Introduction to Knowledge Management in a Changing Society: Using Knowledge to Change Societies

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) is beginning to have an impact on society. For example, we may actually see KM leading to less knowledge worker offshore outsourcing (although offshore sourcing for knowledge needs may increase) as it becomes difficult for organizations to maintain two or more classes of knowledge workers and wages and position will tend to equalize over national boundaries. Quality of life concerns will guide knowledge workers to where they want to live and work and this will also support equalization of living standards and critical infrastructure. This will be disruptive to the organization as traditional management and governance structures will be stressed to handle distributed knowledge in a distributed organization. Workers may rethink traditional careers as they may work in organizations where they never physically meet their boss or colleagues and will be more loyal to local organizations and local social structures. This will likely increase transience, a trend weOre observing now in many organizations, and increased transience will likely lead to increased intellectual property and knowledge ownership issues. Similarly, societal changes have an impact on KM. If hiring practices change as organizations hire and retain staff based on the knowledge they possess, this may actually lead to a higher valuation of older, experienced workers. This will tend to force knowledge workers into being lifelong learners if they are not already. Unfortunately, with the Baby Boomers expected to retire now and in the near future, organizations are faced with the problems of retaining the knowledge and expertise of this population. With Generation X and Y individuals prototypically having 'spiral' or 'transitory' career paths, this also impacts KM practices. With reduced birthrates in the developed countries, the increased immigration impacts KM in terms of under-utilization or undervaluing the immigrant population's knowledge. The increased rate of use of contingent (or non-standard) workers (e.g., contract employees, temporary employees, seasonal or non-permanent employees) also impacts the type of knowledge entering the organization and KM practices. Papers were sought that investigated these impacts and explore how organizations are using KM to help meet these impacts on society and how these societal trends impact organizations. Five papers will be presented for this year’s minitrack. The first session starts out with a paper by Taina A. Kurki and HannaMiina Sihvonen that investigates using a role based approach for applying knowledge to emergency response. The second paper is from Hsine-Jen Tsai, Les Miller, Sree Nilakanta, Ming Hua, and Meher Vani Bojja. This paper investigates using spatial approaches to applying knowledge to disaster response. The session concludes with a paper from Joshua Connell, Gregory Schechtman, and Bryan Hasty. This paper investigates how transience and retirement issues with explosive ordinance personnel are affecting the United States Air Force’s ability to respond to ordinance issues. The second session starts with a paper from Robert Patton, Wade McNair, Christopher Symons, Jim Treadwell, and Thomas Potok. This paper explores how organizations are using knowledge as a currency for inter-organizational transactions. The second paper is from Justin Scott Giboney, Susan A Brown, and Jay F Nunamaker. This paper explores issues associated with user acceptance of knowledge based systems. The session concludes with a paper from the •Indigenous Knowledge and Other Knowledge Systems, an Intersection of beliefs minitrack by Dieudonn Toukam and Samuel Fosso Wamba. This paper explores issues with codifying knowledge from tribal peoples using new information and communication technologies. We would like to thank all of the people whose efforts contribute to this minitrack. All of those who submitted work in addition to the numerous colleagues who served as reviewers are working to continue the strong tradition of KM research at HICSS. 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences