Sharing Knowledge Can Prove Profitable.

• Position: Brief Article

Although multinational companies are reporting large cost savings and improved performance by encouraging employees to share their knowledge rather than hoard it, less than half of the chief executives officers at these companies are actively involved in knowledge management efforts, according to the Conference Board, New York, which surveyed 200 executives at 158 large global companies. Knowledge management is a systematic way to share and use knowledge by identifying, managing, and sharing all of an enterprise's information assets, including databases, policies, and procedures, as well as previously unarticulated expertise and experience of individual workers.

In cases where systematic shared learning is part of the corporate culture, top management involvement--beginning with the company's chief executive--has been crucial. The Conference Board notes, however, that just 33% of CEOs are leading knowledge management efforts at their companies.

"While productivity and efficiencies have...