Knowledge Management & Records Management
Establishing Relationships for Common Development
Luciana Duranti and Sherry L. Xie
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, 1961 East Mall, Vancouver, Canada
Keywords: Knowledge Management, Records Management, InterPARES.
Abstract: This paper argues that there are logical relationships between the fields of Knowledge Management and
Records Management, and the recognition of such relationships will benefit the development of both fields.
It bases these arguments on the nature of records and Records Management as well as the findings of the
InterPARES project.
1 INTRODUCTION
Knowledge Management (KM) is a field based on
multidisciplinary input and contribution. However,
the Records Management (RM) field appears never
being discussed or researched in connection with
KM. This observation emerged from the findings of
the InterPARES project, which, for thirteen years,
had collected extensive data on RM worldwide
(www.interpares.org). Although KM as a program
exists in many organizations, the collected data
revealed no existing RM-KM relationship. This was
confirmed by a literature search on both KM and
RM, covering all possible types of sources (i.e.,
monograph, journal article, Internet resource) that
the authors had accessed.
This paper argues that there are logical
relationships between the fields of KM and RM, and
the recognition of such relationships will benefit the
development of both fields.
2 KNOWLEDGE & RECORD
The term knowledge is not consensually defined in
the KM field (Dalkir, 2009), yet the KM literature
demonstrates continuous efforts of describing and
analyzing the unique characteristics of knowledge.
For the purpose of this paper, the definition of
knowledge was chosen to be “[t]he fact or condition
of having acquired a practical understanding or
command of, or competence or skill in, a particular
subject, language, etc., esp. through instruction,
study, or practice” (Oxford English Dictionary,
2012) . The terms tacit and explicit are chosen to
group the characteristics of knowledge as discussed
in KM literature which also reflect the chosen
definition. The term tacit subsumes the
characteristics of being invisible, experiential,
subjective, in association with a knower, hard or
impossible to be articulated or codified, etc., and the
term explicit counts for the characteristics of being
able to be documented/codified and mobilized in the
form of tangible artefacts. In this paper, Wigg’s
knowledge asset is chosen to represent explicit
knowledge (1993).
A record is defined as “a document made or
received in the course of a practical activity as an
instrument or a by-product of such activity, and set
aside for action or reference” (InterPARES). This
implies that records are first documents, i.e.,
information affixed to a medium, and second that
they are a special kind of document, the residue of
action, purposely kept as evidence on which to base
subsequent activities.
3 KM & RM
Among the numerous KM definitions, the one by
Dr. Dalkir was chosen for its emphases on the
purposefulness of KM and on the concept of
organization as a whole. According to Dr. Dalkir
(2005, p.3), KM is “a deliberate and systematic
coordination of an organization’s people,
technology, processes, and organizational structure
in order to add value through reuse and innovation”.
247
Duranti L. and L. Xie S..
Knowledge Management & Records Management - Establishing Relationships for Common Development.
DOI: 10.5220/0004110302470250
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2012), pages 247-250
ISBN: 978-989-8565-31-0
Copyright
c
2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
By this definition, KM is driven or directed by
determined intention and has a nature that is
multifaceted. As its multifaceted nature comes from
its multidisciplinary origin, KM work exhibits
different foci, including those on the design of
information technologies, management,
organizational learning, to name a few. In this paper,
the phrase knowledge process by Wiig (1993) is
chosen to represent the variety of KM endeavors
required to achieve KM goals.
RM refers to the systematic design,
implementation, and administrative control of a
framework that ensures efficiency and economy in
the creation, use, handling, maintenance and
disposition (i.e., destruction or transfer to long-term
preservation repository) of organizational records
(InterPARES). In the InterPARES Chain of
Preservation (COP) model, RM encompasses two
conceptually distinct systems dedicated to records-
making and records-keeping respectively.
4 KM-RM RELATIONSHIPS
To illustrate the KM-RM relationship, the Nonaka
and Takeuchi (1995) knowledge Socialization,
Externalization, Combination, Internalization (SECI)
model is chosen for being the first KM model and
for the influence it had for disseminating the
concepts of tacit and explicit knowledge (Dalkir,
2011). Essentially, the SECI model contains four
processes that can be repeated whenever the need
arises: Process 1, from tacit to tacit (i.e.,
socialization, such as peer-to-peer
coaching/networking), Process 2, from tacit to
explicit (i.e., externalization, such as capturing and
sharing), Process 3, from explicit to explicit (i.e.,
combination, such as organizing and classifying),
and Process 4, from explicit to tacit (i.e.,
internalization, such as understanding and learning).
4.1 Transformative
Among the four processes, Process 2 and Process 3
produce tangible knowledge assets, which are
potential records according to RM. They are only
recorded information when generated but will
become records when they participate in future
business processes as means for carrying them out,
because that is the assumption under which they
were generated (i.e., externalization and
combination). These knowledge assets may be first
managed in a system designed specifically for KM
purposes, but their relationship with RM will be
established when they participate in and become an
integral part of a business activity of the
organization, regardless of where or how. The
function of RM is to document the entire business
process in the form of records, and this certainly
includes capturing the participation of the
knowledge asset. In the context of performing a
business activity, a deliberately captured knowledge
asset is by such action transformed into a record, as
the capture occurs by classifying it in an
organization-wide, business activity-directed records
classification system, and managing it in a
recordkeeping system. In the process, the knowledge
asset will acquire an archival bond with the records
of the business process and of the organization as a
whole. This does not necessarily mean that the
knowledge asset has to be physically moved into the
recordkeeping system, as the archival bond arises
from the attribution of metadata to the asset that put
it into relation with the organization’s records. KM
and RM thus intersect with each other at the time
when an organization applies externalized
knowledge and fulfills its duty of keeping
operational evidence.
4.2 Inclusive
To RM, Processes 2 and 3 are business activities of
the KM function, same as the business activities of
any other organizational functions, such as financial
management, human resource management, R&D,
or marketing. The RM field characterizes the
operation of an organization as fulfilling the various
functions derived from its mandate, each of which
consists of activities, sub-activities, and transactions
(LAC, 2006). Records are generated at the point
where a business objective necessitates
documentation in order to produce consequences or
evidence of its fulfillment. Regardless of how the
structural relationships between the concepts of
process, activity, and transaction are determined, to
achieve a business objective of KM, e.g., to capture
the expertise of an expert, to build a community of
practice, or to construct knowledge taxonomies, a
series of documents is typically generated besides
the intended knowledge assets. When implementing
a KM system, defined as a particular class of
information systems supporting organisations
specifically in their attempt to create, codify, collect,
store, integrate, share, and apply knowledge (Alavi
and Leidner, 2001), documents such as meeting
minutes, messages, research reports, lists of system
functional requirements, system metadata schemas,
contracts with vendor and consultants, etc., are
KMIS2012-InternationalConferenceonKnowledgeManagementandInformationSharing
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needed for the implementation to take place. All
these documents are records because they are the by-
products or instruments of the implementation
process. They aggregate naturally as a result of the
implementation process, and the archival bond
arising among them will logically document the
implementation process in context and as a whole.
These records are part of the organization’s fonds
(i.e., its entire records holding) that constitutes its
written/documentary memory. The more successful
(or difficult) a KM process is, the more valuable the
records it generates will be. Because of this
interplay, every KM undertaking is part of the RM
organizational business activity schema (NSW State
Records, 2001) and each KM system is part of the
technological context in which digital records are
created. In the eyes of RM, a KM system is not
different from any other business information
system such as a digital assets management system
used by a marketing unit or a web content
management system used by a communication unit.
4.3 Reciprocal
KM is instructive to RM in at least two ways: first,
for the assistance given by knowledge assets to the
development of RM rules, and second, for the
application of KM techniques to making tacit RM
expertise explicit. To effectively manage digital
records through time, the first and most important
step is to exercise RM control over the creation of
records. To do so, a clear understanding of the
business activities (i.e., records-creating activities in
RM) in terms of their objectives, processes, and the
technologies employed is indispensable. The
acquisition of such understanding traditionally relies
on written business policies, procedures,
performance reports, etc., which are unable to
communicate the tacit or implicit dimension of the
working place. RM policies, procedures, and tools
constructed on an incomplete understanding are
inevitably unable to be effective. The knowledge
assets codified for a certain unit, workplace, or task
would undoubtedly help the development of RM
mechanisms.
RM is also one of the functions of every
organization and is associated with dedicated
professionals and expertise. As with other business
activities, the RM work relies partially on
experience and the RM expertise faces grave loss
when experts leave the organization. To understand
KM would help RM to capture experiences, codify
best practices and lessons learned, and retain
expertise.
On the other hand, RM can be supportive of
KM’s theoretical development and is essential for its
practical operation. According Spender (2003), KM
and KM system research need a core theory that is
able to distinguish KM from other fields and at the
same time to allow non-KM people to recognize its
essence. Without such a core theory, KM may
remain unclear in stating its objectives, key
activities, and associated competencies. However,
according to Stenmark (2011), there is still a lack of
clear foundations for KM and not much work is
currently to be found that answers the call to develop
core theories. The RM field, which is at the core of a
broader discipline called Archival Science, has
researched the nature of records and of the activities
producing them for millennia (Duranti, 1999) and, in
responding to the challenges of digital records, has
established a coherent theoretical framework. As one
major product that the InterPARES project has
produced, its terminology database contains a
network of concepts, among which are those of data
and information, the two concepts that also KM
needs to address (Becerra-Fernandez and Leidner
2008).
RM is essential for KM’s practical
implementation because it warrants the quality and
usability of records generated by the KM function.
KM records, like any other organizational records,
are subject to RM rules and practices, as, for
example, they need to be appraised for establishing
retention schedules and disposed of for operational
efficiency and legal compliance. Effective RM
ensures the authenticity of KM records in digital
formats and provides contextual information for
knowledge assets to be meaningfully interpreted and
applied. Although both fields have the goal of
keeping and making accessible informational
content appraised as valuable for organizational
continuation and improvement, RM has a much
longer history of research and practice in these areas.
Its effort of articulating functional requirements for
electronic records management system (ERMS)
started in the early 1990s (e.g., UBC-MAS Project,
1994-1997) and yielded widely accepted standards
governing the design of the ERMS with
functionalities of classification, retrieval, access
control, information sharing, and disposition. This
rich body of accumulated knowledge should be able
to aid KM in addressing similar system
requirements. As pointed out by Wiig (as cited in
Dalkir, 2009), the KM system development touches
on almost all facets of an organization, and also for
this reason, the RM facet is one that KM should not
ignore.
KnowledgeManagement&RecordsManagement-EstablishingRelationshipsforCommonDevelopment
249
5 CONCLUSIONS
KM and RM need to be distinguished from each
other. These two fields are disciplinarily and
professionally independent, with their ultimate goals
focusing on different outcomes of an organization’s
operation: KM focuses on innovation and RM on
trustworthiness. Being distinct from each other is
necessary first to justify their co-existence in the
same organization and second to begin the process
of building a foundation for collaboration.
According to Nonaka and Peltokorpi), KM scholars
“have largely unified perspectives of data and
information in comparison to knowledge” (2006,
p.76). Yet, knowledge needs to be distinguished also
from records.
KM and RM need to understand each other. To
gain mutual-understanding is a step further than
maintaining distinctiveness because it requires
familiarity and appreciation of the respective core
concepts, key activities, and representative
methodologies. By its nature, RM needs to
understand all functions of an organization to
satisfactorily fulfil its purpose, and the more
comprehensively it does so, the more effective the
systems it will develop will be. As well, with a
sufficient level of understanding of RM, KM should
be able to analyze the type, portion, and format of
organizational knowledge embedded in records, and
based on the analyses, to develop mechanisms to
distill knowledge from “raw information” in records
to manage knowledge at an enterprise scale.
To distinguish and to understand each other
should lead to collaborating with each other. KM
and RM already interact with each other in the
context of organizations’ operations and
advancement. As they both need to work with each
and every part of the organization, their working
paths inevitably cross each other. They both are
rapidly evolving in the digital environment, facing
many similar opportunities and challenges, such as
business process alignment (Stenmark, 2006);
(NARA, 2005), change management (IAEA, 2006);
(Adam, 2008), and organizational culture (Ribiere
and Sitar, 2010); (InterPARES 3, 2007-2012). To
fail to recognize or even ignore these facts will only
result in harm for both fields and for the
organizations that they seek to help as they would
follow divergent paths and build isolated islands of
strengths. Without a clearly, logically articulated
collaboration framework, there might be repeated
efforts and wasted time and resources, thus creating
difficulties for both fields in obtaining support from
senior management or managing changes
successfully. Thus, we would like to issue a call for
the two fields to start collaboration in both research
and practice by becoming familiar with each other.
This call for collaboration is intended for both
fields. Only by working together can the ultimate
goals of KM and RM be achieved, making their
sponsoring organizations both Innovative and
Trustworthy.
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