The Research of Small and Medium Enterprises Knowledge Management Based on Document Strategy

The Research of Small and Medium Enterprises Knowledge Management Based on Document Strategy YU Lijuan School of Management, Beijing Union University, China, 100101 gltlijuan@buu.edu.cn Abstract: According to knowledge management theory, from the idea of keeping explicit knowledge and explicit of tacit knowledge, this paper puts forward the knowledge management based on document strategy, and points out that enterprises should achieved the unified organization and storage of knowledge by building knowledge base based mainly on knowledge documentation. In this paper, for the implementation of this strategy, the enterprises should established some security system, hackled knowledge by using the method of combination of from top to bottom and from bottom to top, and established the documents knowledge base of the organizational structure considered. Keyword: document strategy, knowledge management, knowledge mining, knowledge base 1 Introduction Era of knowledge economy, knowledge has become an important resources for enterprises to obtain competitive advantage, and the efficient management of knowledge can effectively enhance the management efficiency and economic benefits. Seeing from small and medium enterprises (SME) status of current operators,it is impossible to achieve enterprise-wide knowledge-sharing timely because that there are still some problems on the management in majority of SME, such as management arbitrary and inefficient, especially, the explicit knowledge have not yet been organized systematically, stored and shared, a lot of tacit knowledge in business activities have yet been in the minds of employees, and these knowledge have not yet been made explicit in time. This paper reviews the theory of knowledge management, puts forward the knowledge management based on document strategy from the idea of keeping explicit knowledge and explicit of tacit knowledge. In this paper, in order to provide some reference for knowledge management practices of SMEs, it delimits the meaning of this strategy, supporting measures, and system guarantee, and presents a method for construction of the document knowledge base, and structures file system framework according the organizational construction. 2 Enterprise Knowledge Management Theory As a resource, knowledge can be translated into effective and capital. OECD divided knowledge into four types, that is, to know what, why, how to do and whose knowledge. Enterprise knowledge management is that knowledge is developed, organized, integrated, applied and shared by the enterprise. The purpose of knowledge management is that knowledge resources could be effectively applied in the enterprise, members of the enterprise could obtain the appropriate knowledge at an appropriate time and right place, knowledge resources could be innovated in order to gain competitive advantage and improve business performance. Knowledge can be divided into two categories such as explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge from the point of view of that knowledge is or not expressed clearly. Explicit knowledge can be encoded and stored by the use of text, language symbols and so on. There are some characteristic such standardized and systematic about explicit knowledge and people can learn through indirect access. Tacit knowledge is highly personal knowledge which is a personal thinking mode, beliefs and viewpoints; those could not be expressed easily or even encoded. There is the shortcoming that is difficult to standard tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge exist in the way of doing things or thinking, so people could acquire those 815

knowledge through "Learning by Doing" or direct interaction with somebody who possess tacit knowledge. Usually, tacit knowledge is key resource for enterprise. Because of its high cost, slow and inefficient when to transfer tacit knowledge, tacit knowledge mining has increasingly become a key fields on research of knowledge management. [1] Nonaka proposes the "knowledge spiral" theory. The theory suggests that tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge is not fully independent and two kinds of knowledge interact with and transform each other, by that human knowledge could be innovated and disseminated. The theory provides feasibility demonstration and basic methods for knowledge mining, that is, through three process of socialization, externalization, integrated, it can be realized that tacit knowledge could be transferred between individuals, the experience learned in practice and cognition could be described into some sections by using analogies, metaphors, assumptions, case and other language tools, and finally,some knowledge document could be formed by sorting those fragments of knowledge systematically and standardized. [2] American Productivity and Quality Research Center presents six kinds of enterprise knowledge management strategy model. M.T.Hansen and other scholars summed up in two modes for the implementation of knowledge management strategy: encoding strategies and personal strategies. Encoding strategy of knowledge management is that the enterprise should store the knowledge encoded carefully into the database so that employees can easily call. Professor Davenport proposed two-stage theory of knowledge management, at the first phase in that, the enterprises should managed knowledge assets just like managed other physical assets, and acquired assets and stored to a place,that is the "knowledge base, where knowledge could be obtained easily. [3] 3 Enterprise Knowledge Management based on Document Strategy Theoretical studies have shown that effective knowledge management can contribute to the improvement of enterprise efficiency; some well-known companies have knowledge management as a business strategy. On the encoding strategies of Hansen and so on and Davenport's two-stage theory, there is a common points,that is, for the implementation of knowledge management, enterprise should encoded and organized their knowledge, set up a document-based knowledge base, so as to achieve knowledge-sharing, application, delivery and innovation in the enterprise. In this paper, it is presented that enterprises knowledge management based on document strategy, that is, the enterprise should constructed a knowledge document system based on mainly knowledge document, developed some appropriate mechanisms for the implementation, so as to achieve the goal of enterprise knowledge management through building the documents knowledge base, forming document, sharing and application of document, delivering and document innovation. Enterprise knowledge management based on document strategy should be to combine business management with knowledge document, to realize an integrated management by encoding knowledge, to establish an overall, comprehensive, and professional document management framework, to set up a document structure framework where normative and timeliness are combined, to build up a management system of knowledge document staff participated, to clear knowledge management responsibility of all members and to set up measures of integrated document management which would be integrated into information management and accountability system. In order to implement the knowledge management strategy, enterprises should pay attention to improving the following: First: building on a specialized knowledge management department in the organizations Knowledge management departments should have the main responsibility for document management and establish close relations with other business managers and executive. Knowledge management departments should also be responsible for planning a framework of enterprise knowledge document management system, establishing enterprise knowledge base system, in a unified way, systematically sorting out documents, data and files that each business department frequently used, building up a workflow of document management, providing sample documents, document management standards and action guide, developing work processes for enterprise knowledge management, and so on. All over 816

could support enterprise knowledge management practices. Second: There should be unified management standards about document management systems taking knowledge base being as centre Knowledge base include electronic document and archive, those should be achieved in the integration on content management. In various stages of forming knowledge, such as analyzing and designing knowledge-based systems, becoming file system into entity, preserving electronic document into archives and the whole process including share, use, innovation, out of part of the document for knowledge base, there should be some standards of document management and a consistent management manner that would be embedded in enterprise business activities. Third: improving the supporting systems, ensuring the implementation of document strategies It is the fundamental guarantee of promoting internal knowledge flows and sharing knowledge that enterprises create a good working environment and it is need to establish the necessary security system. First of all, knowledge security has become an important aspect of enterprise knowledge management because of the establishment of the file system that led a lot of knowledge of special value of enterprises to clearing, which includes explicit and implicit knowledge. Enterprise has the need to set up some safe operation standards and regulation and puts an end to the outflow of corporate knowledge. Secondly, the file system includes not only the explicit knowledge of the enterprises, but also tacit knowledge which has been converted to document. The tacit knowledge that be in the employees brain is sometimes difficult to be aware of and is with private properties, therefore, it is very necessary to establish the right environment and the system for tacit knowledge transference and sharing. Enterprises should establish the corresponding system of incentive and restraint, urge all staffs to take part in knowledge management so that everyone would transform their tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in a more active way, impel document knowledge management to responsibility to the human and rewards and punishment must be clearly demarcated. In addition, knowledge is timeliness itself, knowledge management work is also, so it should be at the right time for mining knowledge resources, be timely for updating knowledge document and to establish a management system in which document is brought into and out knowledge base timely The file management institution itself should has been incorporated into the business management institution same as other institution; document management standard should has been integrated into unified system of operational work norms same as other businesses work norms; the performance evaluation of document management should also be regarded as an important aspect of business performance evaluation. Implementation knowledge management based on document strategy need to be completed in two phases: the first phase is to build knowledge base, in which, the enterprise knowledge are be collected, organized and stored systematically through the form of document knowledge base; the second phase is the application of knowledge base, in which, the enterprise excavate, share, apply and innovate knowledge by use of knowledge base so as to achieve the goal of knowledge management. Knowledge base is foundation of knowledge management, and good organization and storage structure is a key to improve the efficiency of knowledge management. From system analysis perspective, knowledge base can be completed through three steps: the first step, to analysis knowledge content systematically, that including both inside and outside enterprise knowledge, management and business knowledge, static and dynamic knowledge, standards clarity and non-standard tacit knowledge such as experience ect.; the second step, to design the structure of knowledge base, to make integration management system of electronic document and archive; final step, to implement knowledge base included the document format specification, formation mechanism, and the contents building by total involvement and gradually establishing and improving. 4 Knowledge base Analysis and Design The document knowledge base that is rich contents, well structured and perfect management system is 817

the key to improve the effectiveness of knowledge management. Enterprise knowledge resources involved in internal and external, organizations and individuals, network-formed structure exist in various aspects of business activities and a variety of levels, so that, it is necessary is to systematically and reasonably analyze knowledge content when knowledge base is established in order to prevent the lack of knowledge resource management. Enterprises knowledge scattered in the business activities can be systematically tidied up by using the way that is a combining the top-down driven with bottom-up pull. The top-down driven means that senior managers screen knowledge from the strategic management point by using a mature technique about business analysis, such as value chain technology. Due to the complexity of knowledge systems, the core business processes and knowledge resources of company will be determined by markets and resources when selecting knowledge resources, based on this, the strategy arrangements and plan implementation of knowledge organization is guided. Tacit knowledge is an important resource, exists in the minds of employees. The bottom-up pull means that employees in the enterprise are responsible for mining their own knowledge as experience by using appropriate tools under the incentive and restrictive system of knowledge management. To excavate knowledge directly related to micro-level and business activities, the job responsibilities of employees could be made by knowledge mining technology base on a combination business process and post definition, this technology such as Figure 1: strategy, organization knowledge mining and culture, system organizations human resources, financial by senior managers production, product,project knowledge mining and organizations by staff procurement stock produce Sales Customer External knowledge Figure 1: Knowledge Discovery Process The first step of systematic knowledge management is carding knowledge, the next step is to build the document base structure. The organizational construct of most enterprises be built based on business function, in fact, it also provides a basis for building knowledge base. If carding knowledge by the method of departments as a unit, it is just to ensure clear- responsibility, well-targeted and knowledge organization can be realized system and specialization, but also to ensure the effective application of the knowledge base, therefore, knowledge base structure can be established for the department such filing cabinet. In general, each departments in enterprises perform business within some frameworks included corporate culture, business practices, regulations, technical standards, certification system, common operating rules, staff training system, document template, codes of document management, etc., it is necessary to establish a filing cabinet for over knowledge organized by senior managers. [4] 818

Filing cabinets can be divided into different folders into which various document would be put according to the actual situation of department, for example, put technical standards, quality standards and certification system into a folder, put sector-related administration document, business process standards, various norms and systems into a folder, put project technical document related business process activities into a folder. Mining tacit knowledge is an important aspect of Knowledge Management, that be accomplished by its employees through continuous refining, sorting, processing and finally forming shared documents under the protection of the corresponding system, so it is need to establish a folder into which over knowledge could been put and classified according to knowledge organization and personal property. Figure 2 is the framework of corporate knowledge base. Figure 2: File Structure Chart For the realization of the integration management of electronic documents and archives, there should be a unified document number. The explicit knowledge in enterprises comes from different sources, as a result, knowledge carriers will be different, such as books, copying data, multimedia information, brochures, reports, etc. Enterprise should create some electronic files or archives backup selected, but the document encoding should are consistent according to business needs. Some important information about documents such as paper topic, author, summary, keywords, categories, text, notes, and information about documents management, such as identification, generation and submission time, file permissions, file transfer process, document classification and grading and so on would been encoded and submitted at the same time when document will be formed in order to achieve fast retrieval of documents. Tacit knowledge could be firstly described by fragments as analogy, metaphor, assumptions, case etc., then formed norms document by the finishing. In order to fully reflect the essence of tacit knowledge, those norms documents should be delimited in a number of key points such as the issue, some specific measures to solve the problem, some impacted factors for success, some expert s information and 819

subjects areas or other expertise. Because the issue is different, areas covered for solving issue is also different, therefore, some key points could not be delimited in contents of document describes, but in quantity, so that the effects of tacit knowledge mining can be ensured. 5 Conclusion Knowledge scattered in every corner of business. For implementation of knowledge management, enterprises must fully exploit the existing knowledge; execute knowledge management based on document strategy. Documents is main in this strategy which points enterprise could achieve the goal of knowledge management through building a document knowledge base, forming document, application and sharing document, delivery and innovation document. The implementation of SME knowledge management based on document need to set up a series of system guarantee, such as enterprises should set up special departments of knowledge management, unify document management standards, establish knowledge security system, establish culture environment where is help sharing knowledge, establish incentive and bound system. For the implementation of this knowledge management strategy, we will also need to apply a rational approach to ensure the knowledge base is systematic, professional, and comprehensive. To sort out the contents of enterprise knowledge, a method could be used that is a combining the top-down driven with bottom-up pull, respectively, by use of value chain analysis technology and business process analysis techniques. Enterprises can build document knowledge base according to sector structure; documents in base should be defined in format and content in order to fully exploit the knowledge. References [1]. WANG Delu and so on. Knowledge management: Competitive Resources[M]. Nanjing: Jiangsu people ' s publishing house, 1999,41. (in Chinese) [2]. Nanaka I, Takeuchi H. The Knowledge Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, 21-56 [3]. ZUO Meiyun. Research on Domestic and foreign enterprises Knowledge Management [J]. Scientific Decision, 2000.03, p31~37. (in Chinese) [4]. FENG Jicheng. Knowledge management theory, technology and operations [M]. Beijing: China Economic Publishing House, 2006.1. (in Chinese) 820