1.1 THE
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF KM
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No
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Years
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Description
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1
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mid-1990s.
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The appearance
of the term “Knowledge Management” is a rather recent phenomenon. It appeared
operationally
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2
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1985
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Marchand, D. ,
The earliest print reference appears to have been used first
in the context of library and
information work.
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3
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1992
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Tom Peters was
an early user of and promoter of the phrase Knowledge Management, or as it was
known then Knowledge Management Structure (KMS).
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4
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1992a
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Koenig,M, Dean
of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, coined it in the
1980s as a descriptor for the final level in his stage hypothesis of
information systems development
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5
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1993
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a conference
in Boston in 1993 as “a good milestone to mark the beginning of the knowledge
management time-line” [Prusak, L., 1999]. The conference was held at the Four
Seasons Hotel in the spring of 1993 and was sponsored by the Center for
Business Strategy of Ernst & Young (Prusak, personal communication to MEDK, 2007).
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6
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1993
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Drucker is
clearly one of the intellectual fathers of KM. His Post Capitalist
Society, which appeared is about the shift from industrial capitalism to
the knowledge society
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7
|
1994
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Note that the
early definition of KM cited above by Davenport stems from his work at Ernst
& Young.
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|
8
|
1994
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at the
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Clarica Insurance were key
implementations in operationalizing the concept and in popularizing IC. Also
very important was the Stewart,T. [1994]
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9
|
1994
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The first
blush of enthusiasm for Intellectual Capital centered on quantifying and
measuring such an ill-defined commodity as intellectual capital, however,
proved to be difficult [Edvinsson, L., 1994, Edvinsson and Malone, 1997b]
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10
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1996
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A brief review
of the development of Intellectual Capital (covered in detail elsewhere:
[Koenig,M.,1996, 1998, Sullivan, P., 2000] is vital to understanding the
origins and development of KM.
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11
|
1996
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As the
Internet emerged, the business world realized that the Internet could be used
to link an organization together. This was the take off point for large scale
recognition of KM as an important innovation, and it was the stimulus for its
development [Koenig,M., 1996, 1998].
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12
|
1997
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KM has two
parents, the enthusiasm for and the appreciation of intellectual
capital, and
the development of the Internet and its offspring, intranets and extranets.
Intellectual Capital is, in turn, a token of the larger recognition of the
importance of information and knowledge. “Intellectual Capital” representing
the awareness that as Peter Drucker
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13
|
1999
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The earliest
instances of KM, as the term is understood today, derive from the consulting
world, from which the principles of KM eventually spread to other
disciplines. They then understood that the expertise they had gained was a
product that could be sold to other organizations.
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14
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2000
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Given this
background information, another good functional definition of KM and how it developed
is the equestrian metaphor of “by the intranet out of intellectual capital” [
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15
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2000
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at the
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Clarica Insurance were key
implementations in operationalizing the concept and in popularizing IC.
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16
|
2002
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“The Nonsense
of Knowledge Management” (Wilson,T. [2002]) is the best of the genre. The
argument that one cannot manage knowledge is, however, not very persuasive;
after all, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) has nine flavors of
meaning for ‘manage’ and eight for knowledge’, and a number of those 72
possible combinations do indeed make good sense.
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17
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2010
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The
replacement phrase most often suggested is “Knowledge Sharing.” One of the
more recent substitutions for the term ‘Knowledge Management’ is ‘knowledge
flow management,’ preferred and used by Leistner, F. [2010] in SAS’ Global
Professional Services’ division, has a background in computing and experience
with IBM’s KM Institute
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