Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Organization
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Spender, J.-C.
Right arrow Articles by Scherer, A. G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Introduction

The Philosophical Foundations of Knowledge Management: Editors' Introduction

J.-C. Spender

Leeds University, UK; Cranfield University, UK

Andreas Georg Scherer

IOU, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Our work on this Special Issue began with a showcase symposium on the philosophical foundations of knowledge management (KM) at the AoM 2004 Meeting and was continued through KM tracks at the EURAM 2005 and EGOS 2005 Conferences. Our hope was to corral the variety of approaches in the KM literature and expose solid underpinnings against which the field's development might be gauged. We were unclear whether these would be axiomatic principles that defined the field or a set of professionally accepted KM practices. The call for papers went out in Fall 2004 and was published in the November 2004 issue ofOrganization. In our call we asked for advances to the discussion rather than mere reiteration of the already appreciated. Our authors and reviewers made great efforts and we learned much from their submissions, both those included and those turned away, and from the many reviews. However, we found deep disagreements, both among our reviewers about the submissions—and among everyone about the topic area generally. Clearly KM frustrates readers, authors, and reviewers alike; hence the temptation to dismiss it as yet another management fad, as many do. But there is an undeniable enthusiasm for KM among managers and academics, so our first thought was ‘To what problem is KM the answer?’. Framing the question well often takes one towards the answer—so if we puzzle out KM's problematics we may find ourselves moving towards the underpinnings we are looking for.

Key Words: knowledge management • multiple epistemologies • practice

Organization, Vol. 14, No. 1, 5-28 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1350508407071858
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Group Organization ManagementHome page
R. Mir and A. Mir
From the Colony to the Corporation: Studying Knowledge Transfer Across International Boundaries
Group Organization Management, February 1, 2009; 34(1): 90 - 113.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Management LearningHome page
J.-C. Spender
Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management: Whence and Whither?
Management Learning, April 1, 2008; 39(2): 159 - 176.
[Abstract] [PDF]