Knowledge Management Systems

Book excerpt: Information and knowledge have fundamentally transformed the way business and social institutions work. Knowledge management promises concepts and instruments that help organizations to provide an environment supportive of knowledge generation, sharing and application. Information and communication technology (ICT) is often regarded as the enabler for the effective and especially the efficient implementation of knowledge management. The book presents an almost encyclopedic treatise of the many important facets, concepts and theories that have influenced knowledge management and integrates them into a general knowledge management framework consisting of strategy, organization, systems and economics. The book also contains the state of practice of knowledge management on the basis of a comprehensive empirical study, and concludes with four scenarios of the successful application of ICT in knowledge management initiatives.