HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

In recent years, a dramatic change in the world economy 

and the use of IT have affected the way businesses and 

organizations operate. One of the changes is the 

shift from a resource-based view of competitive 

advantage for example capital, labour, and raw
material to a knowledge-based competitive advantage through
Knowledge Management (KM). This increased enthusiasm on 

KM is a result of cost reduction in data management, 

due to the rise of computing capabilities like the 

Internet, electronic networking, and local database.

This also means an increase in an organization's 

feasibility on acquiring,documenting, processing, 

and distributing data and informationglobally.

The adoption of KM by businesses and organizations has
initiated the interests of researchers and academicians. Many
issues are being examined and studied, such as KM structure,
knowledge diffusion, KM implementation, KM performance
framework, and HRM strategy in KM. The earlier stages 

of these studies tend to associate KM with information 

technology, which was perceived as the main driver 

for KM. However, technology is not the only requirement 

of KM.  What is more important is the knowledge 

created by human beings. This view is also supported by 

other researchers and academicians such as Mintzberg(1989).

Knowledge can be defined in many ways. A comprehensive
definition of knowledge is a fluid mix of framed
experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight
that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new
experience and information. It originates and is applied in the
mind of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded
not only in documents or repositories, but also in
organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.