Design Science Research Championing Personal Knowledge Management System Development

Knowledge Management (KM) is governed by an ill-structured mishmash of complementing as well as conflicting interdisciplinary methodologies and based on physical and social technologies, which too often struggle to achieve their stakeholders’ objectives due to diverse scholarly contributions, repetitive polemic discourses, and misguided organizational KM system generations. A novel Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Concept and Prototype System currently under development take a fresh look and aim to support individuals’ academic and professional growth as well as their roles as contributors and beneficiaries of institutional and societal performance. A PKM System (PKMS), hence, is meant to aid life-long-learning, resourcefulness, creativity, and teamwork of knowledge workers. Such a scope offers appealing and viable opportunities for stakeholders in the educational, professional, and developmental context. A recent article employed the systems thinking techniques of the transdiscipline of Informing Science (IS) to align and validate the more specific models and methodologies central to the PKMS concept. In line with the interdisciplinary nature of the concept, further conference papers and journal articles have been disseminated and received feedback from a wide range of disciplines. This follow-up article turns to the creative process at the heart of the concept and application introduced in the prior publications. Similar to the IS-benchmarking approach, the design thinking is validated against accepted general design science research guidelines. These guidelines are meant to supplement the reactive behavioral (natural) science paradigm with the proactive design science paradigm in order to support information technology (IT) researchers in creating innovative IT artefacts that extend human and social capabilities and meet desired outcomes. Rather than to justify the research paradigm of the PKMS project in an ad hoc and fragmented manner with each new paper, the objective is a dedicated article which presents the design science research perspectives comprehensively as evidence of their relevance, utility, rigor, and publishability in Information Systems research outlets. The URL links to all prior publications facilitate a kind of ‘Long Discussion Case’ to potentially assist IT researchers and entrepreneurs engaged in similar projects.