Background Bibliographic Analysis

One measure of the influence of a discipline is to track the “formal communications” or published works in that discipline [Koenig,M., 2005, Ponzi, L., 2004]. Ponzi observed that “knowledge management is one emerging discipline that remains strong and does not appear to be fading”. The authors have continued that tracking of the KM literature time series (Figure 2.1 below) through the 2009 literature.The KM business literature continues to grow. Note that Figure 2.1 almost certainly underestimates the size of the KM literature. In the early years of KM, it was probably a very safe assumption that almost all KM articles would have the phrase “knowledge management” in the title, but as the KM field has grown, that almost certainly is no longer a safe assumption.There are now numerous articles about “communities of practice” or “enterprise content management” or “lessons learned” that clearly are KM focused, but they do not use the phrase “knowledge management” in the title.

in reading about KM as well. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations were written range from mathematics to mass communication, with business administration being strongly represented.

 

 

Figure 2.1: Knowledge Management Growth. Number of KM articles published by year.

communication, with business administration being strongly represented. See Figure 2.3 below for the publication pattern. In general, the number of dissertations focusing on some aspect of knowledge management rises gradually until 2006 and has remained steady with about 100 theses produced each year in English with, however, a decline in 2008 and 2009.

In reading about KM as well. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations

were written range from mathematics to mass communication, with business administration being strongly represented. See Figure 2.3 for the publication pattern.

 

Figure 2.3: Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses written with ‘Knowledge Management’ in the Title, Abstract or KeyWord Fields 1996–2009. An interesting observation is that there was a very brief spurt of articles about KM in journals devoted to education, but that interest soon waned. This is likely a function of the fact that KM, as mentioned previously has a very corporatist and organizational emphasis, while for most academic principals, the faculty, their commitment to their field, their discipline and sub-discipline, their “invisible college” comes first. Their commitment to their nominal home institution is quite secondary. And, for most of those faculty, their invisible college already functions as their community of practice.