Course: cosc 6325
Challenges and opportunities of knowledge Management in mobile environment
When work is both knowledge-intensive (e.g. associated with recording a great deal of new information to be shared with other people) and mobile (i.e., outside the office, often without any pre-planned the acquisition and sharing of the organizational knowledge becomes challenging. These challenges pertain to limitations with which mobile workers are confronted. Some of these limitations can be classified as Technical and infrastructure-conditional limitations of mobile devices and mobile connectivity, Organizational limitations, such as distance to experts and corporate resources, and Individual limitations concerning the cognitive load resulting from concurrent tasks, time pressure, ad-hoc situations, distracting or “manipulated” environments under the strong influence of the needs and desires of the customer.
Basically, knowledge management is about converting available raw data into understandable information. The information is then placed in a reusable repository for the benefit of any future need based on similar kinds of experiences. Knowledge management contributes towards streamlining the ideas problems, projects and deployment driving towards productivity. But, it’s more than just knowing everything your organization knows, it’s creating a synthesis between the people and the information to the point that the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
Knowledge Management Challenges in mobile environment could be:
1. Security. Providing the right level of security for knowledge management is key. Sensitive information should be shielded from most users, while allowing easy access to those with the proper credentials.
2. Getting people motivated. Overcoming organizational culture challenges and developing a culture that embraces learning, sharing, changing, improving can’t be done with technology. There is no use in launching a tool if there is no drive to share the knowledge.
3. Keeping up with technology. Determining how knowledge should be dispensed and transferring it quickly and effectively is a huge challenge. Constantly changing structures mean learning how to be smart, quick, agile and responsive – all things a KM tool must be able to accomplish.
4. Measuring knowledge. Knowledge is not something that can be easily quantified, and is far more complex because it is derived out of human relationships and experience. The focus should be on shared purpose rather than results or efforts.
5. Overcoming shared leadership. KM tools allow others to emerge as voices of power within an organization. Workers are given a “voice”, which can sometimes cause internal conflict.
6. Keeping data accurate. Valuable data generated by a group within an organization may need to be validated before being harvested and distributed. Keeping information current by eliminating wrong or old ideas is a constant battle.
7. Interpreting data effectively. Informat...
