Prelims

Half Title

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS A STRATEGIC ASSET

Title Page

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS A STRATEGIC ASSET: AN INTEGRATED, HISTORICAL APPROACH

JON-ARILD JOHANNESSEN

Nord University, Norway and Kristiania University College, Norway

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2019

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ISBN: 978-1-78769-662-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-659-4 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-661-7 (Epub)

Preface

When in this book we use the concept of a historical introduction to knowledge management, we here mean the period from around 1980 to 2018. This is because it is in this period knowledge management became a central business concept. Therefore we deliberately have used many references from the 1980s and 1990s in this book.

Our knowledge philosophy is that without an understanding of the history of a knowledge field of inquiry, we cannot understand, describe, and analyze the now or predict the future. Even if it may be hard or impossible to predict the future, it may be possible to create it, but only if we know something about the history of what we are about to create.

Creating the future of the company, social systems, etc., is the philosophy of thinking we use here, not the concept of adapting to what others have created. It is not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of those who are able to create their own future which is the foundation of the knowledge philosophy in this book. This may be understood as a way from red ocean strategy and Darwinism in social systems, over blue ocean strategy, to the strategy of creating our own future. This new strategy can only be successful if we know the history of what we are about to create.

In this book, we use a systemic perspective to come to grip with what has happened in the past, what happens now, and how to create and predict the future.

Many of the concepts used in this book are explained in the chapter on concepts (Glossary).

Jon-Arild Johannessen