¹Knowledge Management Consortium International

Correspondence: Joseph M Firestone, 309 Yoakum Parkway, # 603, Alexandria, VA 22304, U.S.A. Tel: +703 461 8823; E-mail: eisai@comcast.net

Received 13 September 2007; Accepted 3 October 2007.

Abstract

There is too little agreement on the nature of knowledge management (KM) among researchers and practitioners. This paper addresses the significance of this problem for evaluating KM as a discipline and discusses what to do to facilitate evaluation and to create conditions that will encourage self-organization around the most successful concepts of KM. The paper also presents a conceptual definition and specification of KM, and then uses aspects of it to analyze two primary approaches to KM: the DEC Interruption Approach, and the Background Conditions, or Ecological Approach. It analyzes the DEC Interruption Approach by sketching out an ideal pattern called the Open Enterprise Pattern, and presents an example of it in the Partners Healthcare Case. It then analyzes two contrasting significant examples of the Ecological Approach: the World Bank case, and the Halliburton case.