Dear Colleagues,
This is a research request. Some of you may know me from other
postings, but I will preface this request with a quick
self-introduction. I am associate professor at the Department of
Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning of the Norwegian
School of Management. We were one of the first business schools to
incorporate KM into the curriculum, and -- I have been told -- the
first anywhere to establish a department dedicated to KM.
I am launching a survey to get an overview of the current parameters
of knowledge management as a professional practice and an academic
discipline. It seems to me that the rich cross-section of scholars
and professional practitioners on this list make this a good site for
my request. I hope you will share your expertise with me.
Explanations and questions appear below.
I will post my findings in September.
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University
>>> Research request
I am undertaking a preliminary survey to develop aggregate global
data on knowledge management practice and research.
>>> Quick Background
I work in the department of knowledge management and organizational
learning at the Norwegian School of Management. I have been working
with knowledge management since the middle of the 1990s. At different
times since the 1970s, I have worked with knowledge and learning
issues in a related cluster of fields, including leadership,
organization theory, design science, information studies, philosophy
of science and sociology of knowledge.
During the past year, I began a literature review that has expanded
to keep track of a literature that is still expanding rapidly. As
nearly as I can tell, the literature seems to have doubled every year
for the past five years. It cannot keep up this rate of expansion
much longer. Even so, the growth and creation of journals is one
indication of the explosion. Knowledge management had no
field-specific journals in the late 1990s. There are several journals
now. While the exact number depends on how one counts them, there may
be as many as eight to ten. Knowledge management articles also appear
increasingly in the established journals of fields from philosophy
and information technology to accounting, management, and library
science.
In recent weeks, I began to get the sense that astronomers must have
as they realize they are always behind the front edge of an expanding
universe. I am sending this request to several lists in the hope of
developing a reasonable overview, and to find out if there are major
chunks of information still waiting to surprise me.
>>> My request to you
Your answers or approximations to the following questions on
knowledge management will help. Please copy and paste the questions
into an off-list post. Please send your answers to:
ken.friedman@bi.no
I will aggregate all responses from this list and other lists and
post what I have in September.
I will also send a personal copy of the aggregate to everyone who responds.
The information I gather will necessarily be rough and approximate.
The aggregate will be similarly rough. The results will nevertheless
be interesting, and this will help in a deeper study to be published
later this year.
While I have much information in each of these areas, I continually
find that I am coming across new data. I will be grateful for any
information you are willing to share. If it duplicates what I have,
there is no problem. I am looking for information that I do not yet
have. Deleting duplicates while sorting and collating the new data is
to be expected.
>>> Twelve questions
1) How many major consulting firms worldwide now have a knowledge
management practice?
2) How many smaller consulting firms and solo practitioners work in
knowledge management practice on a worldwide basis?
3) What is the total number of knowledge management practitioners at
work in the world today?
4) How many companies now actively work with knowledge management in
a day-to-day business setting?
5) How many companies now actively work with knowledge management on
a strategic level?
6) How many business schools (schools of commerce, schools of
management) around the world offer one or more courses in knowledge
management?
7) How many business schools (schools of commerce, schools of
management) around the world offer degree programs or certificates in
knowledge management?
8) If you are at a business school that offers such courses or such a
program, please give me the name(s) of current faculty or program
heads.
9) If you know of schools where you are not personally active, please
name the schools. If you can provide individual faculty or program
heads, I will be grateful.
10) What specific sources, schools, or enterprises do you recommend
as outstanding sources of information on knowledge management?
10) Please list the titles of journals or magazines that publish
articles on knowledge management.
12) You may know of relevant information not requested. F.ex., some
schools teach aspects of knowledge management under other rubrics, or
there may be an issue you feel I should develop in a deeper survey. I
will welcome your suggestions.