Holsapple, Clyde

2006-03-10

Holsapple and Jones 2004: Acquisition, selection, generation, assimilation, and emission. Knowledge acquisition is defined as acquiring knowledge from external sources and making it suitable for subsequent use. Knowledge selection is defined as selecting needed knowledge from internal sources and making it suitable for subsequent use. Knowledge generation is defined as producing knowledge by either discovery or derivation from existing knowledge. Knowledge assimilation refers to the class of activities that alter the state of an organization's knowledge resources by internally distributing and storing acquired, selected or generated knowledge. Knowledge emission is defined as embedding knowledge into organizational outputs for release into the environment.

Holsapple and Jones 2004: the knowledge chain model is based on a KM ontology collaboratively developed by an international panel of prominent KM practitioners and academicians (Joshi 1998). This ontology recognizes five major classes of knowledge manipulation activities ...: acquisition, selection, generation, assimilation, and emission ... The ontology also recognizes four major classes of managerial activities that influence and govern the conduct of the KM: measurement, control, coordination, and leadership.

Holsapple and Jones, 2004: a knowledge acquisition activity begins with identifying knowledge in the organization's external environment and concludes with transforming it into a representation that can be employed by the organization. A knowledge acquisition activity involves sub-activities of identifying appropriate knowledge from external sources, capturing the identified knowledge from the external sources, organizing the captured knowledge, and transferring the organized knowledge to a processor that either immediately uses it or assimilates it within the organization for subsequent use.

Holsapple and Jones, 2004: knowledge selection refers to the activity of identifying needed knowledge within an organization's existing knowledge resources and providing it in an appropriate representation to an activity that needs it. Activities involved in an instance of knowledge selection include identifying appropriate knowledge within the organization's existing knowledge resources, capturing the identified knowledge from internal sources, organizing the captured knowledge, and transferring the organized knowledge to a processor that immediately uses it or assimilates it within the organization for subsequent use.

Holsapple and Jones, 2004: knowledge generation is defined as producing knowledge by either discovery or derivation from existing knowledge. Sub-activities involved in an instance of knowledge generation include monitoring the organization's knowledge resources and the external environment by invoking selection and/or acquisition activities as needed, evaluating selected or acquired knowledge in terms of its usability for the generation task, producing knowledge from a base of existing knowledge, and transferring the produced knowledge for emission and/or assimilation.

Holsapple and Jones, 2004: a processor performing knowledge assimilation receives knowledge flows from these activities and produces knowledge flows that impact the organization's state of knowledge. Sub-activities involved in an instance of knowledge assimilation include assessing knowledge to be assimilated, targeting knowledge resources that are to be impacted by assimilation, structuring knowledge to be conveyed into representations appropriate for the targeted resources, and delivering the knowledge representations to targeted knowledge resources.