KMRP2006 Abstract

Modeling individual knowledge management competence

Andre Saito and Katsuhiro Umemoto

Abstract

The emerging knowledge economy and society bring new challenges to organizations, managers and workers, and the knowledge management field has attracted contributions from many disciplines seeking to provide answers to them. In this article, we propose a model of individual KM competence to support the development of knowledge managers, understood as general managers prepared to deal with such challenges. The model was build through a combination of theoretical development and content analysis on typical KM activities and capabilities. It describes KM competence as configurations of KM capabilities required to perform given KM activities, both strongly dependent on particular KM perspectives. Four such perspectives are described: information, human, computing and strategy, each leading to different ways to understand knowledge and its management. The model indicates not a single, but many definitions of KM competence, suggesting that actual KM competence must be defined in relation to particular contexts that require specific KM competence profiles.

Keywords: knowledge management, competence, knowledge manager, conceptual modeling.