The Knowledge Management Movement: Current Drives and Future Scenarios

Knowledge Management (KM) has developed at an unsually fast rate as a field of practice and learning. This paper tracks the seeds of the movement, the institutionalization process and some early signs of the role it might eventually play in the emergence of a global consciousness. Three business drivers for the fast growth of the KM movement are identified and dimensioned: i) the shrinking cycle time for competency-base renewal, driven by the rate of industrial innovation; ii) the urge to value intellectual capital, driven by the growing economic weight of intangible assets and exasperated by an unprecedented wave of mergers, acquisitions and alliances; and iii) the pressure for most organizations to cope with a masive flood on unstructured information. On this light, the emergence of business and consultancy KM processes and tools is mapped. The current picture shows a pattern of turbulent propagation and dispersion of concepts and practices. This has led to a scarcity paradox in KM itself: the abbundance of information and the rarity of wisdom. By looking at the existing confusion in the very definition of KM, the opportunity to capitalize on the philosophical and scientific stock of understanding about human knowledge becomes apparent. Some basic knowledge management operations for a rational reconstruction of the field of KM itself, look promising. At the same time, early signs of self-regulation within the KM movement are beginning to appear. Some distinctive patterns of institutionalization of the KM movement are examined. On the one hand, conventional practices for the institutionalization of a discipline (such as dedicated societies, publications and conferences), are well established within the field. On the other hand, warnings on the potential role of the movement either to consolidate the drawbacks of industrial economy or to foster social mobility and economic growth are starting to receive attention. A number of potentially positive as well as negative impacts of KM on social and economic development are considered. On the basis of the former analysis, some preliminary conclusions are drawn regarding the forseeable evolution of KM as a field of theory and practice. Finally,