Knowledge Management: An Introduction

Knowledge management is not a particularly new discipline but there is still some confusion about just what it is and how seriously it should be taken. This book, with chapters written by Desouza, Paquette and a number of other information management specialists, goes some way to answering these questions. It is clearly structured, with an introductory chapter on what is meant by the term knowledge management and then two more on the concept of knowledge and management, before the later chapters bring the two together with chapters on organisation, transfer and application. The introduction states that knowledge management is a highly interdisciplinary scholarly discipline which encompasses disciplines such as philosophy, education, management, librarianship, information science and with applications in most organisations. The most common application is in business and it is not surprising therefore that much of the book is devoted to how knowledge management can be utilised in business environments to improve knowledge creation, the flow of ideas, competitive intelligence and business efficiency.

I found the scene‐setting chapter on the “concept of knowledge” to be very effective in understanding how the discipline of knowledge management has evolved. It has useful definitions of what the author calls the artefacts – data, information, knowledge, intelligence and wisdom – before moving on to a discussion of the dimensions of knowledge – tacit and explicit, informational and procedural, individual and societal, private and public. This chapter will provide some food for thought for those who are trying to fathom the difference between information science and knowledge management. There are several other standout chapters. The author of “knowledge organisation” makes a good job at tracing the evolution of knowledge management beginning with the early days of libraries and the Dewey Decimal System before moving on to various approaches to knowledge organisation – database, the worldwide web, Amazon and other knowledge taxonomies. The chapters on “knowledge application” and “knowledge transfer” are the most practical and benefit from several well‐chosen case studies. Indeed, it may have been useful for some of the other chapters to have included a few more case studies to offset some of the more theoretical aspects of the subject.

Unfortunately, the book suffers a little from the common disease of business speak and jargon, so a glossary for those newly minted words and phrases such as “appropriability”, “digital natives” and “satisficing” comes in handy. There are extensive references for further reading.

This book is primarily aimed at students although no doubt it would be useful for business and organisation managers in the early stages of their careers. The text on the back cover says that it “will prove ideal for iteachers”. This point is reinforced by the introduction of a series of PowerPoint‐style bullet point objectives at the beginning of each chapter and discussion questions which could double up as essay or exam topics. As an introductory text this book works very well, though I can see some students being put off by the dense text and very small print over its 351 pages. It can nonetheless be recommended.