• Human resources managers in a global environment require a fundamental shift from traditional administrative personnel manager to intellectual capital management in the way the organizations value work.
• The forgotten assets are largely intangible and include
  • Human assets – knowledge, skills, creativity and experience
  • Intellectual assets – information, memoranda, illustrations and publications
  • Intellectual property – patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks
  • Structural assets – culture, organization models, processes and procedures, distribution channels
  • Brand assets – awareness, reputation and goodwill.

(Source : Davis Kaila, Lynne Hall, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2000)

Knowledge Mapping

• The strategic role of human resources management
  
  According to Davenport (1999) categorizing and organizing knowledge should be a core competence for future organizations. Therefore human resource departments should contribute to
  • Deciding what knowledge is important
  • Developing a knowledge vocabulary
  • Creating indices and search tools and
  • Constantly refining knowledge categories
    
• Knowledge management activities should result in
  1. Improving productivity, enhancing the business environment and increasing levels of innovation and
  2. Assisting organizations to address human resource management problems on local and global levels
  3. Transform human resources managers into knowledge practitioners or facilitators, with responsibility for developing employee competence
     (Gustafson and Kleiner, 1994)

While effective knowledge management can be expensive, inefficient knowledge management is inevitably far more expensive.

(Source : Fawzy Soliman, Keri Spooner, Journal of Knowledge Management, 2000).