Associating Knowledge Management to Human Resource Management: A Conceptual Study

Abstract

Abstract

Objective: For last few decades Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged as the widely discussed and researched phenomenon around the globe, but it been a challenging phenomenon as all organisations are trying to achieve and maintain its competitive advantage in today's global competitive environment. One aspect of doing this is to build knowledge repositories. The issues can be address by strategically associating knowledge management to human resource management in the organization. The strategic use of human resource management within the management of knowledge helps an organization to have innovation, better performance and resultant competitive advantage. However, in order to optimize the capabilities of organizational knowledge, it is necessary to manage that knowledge strategically. The present paper focus on the aspect by relying on a large amount of existing literature, which is mostly theoretical in nature. There are many areas within the discussed field that would be benefited from conclusions of further research on the aspect.

Method: The study include the extant review of published research in the form of books and research paper by different eminent authors on the selected issue which is the combinations of theoretical and empirical findings of their work.

Results: It was found that the concept of knowledge management though is a vibrant issue in today's hyper competitive market of  knowledge economy around the globe  but still the focus of many organisations is one the single aspect of its i.e. ‘Technology' and they leave another crucial aspect of knowledge management (KM) that is termed as ‘people'. Who actually are repositories and owners of this aspect; ultimately, it is their knowledge and learning in the form of tacit and explicit knowledge that is responsible for competitive advantage and ultimately success of an organisation.

Conclusion: The present paper focus on the issue of associating knowledge management with that of human resource management of an organisation with a view to provide clear understanding of the concept. It helps policy makers and management players to develop and implement an optimal blend of structural and organisational structure that help them to  sustain in today's knowledge economy with the optimal use of their most crucial intangible asset meaning therseby the knowledge of their employees. The example of big industrial houses like Infosys and Tata ; banks like ICICI and telecom sector like Airtel proves that after focusing on the optimal blend of knowledge Management (KM) and human resource management(HRM) they out beat the competitors of their industries and work as gold players in the said industry.