Practice of knowledge management is often characterized by obstacles to creation, distribution, and transfer of knowledge from specific groups of settings. Obstacles or constraints to attempts to constitute knowledge as an organizational resource have been previously dealt within the context of organizational learning perspectives; however, there still remain barriers toward making learning available and all-pervasive throughout organizations. This is often as a result of two important factors: (i) bureaucratic and hierarchical forms of organization; and (ii) owing to the situated and tacit character of knowledge. This paper is a result of theoretical exploration aimed at addressing these core issues, and proposes solutions to manage constraints and remove obstacles to knowledge management, as well as means to codify the tacit character of knowledge. The research offers a view that although it is reasonable to value knowledge in financial or economic terms, it is also important to consider the problems which make it difficult to extract and transfer knowledge within specific organizational settings. Addressing the issue of rising competitive pressure for innovation, this paper proposes several solutions to enable lateral flows of knowledge-sharing by overcoming the factors that affect acquisition of, and creation and distribution of knowledge across fluid social boundaries.

“To what problem is knowledge management the answer?” This was the question raised by Spender and Scherer (2007) in their editorial, “The Philosophical Foundations of Knowledge Management”. The philosophy of knowledge management is founded on the concept of synthetic analysis of the ontology of conceptual framework for exploration of knowledge processes which rests on the art and science of managing knowledge systematically (Staab et al., 2003). But one is free to ask—what is knowledge management? Although there are many definitions of Knowledge Management (henceforth KM), I quote a widely accepted definition from Davenport (1994): “Knowledge management is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge.”

This formal definition may be simply redefined as “management of learned information as knowledge”, aimed at systemizing the process of knowledge management so that the knowledge processes can be organized into a structural framework. In similar thought, one may present this question in a slightly different format—“how can knowledge management answer the questions related to the problem of removing obstacles to organizational learning?” What is the nature of obstacles to organizational learning and KM? If the obstacles are not removed, they may prove to be constraints to learning and information exchange. The decline in organizational learning activities may lead to impaired decision making, fall in innovation levels, or reduction in R&D output. It shall be kept in mind that learning organizations are containers of knowledge. Knowledge accumulates in organizations. And this is perhaps the first step toward understanding KM—How to manage the accumulated knowledge? Isn’t it like using knowledge to manage knowledge itself? And furthermore, one may enquire, what has KM got to offer as a new domain? How should knowledge be managed after all, and why there is even a need for a specialized domain like KM to exist? Isn’t it another fad, or is it a necessity? By avoiding such logical fallacies, I would definitely say that—KM is a ‘necessity’. The necessity arises on account of problems required to be tackled, which often present as bottlenecks toward efficient functioning of a knowledge organization. And this particular issue about KM is taken up in this paper which attempts to understand how the flow of information in knowledge organizations can be maintained without obstacles. Furthermore, in what way the underlying constraints (if any) which might hinder organizational knowledge growth can be reduced. This demands knowledge about organizational learning. Managing knowledge in learning organizations has become an integral aspect of organizational culture that thrives on innovation, data mining, and R&D. Today, in a knowledge-based society, new information is essential for any organization to survive and compete in the market for competitive power. KM is important in that respect that it enables a knowledge manager to oversee how knowledge generated by a firm is utilized, shared, stored, and retrieved. Furthermore, KM helps us to realize how organizations accumulate knowledge (Peters, 1992), and then manage it. Besides, it is factual to understand that in a knowledge society, KM is one of the essential components of organizational sustainability in the long run. Above all, since an organization’s most valuable asset is the knowledge of its people (NHS, 2005), and since there are jobs which depend on knowledge resources, therefore, it is important to manage this form of resource—the knowledge resource.

Knowledge Management Journal, Managing Constraints, Removing Obstacles, Acquisition of knowledge, Knowledge distribution, Storage, Retrieval, Knowledge Management.