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Introduction to Knowledge Management 7

The tools, techniques, and strategies to retain, analyze, organize, improve, and share business
expertise. ( Groff and Jones 2003 , 2)

A capability to create, enhance, and share intellectual capital across the organization . . . a short-
hand covering all the things that must be put into place, for example, processes, systems, culture,
and roles to build and enhance this capability. ( Lank 1997 )
The creation and subsequent management of an environment that encourages knowledge to be
created, shared, learnt [ sic ], enhanced, organized and utilized for the benefi t of the organization
and its customers. ( Abell and Oxbrow 2001 )
Wiig (1993, 2002) also emphasizes that, given the importance of knowledge in
virtually all areas of daily and commercial life, two knowledge-related aspects are vital
for viability and success at any level. These are knowledge assets that must be applied,
nurtured, preserved, and used to the largest extent possible by both individuals and
organizations; and knowledge-related processes to create, build, compile, organize,
transform, transfer, pool, apply, and safeguard knowledge. These knowledge-related
aspects must be carefully and explicitly managed in all affected areas.
Historically, knowledge has always been managed, at least implicitly. However, effective and
active knowledge management requires new perspectives and techniques and touches on almost
all facets of an organization. We need to develop a new discipline and prepare a cadre of knowl-
edge professionals with a blend of expertise that we have not previously seen. This is our chal-
lenge! (Wiig, in Grey 1996 )
Knowledge management is a surprising mix of strategies, tools, and techniques —
some of which are nothing new under the sun: storytelling, peer-to-peer mentoring,
and learning from mistakes, for example, all have precedents in education, training,
and artifi cial intelligence practices. Knowledge management makes use of a mixture
of techniques from knowledge-based system design, such as structured knowledge
acquisition strategies from subject matter experts ( McGraw and Harrison-Briggs 1989 )
and educational technology (e.g., task and job analysis to design and develop task
support systems; Gery 1991 ).
This makes it both easy and diffi cult to defi ne what KM is. At one extreme, KM
encompasses everything to do with knowledge. At the other extreme, KM is narrowly
defi ned as an information technology system that dispenses organizational know-
how. KM is in fact both of these and much more. One of the few areas of consensus
in the fi eld is that KM is a highly multidisciplinary fi eld.