Knowledge management
process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization
Knowledge management (KM) refers to a range of processes focused on organizational awareness, learning, collaboration, and innovation. It involves using and sharing knowledge to support an organization's goals.
Courses in business administration, information systems, management, libraries, and information science are all part of knowledge management, a discipline that gained prominence in the 1990s and centered on the "Knowledge Workers" that Peter Drucker first identified in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management. Information and media, computer science, public health, and public policy are some of the other disciplines that may contribute to KM research.
Numerous academic institutions provide master's degrees specifically focused on knowledge management.
As a component of their IT, human resource management, or business strategy departments, many large corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations have resources devoted to internal knowledge management initiatives. These organizations receive KM guidance from a number of consulting firms.
Organizational goals including enhanced performance, competitive advantage, innovation, sharing of lessons learned, integration, and ongoing organizational improvement are usually the focus of knowledge management initiatives. These initiatives are similar to organizational learning, but they can be differentiated by their increased emphasis on knowledge management as a strategic asset and information sharing. Organizational learning is facilitated by knowledge management.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Knowledge management” is process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Knowledge, management and process, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q192060. The Library of Congress control number is sh97007353. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1954.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Knowledge management”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Knowledge management primary sources, Knowledge management archive and Knowledge research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Knowledge management”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Knowledge management” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.