Author: Tony Darcy

Date: 16th of May 2022

Introduction

According to Ragsdell et al. (2014) “Knowledge audits assist organisations in understanding what knowledge is needed, available and used for their current activities. They also identify knowledge gaps that might limit the organisation’s activities”.

The aim of this report is to demonstrate the value of a knowledge audit (particularly to organizations that haven’t already implemented it) and to provide guidance on what should be included how value can be derived from it.

Methodology

To find these sources, the terms “importance of a knowledge audit” were searched for on EBSCOhost, with all the available databases selected and then the peer reviewed filter was applied.

Unfortunately, this left few results of value to this report, so the search terms were modified to “knowledge audit” to expand the search.

The peer reviewed filter could’ve also been removed, but in this case it wasn’t required.

Criteria

The following criteria was used:

Peer reviewed articles were strongly preferred, as these are more reputable than other journal articles
Newer journal articles were preferred to older ones, but as this topic isn’t very time sensitive, this wasn’t considered a major priority. Therefore, for the purpose of this report, any source that was published within the past 12 years was considered current and most sources older than this were still considered acceptable.
The relevance of the article to the topic. In particular, articles that explicitly mentioned the value of their knowledge audit were preferred to those where it needed to be inferred and articles that could easily be related to a broad range of organisations in other industries and other countries were preferred to ones where the relationship wasn’t as obvious.

Identification & Value of Major Sources

The chosen major sources are:

Ragsdell et al. (2014): “Knowledge Audit: Findings from the Energy Sector”.
Although it focuses specifically on the energy sector, this article has a lot of value as it is peer reviewed, current and focuses on “the findings of the first knowledge audit in an organisation that brings together public bodies and private organisations with the aim of maximising the collective knowledge” (Ragsdell et al. 2014).
Leung et al. (2010): “Assessing Knowledge Assets: Knowledge Audit of a Social Service Organization in Hong Kong”.
Although it focuses specifically on a suicide prevention organization, this article has a lot of value as it is peer reviewed, current and “focuses on the process of conducting knowledge audit and the benefits of such audits for the organization and for future KM practice in the profession” Leung et al. (2010).
Katuščáková & Katuščák (2013): “Results of Knowledge Audit in a Scientific Collaboratory: Possible Applications of Selected KM Aspects in Scientific Collaboratories”.
This article was used as the topic (scientific research collaboratories) is relevant due to users often not being in the same physical location, which exacerbates the need for an effective way for them to share knowledge and it is peer reviewed and current. However, there is little specific detail on the importance of the knowledge audit, so these will need to be inferred from their findings and other relevant sections of the journal article.

Articles that were not used as a major source can be found in the appendix.

Key Issues, Debates & Challenges

#1 Benefits an Organisation Can Derive from a Successful Knowledge Audit

Leung et al. (2010) explored the use of KM in a suicide prevention organisation and was able to conclude that the “experience brought many gains to both the agency and the project team and considered such gains can also bring insights and benefits for similar initiatives in other human service industries”.

The benefits they found include:

They found “neglected knowledge assets” and knowledge of these helped stop them from reinventing the wheel (Leung et al. 2010). Similarly, AL Khanbashi (2015) found that one of the benefits of knowledge management can be “making better decisions, streamlining processes, reducing re-work, increasing data integrity and collaboration that will reduce the cost of operations and provide better customer service”.
Agency members were able to learn who knew what, creating knowledge networks (Leung et al. 2010). This helped reveal “the “semi-official” or “unofficial” networks connected by individual workers”, which could be strengthened and/or formalized (Leung et al. 2010). This would help improve efficiency and effectiveness. For example, new staff would be able to look up a formal procedure, instead of needing to learn the informal procedures through work colleagues, who might be unavailable at the time or could’ve left the company (Leung et al. 2010).
“Understanding the process of knowledge flow” allowed staff to learn “how knowledge had been used, misused, or under-used in the organization” (Leung et al. 2010). An example they provided was that the audit “drew attention to the under-utilization of case records”, which lead to the organisation “establishing a case library system for better knowledge reuse” (Leung et al. 2010).

Considering their funding and caseload issues, KM has provided a much-needed way for staff to share their knowledge with each other. This is particularly important given that the nature of the business (suicide prevention) is one where many of the cases are likely to be similar, so having a shared case library system will allow staff to learn from both the good and the bad things they/other staff members did in the past with similar cases, which should lead to better performance (i.e., reduced chance of clients attempting suicide after speaking to the suicide prevention organisation) in a reduced amount of time, which should allow them to serve more people. It should also help reduce their reliance on staff that have worked for the organisation for a long period of time as it should lead to their knowledge being collected and stored in a central database that everyone who is granted permission can access.

#2: Knowing When Knowledge Management Is Not Worth the Investment & Risk of Failure

According to Ragsdell et al. (2014) “Knowledge audits are important processes through which organisations can understand what knowledge is needed, available and used for their current activities. They can also identify what knowledge is missing and how this omission restricts organisational activities”. However, although many organisations realise the importance of KM most are not ready for it and thus haven’t been able to use it to realize the efficiency and effectiveness gains that a successful implementation of it provides. According to Schwartz, Van Durme & Mallon (2021), “Seventy-five percent of surveyed organizations say creating and preserving knowledge across evolving workforces is important” for their success “but only 9 percent say they are very ready to address this trend”. This could be a sign that, although most organisations know the importance of KM, they just don’t know where to start and thus are unable to capitalise on it. However, it could also be a sign that they have considered KM, but after careful consideration, they decided not to implement it.

According to Boston Consulting Group as quoted by Hill (2022), “70 percent of digital transformation initiatives fall short of their goals”. Hill (2022) contends that “poor planning and lack of cultural change are some of the biggest reasons why knowledge management fails”. Therefore, if an organisation is not prepared to take KM seriously, or they are unable to convince the majority of the staff and/or the majority of executives that it is a worthwhile venture, then they should expect it to fall short of their goals and they might be better off not implementing it at all.

Davenport (2015), who co-authored “one of the best selling books” on KM, is blunter than this and claims that “knowledge management isn’t dead, but it’s gasping for breath”. “Any chance that this idea will come back? I don’t think so”. Davenport’s (2015) reasoning behind why KM fails in organisations include “It was too time-consuming to search for and digest stored knowledge” and “Some employees weren’t that interested in acquiring knowledge, others weren’t interested in sharing what they knew”.

Both Hill (2022) & Davenport (2015) seem to agree on a lot of things, despite having rather different conclusions. Hill (2022) claims that although there are many issues that may need to be overcome, when KM is done right, it can be of benefit to the organisation, whereas Davenport (2015) seems to hint that although it is possible to do right, it is not even worth trying in most cases as there are too many barriers that need to be overcome, so the chances of a successful implementation are minimal and most organisations would be better off using their resources elsewhere.

#3: Is KM a Beneficial Way to Share Knowledge Between People Who Are Not in Close Proximity?

Katuščáková & Katuščák (2013) explored the “Results of Knowledge Audit in a Scientific Collaboratory”. According to Wulf (1989) as quoted by Wikipedia (2021) a collaboratory is a “centre without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources” or in other words, it is a way that a group of scientific researchers in a specialised field can share their knowledge with each other for the mutual benefit of all parties.

In this situation, having good KM practices can be highly beneficial. Although Katuščáková & Katuščák (2013) did not mention any specific benefits of a knowledge audit, they did share their findings. They sent out a questionnaire to 40 respondents, of which only 17 replied, which “was the first sign that the interest in cooperation and solving common issues was low” (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013).

When they were identifying knowledge needs, they found that “many members lack access to selected specialised databases” and “respondents admitted that they rarely make use of the shared resources contained in the collaboratory’s IS (information system)” as they believe that “most important knowledge is in the minds of the collaboratory’s members” instead of in the IS (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013).

This indicates that there is often an unwillingness for researchers to share information, whether that be due to the systems being too complicated / hard to use or due to them preferring to keep the results to themselves for their own benefit, rather than shared for the collaboratory’s benefit. Therefore, as Hill (2022) & Davenport (2015) discussed in their respective articles, it is unlikely that KM would meet the expectations of the collaboratory unless these issues are addressed first. Katuščáková & Katuščák (2013) came to a similar conclusion and some of the suggested priorities include:

“Perceiving the preparatory phase as one of the most important stages of the collaboratory’s lifecycle” (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013). This will help ensure that the entire collaboratory sees the importance of it and the benefits it will provide, which should greatly increase the chances of the implementation being successful.
Have “a non-disclosure/confidentiality agreement with all members of the collaboratory” (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013). This should help lead to members being more willing to share their knowledge with the collaboratory as it should help ease any concerns relating to it becoming public knowledge, which could lead to them losing their competitive advantage.
Focusing on the “quality of culture and smooth operation of the selected technologies” throughout the entire project (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013).
Have a coordinator to help ensure that relevant information is being shared when appropriate and that no one is left out (Katuščáková & Katuščák 2013).

#4: Balancing Readability, Resources & Accuracy

Another challenge that knowledge management faces is that often shared information is written in a way that is too technical for other users to understand. Ragsdell et al. (2014) found that although staff were good at sharing knowledge using either shared folders/drives or a shared portal, the “organisation is not good at expressing technical knowledge in a basic way for other, less technically minded personnel within the organization”. This could limit its use, but the benefits of getting staff to write their notes in a more basic way could easily be outweighed by the time this would take and the confusion this could cause with other people who are technically minded as often expressing knowledge in a more basic way involves removing some of the technical aspects, which could be required.

Therefore, as part of the knowledge audit a balance would need to be found between readability for non-technical users, the time required to explain technical content in a non-technical manner and the possible accuracy lost by expressing their knowledge in a simpler manner. Factors that are involved in setting this would include the likelihood of someone who is less technically minded having a need to access this knowledge, the number of staff who are currently able to interpret it (as too few of these staff could create contingency issues) and the physical proximity of those staff (i.e., if someone required a document to be explained to them in simpler terms, what is the likelihood of someone in close physical proximity having the skills and the time to do this in a timely manner).

Conclusions & Recommendations

Knowledge audits and knowledge management in general are difficult to implement successfully due to its complexity and the inherit need to change corporate culture. Some things executives should keep in mind before commissioning a knowledge audit and before implementing other knowledge management practices and procedures include:

It is more likely to be successful in smaller organisations than larger ones, due to their being less people and thus reducing complexity of the change and reducing the number of staff that need to change their habits.
The executive team must consider it a priority as if they are not committed to it, then it is unlikely to succeed.
Staff members need to be open to sharing their knowledge with other staff via a centralised KM system and need to be comfortable accessing the knowledge of other staff the same way, as if informal procedures that revolve around asking other staff for information instead of looking for it in the centralized system first, it is unlikely to be successful.
A balance needs to be found between readability for non-technical users, the time and opportunity cost of doing so and the reduction in accuracy by doing so. Finding the correct balance may take some time, but this is something that needs to be carefully considered and adjusted regularly (when appropriate).
There is some evidence that KM is more likely to succeed in the not-for-profit sector due to their limited resources and longer-term outlook creating a need to maximise efficiency (rather than short-term profit), but this idea requires further research.

Appendix

Articles Not Used as a Major Source

In searching for the major sources, there were some journal articles found that were found that did not meet the quality and relevance requirements to be a major source. However, they might still be referenced in this report (if relevant) and are included here for completeness. These were:

“Older people with diabetes in hospital: results of a staff knowledge audit “ (Strider & Phillips 2011) was not used as it only tracked a small sample (12 staff & 4 relevant inpatients) for a short period of time (two days) and didn’t provide much specific detail on the value of the audit to the organization (but did provide recommendations). However, it was peer reviewed and current.
“Knowledge audit: Tools of the trade transmitted to tools for tradition” (Mearns & Du Toit 2008) was not used as the focus of the article (being the “extent to which indigenous knowledge is being conserved at cultural villages”) was too remote to be relevant to the average Australian-based organization, it is not current and it also didn’t provide much specific detail on the value of the audit to the organization (but did provide recommendations). However, it was peer reviewed.

Reference List

Katuščáková, M & Katuščák, M 2013, ‘Results of Knowledge Audit in a Scientific Collaboratory: Possible Applications of Selected KM Aspects in Scientific Collaboratories’, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 49–61

Leung, ZS, Cheung, CF, Chu, KF, Chan, Y, Lee, WB & Wong, RW 2010, ‘Assessing Knowledge Assets: Knowledge Audit of a Social Service Organization in Hong Kong’, Administration in Social Work, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 361–383

Mearns, MA & du Toit, ASA 2008, ‘Knowledge audit: Tools of the trade transmitted to tools for tradition’, International Journal of Information Management, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 161–167

Ragsdell, G, Probets, S, Ahmed, G & Murray, I 2014, ‘Knowledge Audit: Findings from the Energy Sector’, Knowledge & Process Management, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 270–279

Strider, P & Phillips, A 2011, ‘Older people with diabetes in hospital: results of a staff knowledge audit’, Journal of Diabetes Nursing, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 191–197
AL Khanbashi, MS 2015, ‘Knowledge Management Challenges in the Public Sector’, Knowledge Management: An International Journal, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 23–42, viewed 16 May 2022

Davenport, T 2015, Whatever Happened to Knowledge Management?, viewed 13 May, 2022, <https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CIOB-7428>.

Hill, J 2022, 7 Reasons Why Knowledge Management Fails | Bloomfire, viewed 13 May, 2022, <https://bloomfire.com/blog/why-knowledge-management-fails/>.