Directions and Trends in Knowledge Management Research: Results from an Empirical Analysis of European Projects

Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) has existed as a separate field of scientific research for almost a decade. It is therefore surprising that very few studies to date have been concerned with the identification of the scope and boundaries of the field, as well as the sub-topics and research themes that constitute it. This paper reports on the results of an empirical analysis of more than two hundred research projects in Knowledge and Information Management. Using an inductive methodology of pattern matching analysis, a more accurate definition of knowledge management is attempted, and an innovative taxonomy of research sub-themes within the ‘umbrella’ area of Knowledge and Information Management is proposed. Furthermore, a trend towards a gradual maturation of the presently prevailing research paradigm is identified, indicating a need for a ‘paradigm shift’ that will provide a new direction and vision for future research in the area. We suggest that targeted future research efforts in the area of knowledge technologies will contribute to the development of the ‘next generation’ knowledge management systems that will transform the existing ‘passive’ knowledge repositories into ‘active’ learning environments. THE FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT In a world of dynamic and discontinuous change, organisations are constantly seeking ways to adapt themselves to new conditions so that they are prepared to survive and flourish in an increasingly competitive environment. The proliferation of the knowledge economy (Castells 1996), emphasising the value of information as an enabler of competitive advantage, is naturally driving many companies to re-examine the ways they have treated their knowledge assets in the past and to identify ways in which they can exploit them more effectively in the future (Argyris 1994, Albert 1997). In such a landscape, it is not surprising that Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) has emerged as one of the most popular strategic change management approaches in the dawn of the 21 century (Davenport and Prusak 1997, Currie 1999, Spiegler 2000). Its supporters argue that organisations may achieve significant competitive advantages by analysing the data and information that often remain unexploited in organisational systems and by transforming them into useful and actionable knowledge. KIM has attracted significant attention in the spheres of both academic research and industrial practice in recent years (Davenport et al 1998). This is hardly surprising: knowledge is long known to be one of the primary enablers of sustainable competitive advantage in periods of economic turbulence (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995). At the same time, the increasing capabilities of contemporary information systems to store, process, and disseminate information and to contribute to its transformation into knowledge, have also served to enhance the role of KIM in organisations. Despite the wide attention being paid to KIM, the definition of the field (both as an academic discipline and as a managerial application area), together with a clear description of its scope and boundaries, is still a subject of intense debate. A small sample of definitions found both in academic textbooks and business-oriented sources serve to demonstrate the sources of disagreements usually encountered. For example, Starr (1999) defines knowledge management as ‘information or data management with the additional practice of capturing the tacit experience of the individual’, while O’Brien (1999) defines it as ‘a tool of enterprise collaboration that facilitates the organisation, management, and sharing of the diverse forms of business information created by individuals and teams in organisations’. Laudon and Laudon (1998) claim that knowledge management is ‘the process of systematically and actively managing and leveraging the stores of knowledge in an organisation’, while Malhotra (1997) maintains that knowledge management ‘embodies organisational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings’. Even from this small sample of definitions, the epistemological and ontological basis of KIM as an independent and distinguishable field of research and practice is rather unclear. Some authors see it as an extension of traditional information management, while others view it as the synergistic outcome of combining information management and human creativity. Moreover, some definitions seem to adopt a primarily soft organisational stance and view KIM as a ‘process’, while others follow a more technologically oriented hard approach and view KIM as a ‘tool’. Perhaps some of this confusion may be attributable to the fact that the terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’, while not necessarily meaning the same thing to everybody, are explicitly or implicitly treated as synonymous in many definitions. Another source of confusion may be the fact that different types of knowledge seem to exist, each with potentially different management requirements by organisations and individuals. For example, the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge may prove to be ultimately misleading (Marshall and Brady 2000), as it tends to split the co-existent and inter-twined types of knowledge into mutually exclusive categories. Finally, a main source of disagreement seems to stem from the use of different analytical lenses to view KIM depending on one’s background: researchers from the computer science and information systems fields tend to view KIM as a tool and speak about knowledge management systems, while researchers from a management science background usually focus on the knowledge management process. As usual in such cases, the truth is somewhere in the middle: knowledge and information management is an inherently interdisciplinary research field inasmuch as its implementation depends on technological systems and its application depends on user acceptance and embracement (managerial and employee alike). The interdisciplinary nature of the field renders its detailed epistemological study more difficult, albeit at the same time also more important. This chapter sets out on a roadmap to answering these questions through a combination of theoretical and empirical research. The next section identifies the boundaries of KIM by drawing on the relevant literature of the computer science and the management science reference disciplines. Following that, we present the results of an empirical investigation into more than two hundred research projects in Knowledge and Information Management that were funded by the Commission of the European Communities during the years 1998-2001. These projects, most of them still ongoing, amount to a total cost of nearly one billion euro (€1bn), thus representing the largest coherent group of research efforts in the area. Therefore, their analysis can yield extremely interesting findings regarding the major research sub-topics within the ‘umbrella’ area of KIM as well as indicators of trends and future research directions. These findings are then encapsulated in a novel taxonomy of knowledge management research sub-fields that can serve as an analytical framework when assessing the usefulness and potential contribution of a given area of study within the overall field of knowledge management (including related aspects of information management as well). In turn, this understanding can assist towards formulating policy suggestions for effectively supporting and promoting co-ordinated knowledge management research for the future. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS: ‘HARD’ AND ‘SOFT’ KIM RESEARCH As argued earlier, research within the ‘umbrella’ field of Knowledge and Information Management can generally fall under two broad categories depending on the departing point of the research questions. On the one hand, one research stream draws predominantly on findings from the fields of computer science and information systems and sees knowledge management as an application area that extends the traditional realm of data bases and information management into so-called knowledge bases and knowledge management systems. In other words, this ‘sub-area’ of KIM is mostly concerned with investigating ways in which technological capabilities can be exploited by organisations in their pursue of knowledge-driven competitiveness. On the other hand, a separate research stream is approaching the same kinds of problems from a complementary perspective and attempts to tackle the managerial, organisational, and human issues surrounding the successful introduction of knowledge management within organisations. Research under this ‘sub-area’ of KIM is mostly concerned with investigating ways in which the process of knowledge creation, assimilation, communication, and enactment can be managed by organisations. Table 1 summarises the characteristics and differences between these research perspectives. ‘Hard’ KIM Research ‘Soft’ KIM Research Driven by Technological Developments Organisational Problems Focus on Information Process Reference Disciplines Computer Science, Information Systems, Artificial Intelligence Management Science, Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Linguistics Exemplary Outcomes Knowledge Management Systems, Knowledge Ontologies Collaborative Work Processes, Employee Empowerment Mechanisms Table 1. Different Research Approaches on Knowledge and Information Management (KIM)