ABSTRACT
The discipline of knowledge management (KM) has evolved over time. This introduction presents the motivation for organizations to continue to pursue the goal of effectively managing their intellectual resources, even in light of prior failures. This research monograph offers a collection of fifteen refereed research chapters in the field of KM. Written by researchers who have made significant contributions to the field of KM and KM systems in the past several years, each chapter seeks to synthesize how research perspectives on a particular topic in KM have progressed over the years, thereby illustrating the dynamic and evolutionary nature of KM theories and documenting the intellectual milestones of KM. In presenting how thinking about KM has evolved over a period of time, the chapters elucidate how ideas have moved from being novel to being commonly accepted, how seemingly obvious truths have turned out to have more nuances and be more multifaceted over time, how new lines of KM research have emerged from the shortcomings of other lines, and how the presumed purpose of KM, and thus of KM systems, has changed over time.
