Knowledge Management in Innovative Companies 1

1The KM Project in an Organization

1.1. Articulation of Chapter 1

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the concepts of knowledge management (KM) in organizations, the concepts of operational methodology, as well as the need for a global and shared vision of a company’s KM project.

In section 1.2, we recall the foundations of KM in organizations.

Section 1.3 is dedicated to the reference framework for a knowledge-based KM, which is based on the daisy model.

In section 1.4, we show how to obtain an operational instantiation of the daisy model in the form of the virtuous cycle of knowledge.

The four steps of the MASK method (Method for Analyzing and Structuring Knowledge), which will instrument the virtuous cycle of knowledge, are described in section 1.5. This operational approach will structure the rest of the book: the four steps (MASK I to MASK IV) of the method are respectively at the heart of Chapters 2–5, while the design and deployment of a global KM project based on these four steps constitute the heart of Chapter 6.

Section 1.6 illustrates how a KM project can be fed by a process repository dedicated to the organization’s knowledge capital.

The study of the critical success factors relating to the design and operational deployment of a global KM project is discussed in section 1.7.

Finally, section 1.8 summarizes Chapter 1.

1.2. Knowledge management

Every company has always managed its knowledge and expertise by explaining it in documents and procedures, by ...