Исследование инструментов менеджмента знаний в российских корпорациях

Although Knowledge Management (KM) is not a new answer to the information-centric world, each evolution and the way it grows can be the answer because, in a modern-day business environment, it is essential to be ahead of current and future competitors, substitutes, potential disruptors; to find ways to mitigate the impact of devastating financial crises and political instability such as trade wars. However, the scientific consensus on what knowledge management precisely is, what practices, processes, and information tools are included in the notion, is still to be reached. Researchers face the need to analyze just a certain amount of KM tools or processes, but there is no article analyzing the synergy of both tools and processes. Some knowledge management practices could improve the financial performance of a company (T. Andreeva & Kianto, 2012), like KM – human resource management (HRM) and information and communication technologies (ICT). However, in Russia, KM practices and tools are used separately and selectively by companies (Gavrilova et al., 2017). However, the further analysis of the causes of KM fragmental usage in Russian companies is not a scope of this paper primarily because, in periods of political-economic instability, the historical causes of certain events fade in front of an urge to change adapt and survive.
Research problem. There is no consensus in the scientific community of what KM tools are being used and how they are being used in Russian companies; no codification of KM tools has been introduced by scientific and business communities, preventing further research in this field. There are papers on performance evaluation of KM processes of Russian firms (T. E. Andreeva et al., 2015; T. Andreeva & Kianto, 2012; Gavrilova et al., 2017; May et al., 2005; Michailova & Hutchings, 2006), however:
• There seems to be a mix-up and a lack of agreement on what exactly are the KM tools and practices, which leads to confusing them with Information & Data management system and practices, potentially preventing the business community from effectively practicing Knowledge management, and at the same time devaluating the KM notion itself, especially in our information-centric world. This paper aims to suggest to both scientific and business communities the unified definitions of what exactly are the KM processes and tools.
• There seems to be a limited number of studies on Knowledge management, especially when it comes to Russia. The quantitative observatory research (survey) on KM usage in Russian companies (Gavrilova et al., 2017) is only a shallow overview of KM lifecycle in Russian companies, which goal was to check hypotheses on which factors influence the
KM and at what particular stage of KM lifecycle companies find themselves.
• There seems to be only one research that studied financial outcomes of two Knowledge management processes (T. Andreeva & Kianto, 2012) in Chinese, Russian and Finnish
companies, which can be a solid basis for further study by fellow researchers.
This paper addresses this research gap and lays a foundation for further research.
The research goal is to explore the KM tools (systems) and their usage in Russian enterprises. The research objectives are:
• To define what Knowledge management is and what it consists of.
o Within the scope of this research, we will also define what Knowledge is and what
organizational learning is. This part is crucial for separating Knowledge from
Information.
o This objective is crucial for separating Information from Knowledge management. o It is crucial to define what KM processes exist to determine KM processes and how
KM tools facilitate organizational learning.
• To define what are Knowledge management tools;
o This objective is crucial for separating solely Information-oriented systems from systems that can or designed to facilitate KM processes.
• To assess how KM tools are used in Russian enterprises;
o This objective is crucial for reaching the research goal.
The research context is the medium and large-sized enterprises operating in the Russian Federation, both multinationals and mononationals.
The research subject is Knowledge Management systems (tools).
The research question is «How can knowledge management tools be used in Russian enterprises
to facilitate organizational learning?»
Scientific relevance. This paper aims at suggesting the scientific community definitions of notions like Knowledge, Knowledge management, Organizational Learning, and Knowledge management tools to be generally accepted and used for the sake of reducing confusion both within the scientific community itself and with the business community. For more than 20 years of Knowledge Management research, there is a codification research gap in KM tools and practices that Russian companies use. Moreover, there is a research gap between how KM tools can be used and their actual usage in Russian companies.
Practical relevance. As a hypothesis, fragmented usage of KM tools in Russia (Gavrilova et al., 2017) is due to a lack of understanding of what KM is and why it is needed, codification of KM tools, and overview of common practices. Thus, the management of Russian companies could diagnose common practices in working with KM tools, fix the problems with knowledge sharing that lead to an impact on the financial performance of companies (HINDASAH & NURYAKIN, 2020; Idowu, 2013).