A study on knowledge management Practices in higher educational Institutions with special reference to Namakkal district in tamilnadu

Abstract

The concept of Knowledge Management (KM) refers to providing the right knowledge to the right person at the right time for effective decision making. This concept has been evolved from late 1980. Previously it was used to refer the best practices or lesson learned from the past experience and the same had been used into the subsequent time as the bench mark . Due to the development of information technology and knowing the importance of knowledge, this field has been gradually developed into emerging one. KM is a well defined system to provide learning process, innovation process and sharing of knowledge to achieve the strategic goals of an organization. In addition to that knowledge management core aim is to transform individual knowledge into institutional knowledge through acquiring, sharing, storage, disseminating, exploitation and innovation of knowledge. KM practices ensure that the organization shows excellent performance and stand in good competitive position with their competitors. KM is mainly deal with knowledge gathering, storing, sharing and applying the knowledge for the development of the knowledge assets in the organization, for achievement of the organization s goals and objectives. Knowledge management covers the entire process of intentional creation, acquisition and sharing of knowledge as well as its use as a key driver of value creation. The institutional knowledge is created as explicit knowledge in the form of various reports, rules and regulations, procedures, results as well as tacit knowledge in the form of faculty member s experiences, thoughts, opinions, views and perceptions that resides within individuals. In India most of the higher educational institutions are facing the difficulties to integrate their institutional knowledge for improved knowledge sharing among the faculty members and students and for effective teaching and learning process. In this situation, KM is necessary for higher education institutions to improve their academic performance for enhancing their competitive advantage newline