Knowledge has legs: personal knowledge strategies shape the future of knowledge work and knowledge management

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to mobilize organizations to look at knowledge management through the lens of the individuals whose knowledge they covet and to seek to leverage in order to establish a faster, more flexible and mutually supportive conduit to relevant knowledge and more sustainable knowledge contributions.Design/methodology/approachThis is a discussion paper based on the authors' recent dissertation thesis: “A theoretical model of knowledge strategies for professionals in volatile business settings”.FindingsOrganizations can no longer promise lifelong employment even to their best employees. Striving to safeguard employability instead, organizations and individuals can recalibrate the contributive value of their knowledge in a mutually‐ beneficial way even in short‐term, medium‐term or highly volatile employment settings. The resulting bottom‐up approach for managing personal knowledge reduces the friction and mistrust often associated with top‐down knowledge management. It sets the stage for an environment that manages for knowledge, both individually and collectively.Originality/valueSome individuals have learned to navigate the emerging knowledge economy successfully and craft sustainable value propositions for themselves based on what they know. The research identified the concept of knowledge empowerment and six knowledge strategies and their supporting elements as key enablers for this success. One of these strategies – Lifelong Learning – is explored in detail to demonstrate the transformational power of an additional vantage point that considers individuals as stakeholders and not just as contributors in the knowledge quest. This resets the responsibility for knowledge acquisition, creation and leverage and establishes the need for more extensive personal knowledge management as a subset of organizational knowledge management. This aspect of knowledge management has only been marginally explored in the knowledge management literature to date.