Below: Historical Archive: Prior R&D Intelligence, and, Analysis.

What is Knowledge Management?
From Recent Peer-Reviewed Journals and Books

Download Our Articles and Interviews [Guru Interviews] [Real Time Business Processes] [IT Adoption and Utilization] [Managing and Measuring Knowledge Assets] [The Real Competitive Advantage] [Why IT and KM Systems Fail] [Myths About Expertise Management] [How 'Best Practices' Become 'Worst Practices'] [Beyond Information Ecology to Knowledge Ecosystems] [Knowledge Exchanges and Social Networks] [Why Expert Systems Aren't Enough] [KM for E-Business Performance] [Does KM=IT? Not!] [Other Articles and Interviews]

• Knowledge Management for the New World of Business "Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaption, survival and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change.... Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings." (Journal for Quality & Participation, Hewlett-Packard Executive Intelligence, and Asian Strategy Leadership Institute Review).
• Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance: Advancing Information Strategy to ‘'Internet Time' Unlike most conceptions of knowledge management proposed in information systems research and in trade press, this conception is better related to the new model of business strategy discussed earlier. Its primary focus is on How can knowledge management enable business strategy for the new world of business? and What strategic outcomes should knowledge management try to achieve? rather than What goes into the nuts and bolts of the machinery that supports knowledge management? It relates more closely to the dynamic view of business strategy as driver of the corporate information strategy. Furthermore, unlike most prevailing definitions, this interpretation explicitly addresses the strategic distinction between knowledge and information explained earlier. (Information Strategy: The Executive's Journal)
• Intellectual Capitalism: Does KM=IT? Knowledge management is in danger of being perceived as so seamlessly entwined with technology that its true critical success factors will be lost in the pleasing hum of servers, software and pipes. As vendors label their document management, database or groupware products "knowledge management solutions," executives can be excused for mistaking the software for the solution. It's not. (CIO Magazine interview of Yogesh Malhotra).
• Knowledge Management & New Organization Forms: A Framework for Business Model Innovation "The new business environment, characterized by dynamically discontinuous change, requires a re-conceptualization of knowledge management as it has been understood in information systems practice and research. One such conceptualization is proposed in the form of a sense-making model of knowledge management for new business environments. Application of this framework will facilitate business model innovation necessary for sustainable competitive advantage in the new business environment characterized by dynamic, discontinuous and radical pace of change." (Information Resources Management Journal)
• From Information Management to Knowledge Management: Beyond the 'Hi-Tech Hidebound' Systems "Most extant knowledge management systems are constrained by their overly rational, static and acontextual view of knowledge. Effectiveness of such systems is constrained by the rapid and discontinuous change that characterizes new organizational environments. The prevailing knowledge management paradigm limits itself by its emphasis on convergence and consensus-oriented processing of information. Strategy experts have underscored that the focus of organizational knowledge management should shift from ‘prediction of future’ [that cannot be computed] to ‘anticipation of surprise.’ Such systems may be enabled by leveraging the divergent interpretations of information based upon the meaning-making capability of human beings." (In K. Srikantaiah & M.E.D. Koenig (Eds.). Knowledge Management for the Information Professional, Medford, N.J.: Information Today Inc.)
• Knowledge Assets in the Global Economy: Assessment of National Intellectual Capital This article has the following objectives: developing the need for assessing knowledge capital at the national economic level; review of a national case study of how intellectual capital assessment was done in case of one nation state; suggesting implications of use of such assessment methods and needed areas of advancement; and highlighting caveats in existing assessment methods that underscore the directions for future research. With increasing emphasis on aligning national information resource planning, design and implementation with growth and performance needs of business or nation, better understanding of new valuation and assessment techniques is necessary for information resource management policymakers, practitioners and researchers. (Journal of Global Information Management)
• Knowledge Management for Organizational White-Waters: An Ecological Framework It is anticipated that the notion of knowledge ecology can facilitate development of synergy between the data and information processing capacity of information technologies and the innovative and creative capacity of human beings. This presentation will attempt to develop an understanding of such issues to advance the current thinking from knowledge management based on predictive models to those better geared to organizational white-waters that demand 'anticipation of surprise.' (Knowledge Management Journal (UK))
• Knowledge Management: A Strategic View
• What is Knowledge Management? (Karl E. Sveiby) Sveiby develops an epistemology based understanding of Knowledge Management, which he defines as "The art of creating value from an organisation's Intangible Assets."
• A Social Interpretivist View of Knowledge Management
• Kentucky Initiative for Knowledge Management: A Field of Study

More perspectives are available in:

• Other articles in Global Risk Management Network's Book on Knowledge Management .
• Online discussions in The Knowledge Management Think Tank.

What was Knowledge Management?
Technology-Centric Interpretations Popular Until About 1995

Policies, procedures and technologies employed for operating a continuously updated linked pair of networked databases (Anthes 1991).

Bringing tacit knowledge to the surface, consolidating it in forms by which it is more widely accessible, and promoting its continuing creation (Birkett 1995).

Ensuring a complete development and implementation environment designed for use in a specific function requiring expert systems support (Chorafas 1987).

Processes of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge (Davenport 1994).

Creation, acquisition and transfer of knowledge and modification of organizational behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights (Garvin 1994).

Identification of categories of knowledge needed to support the overall business strategy, assessment of current state of the firm's knowledge and transformation of the current knowledge base into a new and more powerful knowledge base by filling knowledge gaps (Gopal & Gagnon 1995).

Finding out how and why information users think, what they know about the things they know, the knowledge and attitudes they possess, and the decisions they make when interacting with others (Hannabuss 1987).

Mapping knowledge and information resources both on-line and off-line; Training, guiding and equipping users with knowledge access tools; Monitoring outside news and information (Maglitta 1995).

Understanding the relationships of data; Identifying and documenting rules for managing data; and Assuring that data are accurate and maintain integrity (Strapko 1990).

Facilitation of autonomous coordinability of decentralized subsystems that can state and adapt their own objectives (Zeleny 1987).

References

Anthes, G.H. "A Step Beyond a Database," Computerworld, 25(9), 1991, p. 28.

Birkett, B. "Knowledge Management," Chartered Accountants Journal of New Zealand, Feb 1995, 74(1), pp. 14-18.

Chorafas, D.N. "Expert Systems at the Banker's Reach," International Journal of Bank Marketing, 5(4), 1987, pp. 72-81.

Davenport, T.H. "Coming Soon: The CKO," InformationWeek, September 5, 1994.

Garvin, D.A. "Building a Learning Organization," Business Credit, 96(1), January 1994, pp. 19-28.

Gopal, C. & Gagnon, J. "Knowledge, Information, Learning and the IS Manager," Computerworld (Leadership Series), 1(5), 1995, pp. 1-7.

Hannabuss, S. "Knowledge Management," Library Management, 8(5), 1987, pp. 1-50.

Maglitta, J. "Smarten Up!," Computerworld, 29(23), June 5 1995, pp. 84-86.

Strapko, W. "Knowledge Management," Software Magazine, 10(13), 1990, pp. 63-66.

Zeleny, M. "Management Support Systems," Human Systems Management," 7(1), 1987, pp. 59-70.