‘KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT’
ACCORDING TO
BUSINESS
SCIENCE
Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha
University of South Africa
Department of Information Science
OUTLINE
Introduction and background information
 Methods and materials
 Results and discussion
 Conclusions and recommendations

WHO OWNS ‘KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT’?
DISCIPLINES/FIELDS
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - INTRODUCTION
KM introduced in 1990s
 Several attempts to describe KM
 No single definition
 Probably due to multidisciplinarity
nature

KM does not appear to possess the qualities of a discipline. If anything, KM
qualifies as an emerging field of study. Those involved in the emerging field
of KM are still vexed today by the lack of a single, comprehensive definition,
an authoritative body of knowledge, proven theories, and generalized
conceptual framework. Academics and practitioners have not been able to
stabilize the phenomenon of KM enough to make sense of what it is and what
it comprises. (Sutton 2007)
KM…
YET, TO OTHERS … KM IS…
AND TO OTHERS … KM…
WHAT IS KM ACCORDING TO BUSINESS
SCIENCE?
TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION






Subject, title and journal terms of
the
KM literature was analyzed from
BUSINESS SOURCE
COMPLETE database spanning
2005 to 2009 using
Bibexcel, TI and TextStat softwares
in order to identify
Most commonly used subject, journal
and title terms to describe KM as
well as map the terms on social
networks
?
Business Source Complete exceeds all other
databases available in terms of its premium content
of peer-reviewed, business related journals.
Included as part of the comprehensive coverage
offered by this database are indexing and abstracts
for the most important scholarly business journals,
dating back as far as 1886.
In addition to the searchable cited references
provided for more than 1,300 journals, Business
Source Complete contains detailed author
profiles for the 40,000 most-cited authors in the
database.
EBSCO-HOST THESAURUS CLASSIFICATION
OF KM
Broader
Terms
Related
Terms
Used for
MANAGEMENT
KM
Here are entered
works on the
CORPORATE culture
process of
DATA mining
capturing, storing,
INFORMATION architecture
INFORMATION resources management organizing and
accessing
INFORMATION science
information
INFORMATION technology
within an
INNOVATION management
INTELLECTUAL capital
organization and
KNOWLEDGE workers
using the
MANAGEMENT information systems
information to
ORGANIZATIONAL learning
meet
WEB site development industry
organizational
KM (Business)
goals and
MANAGEMENT of knowledge assets
objectives.
CHIEF information officers
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
YEARLY DISTRIBUTION OF RECORDS
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
613, 18%
641, 19%
751, 22%
731, 21%
677, 20%
MOST COMMONLY USED SUBJECT TERMS
No. LISTA Subject
1 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
2 INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
3 MANAGEMENT
4 ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
5 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
6 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT
7 RESEARCH
8 CORPORATE CULTURE
9 INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
10 MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
11 INFORMATION SCIENCE
12 PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
13 TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
14 DATA MINING
15 BUSINESS ENTERPRISES
N
3413
725
558
522
520
385
365
341
333
300
257
251
250
223
221
%
100.00
21.24
16.35
15.29
15.24
11.28
10.69
9.99
9.76
8.79
7.53
7.35
7.32
6.53
6.48
JOURNALS WITH MOST NUMBER OF RECORDS
Journal
N
%
International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Devt
Knowledge & Process Management
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge & Data Engineering
Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology
Learning Organization
Journal of Information Science
Decision Support Systems
Industrial Management & Data Systems
International Journal of Human Resource Management
MIS Quarterly
International Journal of Information Management
Management Learning
Communications of the ACM
Systems Research & Behavioral Science
Information & Management
Academy of Management Journal
International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making
Organization Science
Human Resource Management
Journal of Management Information Systems
90
66
65
61
60
51
44
40
40
40
37
36
35
32
29
28
27
27
26
25
2.64
1.93
1.90
1.79
1.76
1.49
1.29
1.17
1.17
1.17
1.08
1.05
1.03
0.94
0.85
0.82
0.79
0.79
0.76
0.73
JOURNAL KEYWORD
JOURNAL
MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
REVIEW
RESEARCH
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
SYSTEMS
ECONOMICS
MARKETING
ENGINEERING
ECONOMIC
PUBLIC
TRANSACTIONS
IEEE
DEVELOPMENT
SCIENCE
ORGANIZATION
ACCOUNTING
N
284
173
97
55
55
50
46
37
35
29
25
24
21
20
20
19
18
18
16
15
%
8.32
5.07
2.84
1.61
1.61
1.46
1.35
1.08
1.03
0.85
0.73
0.70
0.62
0.59
0.59
0.56
0.53
0.53
0.47
0.44
Single keywords in
the Journal Titles
Strong appearance:
Management
Business
Research
Information
Technology
Systems
Marketing
Engineering
Economic/s
Organization
CORE KEYWORDS IN JOURNAL TITLES
The relationships among journal title words
is weak as reflected in their sparse
distribution
MOST COMMON TITLE KEYWORDS
TITLE KEYWORD
N
KNOWLEDGE
1485
Knowledge
MANAGEMENT
791
pyramid
LEARNING
306
INFORMATION Wisdom274
ORGANIZATIONAL
234
SYSTEMS
195
Knowledge
INNOVATION
175
Information
PERFORMANCE
172
STUDY
Data 170
DEVELOPMENT
151
TRANSFER
137
CASE
132
CAPITAL
124
SHARING
118
RESEARCH
114
TECHNOLOGY
108
%
43.51
23.18
8.97
8.03
6.86
5.71
5.13
5.04
4.98
4.42
4.01
3.87
3.63
3.46
3.34
3.16
As expected knowledge
and management were the
most predominant title
keywords
‘Information’ too
featured substantially
These keywords do not
make much sense when
looked at singly
CORE TITLE TERMS (2005-2009)
KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
LEARNING
INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
INNOVATION
PERFORMANCE
TRANSFER
CAPITAL
SHARING
RESEARCH
TECHNOLOGY
RESOURCE
SOCIAL
PRACTICE
STRATEGIC
FIRMS
MANAGING
PERSPECTIVE
NETWORKS
FRAMEWORK
INDUSTRY
INTELLECTUAL
IT
MINING
CREATION
CONCLUSION…
According to Information Science scholars
Source: Onyancha & Ocholla, 2009
Related term
Knowledge Management
INSTITUTIONS
Libraries;
Information
services;
Universities &
colleges;
Business
enterprises;
Archives, etc.
PROCESSES
Information
retrieval;
organizational
learning; data
mining; e-data
processing;
dbase
searching;
information
sharing, etc
Information Resources Management
MANAGEMENT
Industrial; IR;
Information
services;
records;
database;
document;
resource;
library
administration
PEOPLE
Knowledge
workers;
information
professionals;
librarians;
executives;
information
scientists;
library
employees; etc
Information Science; Library Science; Computer Science; Business;
Education; Information Technology; and Management Science.
According to Business Science
Related term
Knowledge Management
INSTITUTIONS
Business
enterprises;
Universities &
colleges;
Associations,
institutions,
etc; Small
businesses.
etc.
PROCESSES
Organizational
learning;
Business
planning; data
mining;
strategic
planning;
Information
sharing;
Decision
making, etc
Information Resources Management
MANAGEMENT
Industrial;
Personnel;
Information
systems;
database;
document;
resource; TQM;
Performance
PEOPLE
Knowledge
workers;
executives;
teams in the
workplace;
employees; etc
Management science; Organizational learning; Information Science;
Computer Science; Business; Education; and Information Technology
RECOMMENDATIONS

Broader study involving


Full-text articles (concepts and their context usagein-context)
Study involving other databases (subject specific,
e.g. computer science and management sciences,
etc)
May assist in deeper understanding of KM
END
Dr. Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha
University of South Africa
Dept of Information Science,
PO Box 392 UNISA 0003
onyanob@unisa.ac.za