Liebowitz - Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management

Morgan Kaufmann is an imprint of Elsevier

50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States

Copyright 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publishers permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-805187-0

Acquisitions Editor: Todd Green

Editorial Project Manager: Lindsay Lawrence

Production Project Manager: Mohana Natarajan

Cover Designer: Victoria Pearson Esser

Typeset by Thomson Digital

To all my students and professionals who took my knowledge management courses over the years, and to those organizations that implemented my recommendations for knowledge management over the past two decades.

J. Boyle , NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, USA

F.A. Calabrese , The International Institute for Knowledge and Innovation (I2KI) IKI-SEA Bangkok University, Bangkok, Thailand

Y.E. Chan , Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada

S. Earley , Earley Information Science, Inc., USA

J.S. Edwards , Aston Business School, Birmingham, United Kingdom

G.S. Erickson , Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, USA

B. Filipczyk , University of Economics, Katowice, Poland

J. Gouchowski , University of Economics, Katowice, Poland

T. Ha-Vikstrm , University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

E. Hoffman , NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, USA

C.W. Holsapple , Gatton College of Business, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

S.-H. Hsiao , Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, MI, USA

A. Janas , Podhale State College of Applied Sciences, Nowy Targ, Poland

R. La Londe , iTalent Corporation, USA

S. Larson , School of Business, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA, USA

N. Levallet , Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

J.-Y. Oh , Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA

J. Paliszkiewicz , Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

V. Ribire , The Institute for Knowledge and InnovationSoutheast Asia (IKI-SEA), Bangkok University, Bangkok, Thailand

E. Rogers , NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

H.N. Rothberg , Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA

K.E. Russell , Wichita State University, USA

V. Sugumaran , School of Business Administration, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

J. Takala , University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

E. Tsui , Knowledge Management and Innovation Research Centre (KMIRC), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

F. Walters , iTalent Corporation, USA

A.K.P. Wensley , University of Toronto-Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada

Over the past 30 years, the knowledge management (KM) field has evolved from focusing strictly on capturing knowledge, to moving from collections to connections, to incorporating knowledge assets as part of an organizations intellectual capital strategy. We have seen over the years that the IT codification approach to knowledge management is just one part of the organizations knowledge management strategy, and perhaps the personalization approaches for sharing and collaborating are more impactful in many ways through the use of online communities of practice and other social networking methods. Over the years, we have also witnessed the KM owner in an organization being the CIO, CKO, VP-HR/OD, VP-Strategy, and other senior champions with different slants on the development and implementation of KM strategies in their organizations. Now, as we enter the big data and analytics years, what lies ahead for knowledge management?

To answer this question in the best possible way, I thought it would be most helpful to apply the basic tenets of knowledge management by learning from KM past successes and failures. In this spirit of knowledge sharing, we can learn from others so we dont travel down the wrong paths. This book, with contributed chapters from some of the leading KM authorities, including journal editors of some of the highly ranked KM journals, provides a lens in which we can look at the past, present, and future opportunities facing us in terms of how knowledge management can continue to help organizations achieve their goals.

If you Google knowledge management under any job site, you will witness hundreds of knowledge management jobs ranging from librarian roles to technical and managerial roles as applied to leveraging knowledge internally and externally. This seems to suggest that knowledge management has made it into the business mainstream. But, at least from my experience, many organizations dont seem to have enterprise-wide KM strategies. Senior managers and executives also dont seem to talk much about knowledge management, which may indicate that either KM is already integrated into the fabric of the organization (ie, we dont need to talk about KM, we are already doing it), or KM may not be that important to the organization. Some of the chapters in this book suggest some truths on both accounts. From an academic viewpoint, there are still many conferences worldwide focused on knowledge management, as well as a number of industry-focused KM conferences too.