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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The Philosophical Foundations of Knowledge Management
Organization Unit
Authors
  • J-C Spender
  • Andreas Scherer
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Organization
Publisher Sage Publications
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1350-5084
Volume 14
Number 1
Page Range 5 - 28
Date 2007
Abstract Text 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.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1177/1350508407071858
Other Identification Number merlin-id:3588
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