the achievement of the
long-term goals of the business. Four aspects of the business development generally
considered as weapon against the competitors of the firm in the market or the business
environment (Hislop, Bousa, and Helms, 2018). Knowledge management here is not just
about maintaining the knowledge but to sustain its role and value in the organisation for long-
term period. Communities of practice basically are the groups of learners who share the same
concern or something in common that they do and learn something new or gain knowledge
according to concern by interacting regularly (North and Kumta, 2018). The other aspect
named performance measurement is been adopted by various organisations for the
measurement of performance level of the individuals or the employees of the organisation.
There are several indicators undertaken by several companies for the performance
measurement of the members of the company (Hwang, Lin, and Shin, 2018). The fourth
aspect of the strategic knowledge management is the intellectual capital which is basically the
intangible value created by the business firm in terms of the goodwill, employee satisfaction
with the organisation and the market relations with the customers of the company is
intellectual value of any business organisation or the firm.
The base of creativity is the knowledge and without which nothing achieved in terms
innovation and invention. The accurate measurement of knowledge however is not possible

STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 2
being an intellectual asset for the organisation, thought the sustaining it considering as an
innate value for the organisation and the role it plays in aspect for the development of the
organisation (Tomkin, Beilstein, and Morphew, 2018). The knowledge management here
means to grow business and to get the competitive edge in the market through the
enhancement of knowledge in respect of the innovation and invention in the business. As
strategy is a product of knowledge this directly depicts how significant it is to update with
knowledge regarding the business areas in the business. The technical strategies based on the
level of knowledge a firm or a company holds (Bontis, Ciambotti, and Palazzi, 2018). The
knowledge management is generally categorised as tacit and the explicit tacit means the
knowledge derived from the personal experiences derived from the jobs delivered and by
interacting with the people. In order to gain more knowledge, these are actually very difficult
to codify and extract as based on individual’s personal instincts and is specific in the context,
which can be quite beneficial for the overall development of the company. The tacit
knowledge also known by the word implicit knowledge as implicit used as the synonym for
the tacit (Secundo, Massaro, and Dumay, 2018). The other category is the explicit knowledge
refers to the digitized or the codified knowledge. This can only be extracted through books or
any documented source and is not based on any kind of experience which is directly extracted
from some source other than human mind is considered as the explicit knowledge is in form
of documents, books, memos and reports and all the secondary resources are to get the
explicit knowledge. Certain organisational examples of knowledge management include the
ever note, insta-cart, and canva these three are known for the best knowledge management
organisational examples, these are recognised as organisations with proper knowledge
management which provides the firm to step a level higher in terms of development and
growth (Abualoush, Masa'deh, and Bataineh,2018,).

STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 3
In 1991, Lave and Wegner introduced the concept of Communities of Practice, which
referred to the groups of people who share a concern and learn something new by interacting
among each other and discussing about the concern they share among themselves (Massaro,
Dumay, and Garlatti, 2018). The primary purpose of the same is to bring up the ideas of
different people on the same interest or the concern in order to practice the flow of
knowledge in the organisation in the business. As the goal of the organisation, is to enhance
the practice, also the communities of practice help to increase the expertise among the
workers of the organisation. This will help to enhance the practice and will help to gather
knowledge and to look over at the different perspectives of the different people (Trequattrini,
Lombardi, and Lardo, 2018); it can also act as a source to derive more knowledge in respect
to the common interest shared by the people of the community practicing the learning skills.
With the ultimate purpose of forming up the communities is to gain knowledge and to
enhance their abilities to learn to use the same for the accomplishment of the common
objective of the company. There are also various challenges faced while maintaining these
communities because people with different thoughts and perspectives are involved in the
same at times becomes the reason for the conflicts in the communities. Communities of
practice actually allow people to have collective learning with the main domain to enhance
the learning skills by sharing the knowledge and to improve their practice. The challenges
face by the people being in the community avoided by maintaining peace and giving every
member equal importance to put up their ideas forward. The major challenges include the
knowledge barrier, leadership challenges and the conflict of ideas is truly a matter of concern
because it creates the most chances or the probabilities of disputes and the conflicts among
the members of the group. As the growth and development of any organisation depends on
the part of knowledge owned by the firm in context to the market environment because that is
only the relevant information required for the same. The communities of practice formed in