Structure of a story for the knowledge management practitioner

• Main Author: Abdul Karim, Abdul Halim
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13839/1/KM105.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13839/; http://www.kmice.cms.net.my
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

More and more Knowledge Managers are now realising the importance of story telling in the dissemination of knowledge.Indeed, storytelling is a key feature of a Knowledge Culture.It turns knowledge sharing into a social activity (or rather, it is a social activity where knowledge is shared).As such, storytelling is crucial for the integration of Knowledge Management into the business process and the organisation as a whole. There is thus a need to “capture” such stories and such efforts are well underway.Although story-telling could be the most efficient way of disseminating Knowledge, Knowledge does not always come in the form of a story.The effectiveness of stories in KM suggests to us a need to recast whatever knowledge the worker has into the form of a story wherever possible.To encourage storytelling,to capture stories and to formulate stories out of workers’ experiences require Knowledge about the nature of stories.Thus Knowledge Managers need to understand the structure of stories in order to understand better how stories work in a Knowledge Organisation.This paper attempts to make clear to the Knowledge Manager the structure of a story while emphasizing how a good structure not only helps in the dissemination of knowledge but also enables Knowledge workers to appreciate the Knowledge shared.The paper presentation will include a short analysis and discussion of an example of a “Knowledge Story”.