Systems Thinking and Knowledge Management for E-Banking
This chapter explores e-banking from a knowledge management (KM) perspective, taking a social theory approach.
EN: I have to concede prejudice here: in my experience, KM has never been clearly defined and it often comes off as hogwash. Still, it was a fashionable buzzword for a while and companies shelled out a lot of dough, though I don't recall hearing any positive results, Still, I'll read on in hopes that maybe this guy can paint a clear picture.
ORGANISATIONS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT
Broadly speaking, a company is organized into divisions and departments according to their function to the organization, and each "unit" forms its own culture. Organizational management deals with hierarchies - a supervisor manages workers in his department, a director manages departments in his division, and executives manage the divisions of a company.
When problems arise (or plans are laid), the approach is to go to the lowest possible level of the hierarchy where they can be addressed - similar to repairing or improving a part inside a complex machine. This approach is seen as outdated and limited. In the present environment, a given problem (or opportunity) may impact multiple parts, and their interoperation (rather than internal operation) must be addressed.
But more to the point of the chapter (KM), knowledge exists within this structure at the lowest level and tends to remain at the lowest level, or is reported upward through the hierarchy. The practice of "knowledge management" involves gathering the information from the multiple parts of the machine into a single repository, increasing the intelligence of the organization at large.
This is acutely important to the kind of integration that must be done in e-banking: each part of the organization must be aware of what the other parts are doing in order for them to work in concert (or at the very least, to keep them from interfering with one another).
Systems Thinking
The author defines "system" as a collection of many independent parts that work in concert to achieve a desired function (or set of functions). The greater the number of parts and functions, the more complex a system is considered to be, and the more fragile (a malfunction of any part, or in the interaction between any two parts, can affect the system - hence the more parts, the more potential for malfunction).
From this perspective, KM focuses on gathering the information (knowledge) resident in each part and making it available to all parts of the system. If each part knows what all others are doing, it can interact with them more efficiency, compensate when another part fails, etc. Organizational management will have a more holistic view of the organization, and will recognize ways to create synergy and eliminate redundancy.
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The author concedes that KM is at a "rather immature stage of development" and that the core concept of "knowledge" lacks a clear definition. Much is still open to debate. He also concedes that the field is very wish-washy and self-referential, and includes a plethora of ideas that are either self-evident or complete nonsense, cobbled together from various sources (a litany of philosophers are named).
EN: Thus far, we're in complete agreement.
The author goes on a bit of a ramble, through various philosophers' approaches to epistemology (determining "what is knowledge"), from Aristotle to Kant. I'm skipping this: anyone who's read them knows their theories, and anyone who hasn't will only be distracted by the random collection of theories.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ITS APPLICATION
Epistemological ramblings aside, the field of KM is focused on extracting knowledge (never mind the definition) from within an organization and collecting it in a single repository.
In the corporate world, this has resulted in the emergence of the "intranet," which is a collection of resources and information from various parts of an organization. There is some criticism of this approach: it contains very little information, is not very meaningful, and does not do much to aggregate and analyze the information as a whole.
The author goes off the rails again, suggesting various theoretical paradigms (rationalist, interpretative, humanist) and their theories of knowledge. It doesn't result in any practical or practicable solution to the problems noted above.
EN: I'm skipping the remainder of the chapter. The author is clearly clutching at straws, and is presenting a lot of "concepts" that "may have implications" - which is to say, he takes a giant brain dump and leaves the reader to figure out what he means.