This chapter aims at demonstrating the role of knowledge management in higher education by considering its contribution to the higher education institutes. To achieve this aim, the authors conduct a critical literature review on the conceptualisation of knowledge management and potential knowledge management gaps with the strategies that provide to avoid the gaps in developed and developing countries. This study shows that developed countries are more successful than developing countries since they follow certain characteristics of knowledge management. Also, in this study, the authors show the types of knowledge such as explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge and introduce the need for key performance indicators in higher education institutions. Since the focus is on HEI of developed and developing countries, this study extends the knowledge management literature by considering contextual differences.
TopConceptualization Of Knowledge Management
Knowledge management (KM) in the higher educational Institution (HEIs) includes various procedures of storing, creating, and organising the information sharing in an organisation. Since the information of an institution is stored centrally, individuals can easily have access to information related to an organisation and its courses (Gustaaf et al. 2021). Also, the centralised KM provides an easy path for interdepartmental communication. However, KM plays a critical role regarding the training purpose of the employees by storing the pre-recorded training rather than recreating the training program further. Primarily, experts adopt KM that belongs to a part of information system and such systems can be mostly seen in the information technology and marketing sectors.
In the present day, the application of the KM system is seen to be incorporated in the information system of the HEIs. Higher education KM refers to the dependence on the modern technological tools of cloud service, along with the solutions that support the right and legitimate access of the stored information in the educational sector (Mittal & Kumar, 2019). KM in this sector provides getting access to any information stored in the cloud based online storage device for the students, teacher, non-teaching staff and other members of the governing body of HEIs. This makes the stored knowledge accessible anytime from any location around the world for higher education institutions since the data is rganizedd in the cloud-based online storage device (Orr et al. 2019). Thus, the participants can reach instant knowledge in the stored online platforms, and this is a great opportunity to create knowledge interactions amongst the participants of the higher education institution. This approach means individuals get more knowledge if they access to the stored knowledge in the world. The fundamental of this process comes from the concepts of data, information, and knowledge. The stored knowledge consists of meaningful groups of Information that come from the data. Such situations provide a competitive edge for educational institutions.
The competitive advantage helps HEIs to attract more scholars and students from all around the world. The proper KM represents the complete electronic brochure of HEIs and presents the complete facilities of an institution in front of students from all around the world. There are several driving forces such as A shift towards tacit knowledge transfer, interest in integrating all software solutions and the desire for rapid innovation. These forces make the concept of KM popular among many HEIs present in the world. Primarily there are three different types of knowledge: Explicit knowledge, Implicit knowledge, and Tacit Knowledge.
Explicit knowledge refers to the basic category of knowledge that is completely processed, structured, andrganizedd (Al-Kurdi et al., 2020; Gubins and Dooley, 2021). This type of knowledge is recorded, articulated, communicated, and stored to serve the primary purpose of KM (Novitasari et al., 2021). However, any participant of an educational institution can have open access to an explicit category of knowledge that includes research papers and publications. However, this type of knowledge also presents datasheets for yearly admission and relative performance of students in comparison to other institutions.
Implicit knowledge refers to the practical utilisation of explicit knowledge. However, this type of knowledge refers to the detailed conversations about performing any task along with the solutions. This type of knowledge directs the viewers to adopt the best course of action to complete any specific task successfully. This knowledge also includes the best skills that are utilised in various types of jobs for their successful completion (Ellis & Roever, 2021).