Chief Knowledge Officer Research Articles

Chief Knowledge Officer: Critical Success Factors for Knowledge Management

This article examines attributes of the CKO position and the backgrounds of the people who fill it. Variations in the prescribed role for the CKO are reviewed, as are CKO critical success factors. One critical knowledge management issue, implicit-to-explicit knowledge conversion, is investigated in some depth to reveal the unique nature of issues confronting the CKO position. Finally, the arguments for potentially not implementing a CKO function are discussed.

Marketing Metrics

A fundamental problem for measuring marketing performance is defining and identifying both the best metrics and best practice. This article, based on a three‐year research project among major companies, summarises both what firms do and what the research implied they should do. It proposes a common use of language as a prerequisite to defining metrics and introducing performance measurement systems. Boards should establish and regularly review both external and internal market metrics, including innovation health. The author also explains why he thinks market research responsibility, and reporting marketing performance to the board, should be turned over to the finance director or chief knowledge officer.

Skills for the 21st Century

As the economic value, to companies and organizations, of information management and knowledge management becomes more widely accepted, there are likely to be many opportunities for information professionals to benefit from this new recognition. As information is seen to underpin many diverse activities, from education to electronic shopping, the question arises as to whether information professionals will benefit from this opportunity or whether more opportunistic professions may take the lead. Considers the key skills likely to be of importance to these new ’Chief Knowledge Officers’ and frames the discussion in the light of the TFPL study, undertaken for the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, to examine the skills and competency required by employers in the corporate sector from candidates for first and second level posts.

Synergies Between Organizational Learning and Creativity & Innovation

In today’s fast changing business environment, where knowing more and knowing it faster than the competition is often the difference between surviving and not surviving, organizational learning is more and more being recognized as a crucial organizational function. Never mind that the term is over‐used, over‐hyped and made to mean whatever the writer really wants to talk about. See through the snow and recognize that organizational learning is an organizational function that is here to stay and that will grow in importance. Unending changes in technology and in markets and the removal of logistical and regulatory buffers from competition will make it so.As a consequence of these facts, organizational learning has become a subject of study by management researchers and a subject of considerable interest to corporate leaders – so much so that many large US business organizations are creating positions with the titles like Chief Learning Officer and Chief Knowledge Officer. Certainly organizational learning is a phrase in high fashion. But in what specific ways, if any, does it lead to creativity and innovation? Or, consider the reverse directionality – in what ways do creativity and innovation lead to organizational learning? In this article, I offer some partial answers to these questions, with the intention of giving readers an additional way to frame the processes of creativity and innovation in their organizations.

Enterprise knowledge management

Many enterprises downsize to adapt to more competitive environments, but unless they have captured the knowledge of their employees, downsizing can result in a loss of critical information. Similarly, as employees leave, organizations are likely to lose access to large quantities of critical knowledge. As companies expand internationally, geographic barriers can affect knowledge exchange and prevent easy access to information. These and other forces are pushing enterprises to explore better methods for knowledge management. Enterprise knowledge management entails formally managing knowledge resources, typically by using advanced information technology. KM is formal in that knowledge is classified and categorized according to a prespecified, but evolving, ontology into structured and semistructured data and knowledge bases. The overriding purpose of enterprise KM is to make knowledge accessible and reusable to the enterprise. The business world is becoming so concerned about knowledge management that, according to one report, over 40 percent of the Fortune 1000 now have a chief knowledge officer, a senior-level executive responsible for creating an infrastructure and cultural environment for knowledge sharing. This article surveys some components of this young field.

The Chief Knowledge Officer’s Role: Challenges and Competencies

A survey has investigated the challenges and competencies needed by Chief Knowledge Officers, as well as the next stage in the development curve of CKOs. The primary role of the CKO is to convert knowledge into profit by leveraging the organization’s intellectual assets. Key CKO competencies include: interpersonal communication skills; passionate, visionary leadership skills; business acumen; strategic thinking skills; champion of change and collaborative skills. What is currently missing is a set of integrative skills focusing on organizational strategy.

Internet commerce and knowledge management – the next megatrends

Electronic commerce is a fairly new application of the Internet and World Wide Web and its viability will depend on the development of globally accepted legal rules and regulations, as recognized by the US President’s nine recommendations. One key to the success of Internet commerce will lie in improved privacy protection regulations and trusted encryption software. Another lies in the application of knowledge management (KM) and knowledge management systems (KMS), to ensure that the right information reaches the right people in the company, with the Web acting as the enabler. Notes particularly the important role played by Chief Knowledge Officer, whose job is to move information and knowledge around the company while making it more usable and engaging the knowledge workers in its use and replenishment. Concludes that knowledge management will generally employ a ‘pull’ rather than a ‘push’ strategy since knowledge workers will know what information is wanted and will actively search for it via KMS. There will be a need to develop appropriate critical success factors (CSF) for measuring the contribution of KMS to the enterprise. As more companies downsize, KMS will become more critical to the company as people leave the company taking knowledge they gained with them.

Leveraging invisible assets: the human factor

Though invisible and therefore difficult to measure, knowledge and human expertise are the principal creators of value for every organization. What new approaches might business leaders adopt to ensure that this intangible source of value is managed and enhanced? The success of a knowledge-based organization will always depend on the willingness of its people to share their knowledge and expertise. Because of this dependence on the human factor, the following areas are key to making progress: 1. shifting management attention from tangible to intangible assets; 2. focusing resources—e.g. new roles with titles like ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’; 3. encouraging and rewarding people for sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Leveraging invisible assets: the human factor

Abstract Though invisible and therefore difficult to measure, knowledge and human expertise are the principal creators of value for every organization. What new approaches might business leaders adopt to ensure that this intangible source of value is managed and enhanced? The success of a knowledge-based organization will always depend on the willingness of its people to share their knowledge and expertise. Because of this dependence on the human factor, the following areas are key to making progress: 1. shifting management attention from tangible to intangible assets; 2. focusing resources—e.g. new roles with titles like ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’; 3. encouraging and rewarding people for sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Competitive knowledge management: You can't reengineer what never mas engineered in the first place

AbstractCompetitive Knowledge Management (CKM)—which recognizes competitive intelligence as a core aspect of knowledge management—is most likely to succeed when developed as an initiative coordinated across business units. This allows competitive knowledge already existing in companies to be effectively exploited for competitive advantage. Viewing CKM as a business process rather than a stand‐alone operation allows traditional business functions to play a key role in the core CKM mission—bringing information and intelligence to strategic decision makers. The problem: these functions typically operate as organizational fiefdoms, rarely coordinating with each other regarding intelligence. Often, intelligence efforts have never been engineered with an overall vision of a company‐wide competitive knowledge process. The author discusses basic principles for managing a business process and suggests how these can be used in the context of CKM. He proposes as a CKM process model a “superagency” that would act as the central nervous system of the corporation, and suggests how the current CI model could evolve, stage by stage, into a CKM superagency. He further notes that integrated CKM requires coordination along four dimensions to be effective. He proposed that the CKM process owner be a corporate officer (the Chief Knowledge Officer), and describes the characteristics of that role. Finally, he offers a general method that can be used to speed the development of a competitive knowledge process, and advises how to surmount the attitudinal hurdles of a resistant corporate culture. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.