مدیریت دانش جاسازی شده: به سمت بهبود رابطه مدیریتی Embedded knowledge management: towards improved managerial relevance

Introduction The performance of knowledge-intensive organizations is determined by their ability to transform knowledge (or more widely, knowledge assets) into value for their customers (Alvesson 1993; Grant 1996; Lo¨nnqvist and Laihonen 2016; Schiuma et al. 2007). Knowledge management is a discipline focused on the managerial issues dealing with knowledge. According to Gao et al. (2008, p. 11), the objective of knowledge management is ‘‘the effective and efficient management of existing organizational knowledge and the mobilization of personal knowledge for achieving organizational goals’’. Thus, knowledge management seems ideally suited for meeting the challenges of knowledge-intensive organizations (Evanschlitzky et al. 2007). However, despite the large volume of research and managerial literature on knowledge management, managers seem to find it difficult to appreciate its added value for their managerial work (Bailey and Clarke 2000). Even though the knowledge management discipline has been evolving roughly twenty years already (or more, depending on how one defines it), the extent and ways in which knowledge management is actually applied by practitioners (i.e., managers) is somewhat unclear. Some authors have raised the question concerning the managerial relevance of knowledge management (Booker et al. 2008; Serenko and Bontis 2011). This might be caused by the fact that the field of knowledge management is too dispersed for the practitioners to identify the frameworks and tools most useful for their particular purpose (Maier and Remus 2003). On the other hand, the majority of literature on knowledge management seems to deal with somewhat technical tasks related to knowledge, such as knowledge sharing within an organization or the measurement of knowledge-related phenomena (Heisig 2009), while the managers of knowledge-intensive organizations actually struggle with more general management type challenges such as personnel management issues, running operative processes, customer service and budget management. This contradiction may raise the question of ‘‘what’s in it for me’’ (Bailey and Clarke 2001), i.e., what is the personal relevance of knowledge management for a manager? Yet another potential explanation relates to the lack of evidence regarding the impact of knowledge management practices and interventions on the organizational performance (Inkinen 2016). These issues bring up the question on the extent that knowledge management—despite its promise—is making a contribution to the key management tasks of knowledge-intensive organizations. The aim of this paper is to better understand the added value that knowledge management as an approach can bring to the management of knowledge-intensive organizations. This paper explores empirically the actual management practices of a knowledge-intensive organization and examines how knowledge-related phenomena are managed as integrated aspects of management processes. By doing so, this paper makes a contribution to the discussion on the role of knowledge management as an embedded management practice. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, a literature-based conceptual part of the study briefly summarizes what is known about the use of knowledge management in knowledge-intensive organizations and then advances the discussion on potential relevance problems and the means to address them. Second, an action-oriented case study portraying a university unit is reported. Finally, conclusions are drawn based on the empirical findings.