Abstract:

Over the past 15 years, knowledge management (KM) has progressed from an emergent concept to an increasingly common function in business organizations. As evidence of its maturity as an area of academic study, an increasing number of journals devoted to KM and intellectual capital management have been created. As might be expected for a still emerging discipline, little quantitative empirical research has been published (Foss and Mahnke, 2003). The bulk of the published work in the KM area comprises conceptual frameworks and theoretical models. Extant empirical research relies primarily on a small number of descriptive exploratory qualitative case studies (e.g. Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Kalling, 2003; Massey etal., 2002; Nonaka, 1994). Although this body of work contains valuable and insightful concepts and frameworks that have helped to define and shape the KM discipline, it is time to begin testing and advancing this work using more precise methods.