Master of Knowledge Management (KM) - About This Program

This program is only available for contract (i.e. for employers who wish to commission and fund an exclusive cohort of the program for its employees). If you'd like to learn more about this program, please contact us by submitting the form on the left of this page. Thank you!

 
Designed for working professionals, this program prepares you to manage the intellectual and knowledge-based assets of various organizations, including corporations, non-profits and government agencies. Delivered fully online, the program features work-friendly scheduling and takes two years to finish.

In the program, you’ll learn how to:

• Develop and transfer knowledge in organizations
• Manage information and data for a variety of companies and purposes
• Identify new services and improve organizational performance
• Increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing among people and departments
• Cultivate innovation across organizational units, such as research and development, operations, product design, marketing and sales
• Manage, preserve and protect organizational knowledge and intellectual properties

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge Management (KM) is the process organizations use to identify, create, store, share and deploy knowledge. Using KM principles, an organization can maximize value from its intellectual assets, build trust among employees, and prepare for future opportunities and disruptions.

Although KM involves the use of technology, its main focus is on supporting effective decision making, understanding the human factors of knowledge, and developing creative solutions to organizational challenges.

Whether it's a simple solution, such as an FAQ, or a complex one, like Amazon’s recommendation engine, KM’s goal is to get the right information to the right people at the right time.

With this degree, you can do all of the above, opening many new career paths and making you an indispensable part of a company’s operations and structure.

Knowledge is Power

Just how important is KM? Consider this:

• Effective knowledge management saves Netflix $1 billion a year.

Conversely,

• Poor knowledge management costs Fortune 500 companies $31.5 billion a year.

Understandably, effective knowledge management is highly desired in today’s market – as are those who can do it.

With this master’s degree, you can...

• Enter leadership roles in top organizations, such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe and IBM
• Lead national non-profits, charities and foundations, such as Wikipedia, United Way, the ACLU and the Library of Congress
• Modernize the systems of public- and private-sector organizations

Regardless of size, KM helps organizations solve issues and achieve a competitive advantage. Using KM principles, larger firms might adopt a new artificial intelligence platform; smaller ones, meanwhile, might implement customer relationship software, like Salesforce.

Whatever its application, KM is used in multiple industries – non-profit, private, government – and is essential in the digital age.

Here are a few organizations that have implemented successful and wide-ranging KM programs:

• Google uses KM to improve search results and to predict user needs.
• The Library of Congress uses KM to maintain its massive repository of books and resources.
• Netflix uses KM to refine its personalized recommendations engine.
• Goodwill uses KM for a variety of activities, including dissemination of key knowledge across employees and organizational units.
• The Boeing Company uses KM to assist in the adoption of lean manufacturing principles.
• The U.S. Army has implemented KM to transform itself into a network-centric, knowledge-based force.

Designed for career advancement

The Knowledge Management master’s degree program is taught by some of the country’s most prominent KM practitioners and CSUN faculty from a variety of disciplines.

In addition to assignments with immediate, real-world application, the program includes:

• Work-friendly scheduling - The program is delivered fully online, providing you with significant flexibility to complete course work at times and in places that fit your schedule.
• Cohort-format delivery - You’ll progress through the program with a group of peers, helping you graduate on time and maximizing your interaction with faculty and fellow students.
• Exceptional support services - A program management team will assist you on your academic journey, handling all administrative matters and freeing you to concentrate on your course work and your career.

How and where would I use this degree?

While the program’s interdisciplinary content includes many topics covered in a traditional MBA program, Knowledge Management graduates will also be equipped to lead organizations in acquiring, developing, and sharing knowledge that creates value for themselves and their organizations.

That includes technology firms, film studios, non-profits, as well as local, state and federal government agencies. Some examples of KM in practice:

• Technology professionals apply KM best practices to systems that maximize knowledge use and sharing, including big data and artificial intelligence.
• Non-profit professionals utilize knowledge management practices to ensure intellectual capital is not lost during personnel transitions and in succession planning.
• Legal professionals use KM principles to leverage intellectual assets and ensure knowledge-based organizational accountability. This could be accomplished, for example, through the use of an intellectual property repository and knowledge audits.
• Marketing professionals use KM to assist with understanding consumer preferences and extending customer relationships. This could be accomplished through the use of decision support systems and electronic forums.