The knowledge management tussle - speech communities and rhetorical strategies in the development of knowledge management

The role and in uence of information systems/information technology (IS/IT) professionals in organizations and the balance of power between the ‘IT world’ and the management profession has been a topic of interest for some time. The antagonistic elements in this relationship have been analysed by some as a problem of a lack of integration between business managers and IT people. Others suspect business management’s attempts to exert control over the IT function and its experts (see Scarbrough (1993) for a more detailed account). The recent emergence of knowledge management, both in its incarnation as a Ž eld of scientiŽ c inquiry and a domain of managerial action, provides a new object of study for those who are concerned with a rift between IT and the rest of the world. The debate on knowledge management is no stranger to belligerent rhetoric. Some observers of the knowledge management scene have even gone so far as to detect a need for IS professionals ‘to up the ante in the KM tussle’ (Hyams, 1998, p. 40). Taking a similar stance means asking whether knowledge management can be classiŽ ed as an ‘IT topic’ or should be seen as belonging to one or several other domains of managerial expertise. If this antagonistic view of ITbusiness management relations were to be pushed a bit further it could even be speculated whether IT professionals and scholars in the IT Ž eld have exerted sufŽ cient in uence for defending their terrain and substantiating their claim on the knowledge management topic. This paper uses publications on knowledge management as a starting point for analysing the actors and processes that shape the development of a Ž eld of inquiry. It will examine the emergence of knowledge management over an extended period of time. Viewing knowledge management as a ‘fashionable’ concept by referring to a number of insights derived from the recent literature on management fashion allows the paper to shed new light on the state of the knowledge management Ž eld as a whole and the contribution of the IT community within this Ž eld. Journal of Information Technology (2001) 16, 113–130