1.

0 Abstract
Knowledge Management (KM) has been a challenging phenomenon as major firms are
trying to achieve and maintain its competitive advantage. One aspect of doing this is to
build knowledge repositories. This issue can be addressed by linking knowledge
management to the context of strategic human resource management in the organization.
The use of strategic human resource management in the management of knowledge can
provide organizations with a significant competitive advantage. It is through the use of
such strategies that organizations can foster innovation and competitive advantage
(Kazmi & Ahmad, 2001). However in order to harness the capabilities of organizational
knowledge, it is necessary to strategically manage that knowledge. This paper is going to
focus this aspect by relying on a large amount of existing literature which in most cases is
theoretical in nature. With the current level of research the link between strategic human
resource management and knowledge management depends largely on context. That is
there are many areas within the field that would benefit from further research that will
come up with vivid conclusion on the matter.
Keywords: knowledge management, strategic human resource management, organization.

2.0 Introduction
Knowledge Management (KM) is a process that helps organizations to find, select,
organize, disseminate and transfer important information and expertise necessary for
activities such as problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning, and decision
making (Babita Gupta 2000). Also (Chourides and Longbottom,2002) defined KM as the
process by which we gather, create, share, and use information, experience, learning, and
management information systems, to add value, increase organizational wealth, and
personal development. This means that it comprises a range of strategies and practices
used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of
insights and experiences. These insights comprise knowledge, either embodied in
individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice. (Davenport & Prusak,

1998, p.5) stated that knowledge originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. This
means that in the organizations, it frequently becomes rooted not only in documents or
repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices and norms.
Knowledge management is not for the sake of managing knowledge but the objective is
to create value and influence, improve, and refine the firms competences and knowledge
assets to meet organizational goals and targets. Knowledge Management efforts typically
focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage,
innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of the
organization. KM efforts overlap with organizational learning, and may be distinguished
from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a
focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge.
Organizations strive to maintain high performance, high employee commitment and high
involvement work systems, but the basic idea underlying this is that people are valuable
assets that firm can deploy to achieve competitive advantage (Becker and Huselid, 2006;
Evans and Davis, 2005; Sun et al., 2007). A major center of attention on human resource
management systems is capitalizing on human resource to achieve firms performance.
In order for an organization to be successful in any market, they must create value for
their clients. This value can be created using a new strategy, new technology or some
other gimmick but in order to sustain this value (and the competitive advantage it
brings), organizations must develop and maintain an engaged, knowledgeable and
creative workforce (Afiouni, 2007). It is very important for human resource department
to integrate with the other organizational functions like operation, marketing, accounts to
acquire and retain the right human resource who are knowledgeable, with appropriate
skills and abilities so as to sustain their competitive advantage. Organisational survival
and growth occur through resource-based activities that uniquely develop, exploit,
leverage and create knowledge (Babita Gupta, 2000). The greatest challenge to human
resource here is to evaluate the human capital that gives corporate competence and make
a choice. This is done through human resource manager activities like recruiting from
labour market, selection, development and retention. The other challenge is auditing of

the knowledge that is within the intellectual capital and how to store it for future
reference. This is because as described by (Hall, 1992) Knowledge assets, organizations
do not have property rights on them.

3.0 Literature Review

3.1 Resource Based View (RBV)
Several authors have come up with theories which support the statement that
organizational survival and growth occur through resource based activities. Resource
based view suggests that organizations are successful when they possess resources and
capabilities that are firm-specific that is rare, durable and difficult to imitate or substitute
(Afiouni, 2007; Mata et al., 1995). This means by creating resource diversity (increasing
knowledge and skills) and/or resource immobility, sustainable competitive advantage can
be created and maintained. The global competition requires organizations to take internal
perspective and examine their resources and how to combine them to gain core
competencies and competitive advantage (Prahaland and Hamel, 1990). These
perspectives emphasize on importance of matching any external opportunities with
internal resource stock and capabilities. KM should be business driven and strategic in
outlook so as to maximize return on (intellectual) capital and to sustain business success
in an era of unstable markets and global market expansion (Nahapiet & Ghoshal 1998).
This gives us the implications that it is very important for organizations through human
resource department to invest quite substantial capital in knowledge management (KM).
This is because the critical success factors of competitive advantage in any firm lies in
the knowledgeable human resources i.e. people with certain knowledge, skills and
abilities (KSAs) to undertake the required tasks in the organization. An example is
company with technology as its competitive advantage over others should motivate and
retain its employees to preserve its trade secrets and the knowledge is shared among the
members either through learning or other methods that are dimmed viable to transfer it.

3.2. Knowledge Management Based View (KMBV)

To gain and sustain competitive advance organizations must manage their knowledge
resources. There are different types of knowledge management with regard to how
organizations accumulate knowledge, insights, and valuable expertise over time (Wiig
1994).However, regardless of type, the goal for KM is to support learning. KM includes
both knowledge reuse and knowledge creation (Davenport et al. 1996), and the
organization must support and stimulate the knowledge-creating activities of individuals
(Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995). Thus, it is required to find effective ways to link KM
processes and organizational processes to each other.
There are two types of knowledge; (Polanyi 1958) conceptualized them as tacit
knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is usually in the domain of
subjective, cognitive and experimental learning while explicit knowledge deals with more
objectives, rational and technical knowledge (data, policies, procedure, software,
documents etc).This means explicit is formal and systematic and it is codified in words,
numbers and found in books and other manual documents. Tacit is highly personal and it
is deeply rooted in the context specific experience. It includes skills, intuitions, beliefs,
values, and experience. It is hard to formalize.
The greatest challenges to organizations are to integrate both types of knowledge to
perform their jobs effectively. Organizations must develop specific methods to convert
tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge that can be codified and captured, stored,
transmitted, used and be acted on by others. In the business world knowledge
management has become an issue, because of globalization process. That is, it is driven
by the explosive growth of new information and communication technologies that has
increased competition hence the need to make more effective use of both individual and
organizational knowledge assets (Thomas Menkhoff et al 2004).
Another factor that contributed to the emergence of KM concepts is the continuous
rightsizing trend. Starting in the 1980s, corporate downsizing measures led to the loss of
valuable information and knowledge resources and subsequently to the emergence of KM

as strategic countermeasure. These developments saw an increased emphasis on

technology and KM systems to capture knowledge residing in employees minds (tacit
knowledge) and to turn it into explicit knowledge. In view of the explosive growth of
information sources (e.g. internet) and accelerated pace of technological change, KM was
propagated as a successful coping strategy. KM experts often regard technology as a
crucial enabler of information and knowledge sharing across platforms and continents.
It serves as a tool within an organization to use knowledge more effectively. Enlightened
leadership and a strategic outlook, a high care culture (Von Krogh 1998), supportive
human resource management practices and reward systems represent other important KM
enablers.
3.3. Knowledge Management (KM) and Strategic Human Resource Management
(SHRM)
The knowledge management has not been linked well with strategic human resource
management as researchers point out. They have outline several factors that include: lack
of structures through which the knowledge can be tapped into, the existence of weak
retention policies which result in valued people walking away with critical knowledge;
the possibility that dissatisfied employees are unwilling to give of their best and the
possibility that high performing individuals can identify the proportion of rents
attributable to themselves and thus make substantial compensation demands (Ken
Kamoche 2006). Even though knowledge management has become a catchphrase in the
management glossary today, there is not much consensus about what it means within the
context of SHRM. Strategic human resource management aligns human resource function
to the firms core business objectives. That is

it incorporate Human Resource plans into the mainstream of organizational

strategy and management

it instills belief on the importance of people in achieving the overall corporate

plan, that people add value to the business operations of your organization

it ensures that HR people learn to think and act strategically when carrying out
their duties and responsibilities and how these contribute to the achievement of
organizational business plans

it designs performance incentive plans with the intention to continuously motivate

employees and thus improve customer service in a dynamic environment

it arranges for the right training programs to enhance current skills of your people
or to provide them with new skills in line with your core business activities and at
the same time improve your organization's capability

it engages, motivates and retain talented employees

Hislop, (2003) suggests that knowledge management has not fully employed human
resource management strategies and concepts. He further suggests that the level of
commitment of employees to the organization contributes directly to the effectiveness of
knowledge management, and that this may be attributable to human resource
management policies and processes. Strategic management incorporating techniques to
motivate employees may contribute to commitment, ultimately driving competitive
advantage. While much literature focuses on the storage and sharing of knowledge,
Hislop, (2003) contends that the attraction and retention of employees may be just as
important as knowledge sharing in the use of knowledge management in fostering
innovation. As modern organizations employ larger numbers of higher skilled workers,
they are at risk of losing those workers to other organizations, or even being unable to
recruit those skilled workers at all. As such, it is vital that organizations develop
strategies to manage human resources with knowledge in mind. This includes strategies
to manage recruitment and selection to find and hire new skilled workers, who will bring
valuable new knowledge. Without such strategies, even a small turnover rate can quickly
lead to a loss of organizational knowledge (Daniel Rose, 2011).
The idea of tapping into and managing the knowledge that resides in people should be a
key responsibility for HR managers as well as line managers and corporate executives.
The argument here is the stock of expertise employees bring to the organization, confers a
potential to yield services (which includes the capacity to create products). The

stock of expertise includes tacit and explicit skills, talents, abilities, creativity, as well as
the motivation and initiative to apply such expertise towards productive activities.
There are other recent empirical research reports that can help to determine the strategic
human resource management of knowledge can improve the knowledge within
organizations (Lopez-Cabrales, et al., 2009). Specifically, human resource systems allow
organizations to develop and improve on employee knowledge, as well as provide
direction to employees to ensure the knowledge is utilized to achieve organizational
goals. The use of a human resource strategy to manage knowledge contributes to the
creation of unique knowledge; however Lopez-Cabrales, et al (2009) suggest that there is
no best practice for the use of human resource processes to manage knowledge. In some
ways this research follows on from Wright, Dunford, & Snell (2001), who suggest that
any competitive advantage does not stem from the human resource systems, but that the
human resource systems provide a framework to store and communicate knowledge.
Attempting to integrate strategic human resource management with knowledge
management, Edvardsson (2008) makes a clear delineation between technical strategies
and human based strategies, referring to them as codification and personalization.
Codification strategies focus on structuring of knowledge systems such as databases to
store and distribute information within an organization. Critics of codification strategies
note that the information stored lacks context, leading to information junkyards, where
the stored information is never used (McDermott, 1999, p. 104). Personalization refers to
those strategies that recognize that knowledge has a human aspect, focusing on recruiting
and retaining knowledgeable staff, and fostering communication. While both strategies
try to effectively control organizational knowledge, codification tends to focus on getting
information out of employees and into databases, whilst personalization focuses on
getting and keeping key knowledgeable employees.

4.0 Recommendations and conclusions

4.1 Recommendations

Since the empirical research has not come up with clear integration of Knowledge
Management (KM) and Strategic human resource management (SHRM) it is important
for knowledge intensive firms to come up with knowledge management systems or good
management structures to store and harness this capability. Most firms have created the
office of "Knowledge manager". Where by it is a role and designation that has gained
popularity over the past decade. The role has evolved drastically from that of involving
the creation and maintenance of knowledge repositories to that involves influencing the
culture of an organization toward improved knowledge sharing, reuse, learning,
collaboration and innovation. That is should be in three levels; strategic, tactical and
operational levels.
At the strategic level it is recommended for the organization to be able to analyze and
plan its business in terms of the knowledge it currently has and the knowledge it needs
for future business processes. Also at the tactical level the organization should be
concerned with identifying and formalizing existing knowledge, acquiring new
knowledge for future use, archiving it in organizational memories and creating systems
that enable effective and efficient application of the knowledge within the organization.
At the operational level knowledge should be used in everyday practice by professional
personnel who need access to the right knowledge, at the right time, in the right location.
This avoids what Edvardsson (2008) called information junkyards.

4.2 Conclusions
The knowledge management is very challenging issue even in knowledge intensive
organizations. Most firms have come up with human resource strategies to influence
knowledge management. These strategies vary depending on the knowledge management
strategy a firm chooses. For instance, in performance management, codification strategies
call for short-term goals related to the amounts of information documented or stored
(Edvardsson, 2008). In contrast, with personalization strategies, where by goals are
developmental rather than results based, more long term, focuses on creativity and
innovation. In reality, as suggested by Petersen & Poulfelt (2002) a combination of both
strategies is usually required. A most important example of differences in these strategies

is the difference in recruitment strategies. With codification, recruitment tends to be very

formal, based on written job descriptions, with a focus on testing and evaluating
candidates (Edvardsson, 2008). Conversely, a personalization strategy involves a less
formal, more subject approach to recruitment, where the focus is more on determining
whether candidates fit within the knowledge sharing culture of the organization.
The use of strategic human resource management to manage knowledge is a newly
established practice. A large amount of existing literature is theoretical in nature, and
much empirical research is based on statistically insignificant samples or anecdotes. With
the current level of research the link between strategic human resource management and
knowledge management depends largely on context. There are many areas within the
field that would benefit from further research. For instance the impact of human resource
management systems and processes on knowledge management will be better understood
through research into aspects such as the influence of job design, organizational culture,
career opportunities, and appraisal and reward systems. Additional research into
employee commitment will guarantee that human resource strategies focus on the areas
where most gains can be made. What is clear from the research is that effective
knowledge management can and does deliver significant competitive advantage. Where
organizations are able to direct their knowledge toward innovation, competitive
advantage will follow.
However, Chasserio & Legault (2009); Minbaeva, Foss, & Snell, (2009); Robertson &
Hammersley, (2000) have argued that perhaps regular human resource practices are not
relevant in modern knowledge based. Chasserio & Legault (2009) go so far as to suggest
that strategic human resource management may be entirely irrelevant in some modern,
high technology companies. In studies of a variety of knowledge intensive organizations
they discovered that few human resource management strategies and policies were in
place. Human resources are instead relegated to operational procedures, such as ensuring
compliance with industrial relations instruments. In organizations in which this occurs,
there is very little in the way of human input into strategy. This lack of strategy opposes
research by Petersen and Poufelt (2002), who found that Knowledge management, is

most effective in organizations where the knowledge management strategy is precise and
supported by the organizational structure, culture and general business strategies.

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