Journals of Knowledge Management and of Knowledge Management Practice,.pdfVIP

This paper was presented at the 3rd Annual MIT/UCI Knowledge and Organizations Conference, Laguna Beach, CA, March 5-7, 2004. ______________________________________________________________________________ Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations University of California, Irvine | A Note on Making Use of Knowledge Management March 2004 J. C. SPENDER Open University Business School JCS Note on using KM v2- 4/20/2004 Page 1 of 13 A Note on Making Use of Knowledge Management J.-C. Spender, Visiting Professor, Open University Business School A tremendous amount of money and enthusiasm is going into ‘knowledge management’ (KM). Industry watchers tell us that perhaps 80% of businesses now have explicit KM projects, often expensive (Cabrera et al., 2002; Zack, 1999). Several new trade journals serve the KM practitioner community – including Knowledge Management, KM World, KM News, KM Review, the Journals of Knowledge Management and of Knowledge Management Practice, and the Journal of Intellectual Capital. The academic literature has exploded too – with new handbooks from a range of publishers (Choo et al., 2002; Dierkes et al., 2003; Easterby-Smith et al., 2003; Holsapple, 2003). Butterworth-Heinemann have an entire series devoted to KM e.g. (Despres et al., 2000). Many of the academic journals have produced helpful special KM issues – SMJ, Organization Science, Journal of Management, etc. IBM and the other major consulting firms have ‘knowledge management’ specialists and new KM marketing organizations (Prusak, 2001; Zack, 2003). Perhaps we are seeing a remarkable, even unique, convergence of academic and managerial interest, with both communities finding value in each others’ KM efforts? Loudly trumpeted KM conferences and much of the literature noted above seems to suggest that KM is a ‘silver bullet’, the crucial clue to competitive advantage in the 21st century. On the other hand, cynics assume KM is just t