Knowledge management in military: A review for Malaysian Armed Forces’ communities of practices

Abstract

Knowledge management is a process that helps organization to create, identify, manage and distribute important information including the expertise owned for activities like making decision, strategic planning, dynamic learning and problem solving. In the business of waging wars, the military has always maintained that knowledge is critical to victory. For the military, a learning organization allows its units to gain an advantage over the enemy by adapting quickly to changing situations and tactics while never remaining in a predictable pattern. The objective of this paper is to review the management of knowledge in the military and propose the typology of knowledge that should be codified and shared by the workforce within the context of empowering the Malaysians Armed Forces with knowledge-based systems. Communities of Practices (CoP) also will be discussed as to be truly a learning organization the knowledge must be share from individual to communities.