Abstract

In the late 1990s, Tata Steel began to introduce knowledge management initiatives in the company. It started with a small group of people from within the organization. The group formed a “knowledge repository”, where all the employees shared their experiences and knowledge. One year after the knowledge repository was formed, the company formed “knowledge communities”, which was a platform for like-minded people to meet and share their experiences. In 2001, Tata Steel developed a “KM index” to evaluate the performance of individual employee in the KM initiative. Later, it linked performance evaluation to KM and used a balanced scorecard to monitor the performance of individual employees, divisions, as well as the organization as a whole, in KM. All these initiatives of Tata Steel seem to have paid off, in early 2003, Tata Steel was recognized as one of Asia’s Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises. It was the only steel company in the world to have received the MAKE award.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Knowledge management
• Capturing of tacit and explicit knowledge.

Keywords

1990s, Tata Steel, knowledge management, organization, knowledge repository, employees, shared, experiences, knowledge, knowledge communities, KM index, linked, performance evaluation, KM, balanced scorecard, Asia, Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises, MAKE