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Disciplinary roots of knowledge

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 International Journal of Organizational Analysis
Disciplinary roots of knowledge management: a theoretical review
Sajjad M. Jasimuddin
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International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 14 Iss 2 pp. 171 - 180
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 NOTE Disciplinary
roots of KM
Disciplinary roots of knowledge
management: a theoretical review
171
Sajjad M. Jasimuddin
School of Management and Business, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK Received 5 July 2006
Accepted 26 January 2007

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to reflect on the development of knowledge management so
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as to argue whether knowledge management (KM) is a multidisciplinary field.

Design/methodology/approach – To set the scene by reviewing and synthesizing the scholarly
works and published practices of knowledge management, this paper presents an overview of the
recent and rapidly growing literature on knowledge management.
Findings – The paper presents a discussion, addressing the question of what those disciplines are on
which knowledge management discourse is exactly drawn on. The fact is that knowledge management
draws from a wide range of disciplines. Although scholars from several disciplines attempt to claim
ownership of the knowledge management, today both practitioners and academics alike recognize that
knowledge management is an eclectic field rather than grounded in a specific ideology.
Research limitations/implications – The paper does not offer comprehensive understanding of
the disciplinary roots of knowledge management because it has not reviewed all the papers available
in KM.
Practical implications – The paper does raise awareness of the genesis of knowledge management.
It will encourage insightful managers to examine this research in more depth as a means of guidance
for making use of KM initiatives in their organization.
Originality/value – Highlighting the growing interest in knowledge management, the paper
inspires knowledge management researchers to be rigorous in both disciplinary grounding and
integration. Although the paper does not attempt to detail the origins and the gradual development of
the KM field, it contributes to improving theory, practice, and pedagogy in the field of KM by
articulating its origin.
Keywords Knowledge management, Organizations
Paper type Viewpoint

During the past 20 years, and especially during the last decade, knowledge
management (KM) has received much attention both in academic and practitioner
circles. Majority of the knowledge management research focuses on topics such as
knowledge typology (Polanyi, 1962; Nonaka, 1994; Spender, 1996; Blackler, 1995;
Jasimuddin, 2005), knowledge transfer (Argote and Ingram, 2000; Jasimuddin et al.,
2006), knowledge creation (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka and Kanno, 1998;
Jenkins and Balogun, 2003), and knowledge storage and retrieval (Walsh and Ungson,
1991; Stein and Zwass, 1995; Sherif, 2002; Jasimuddin et al., 2005a, b). However, there International Journal of
are many other issues surrounding knowledge management that are yet to explore. Organizational Analysis
Vol. 14 No. 2, 2006
One very important issue that is found missing or has relatively neglected is the pp. 171-180
disciplinary roots of knowledge management. This is supported by several scholars q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1934-8835
(e.g. Raub and Ruling, 2001; Moffett et al., 2003; Gu, 2004; Hazlett et al., 2005; Chae and DOI 10.1108/10553180610742782
 IJOA Bloodgood, 2006), who argue that there are many areas within the knowledge
14,2 management domain that have remained unexplored. One of such areas is the origin of
knowledge management. What available is some isolated descriptions on the
background of knowledge management. In the literature, there are contradictory views
on the genesis of knowledge management. Against this background, the paper
attempts to partially fill that gap by providing stimulating debate on the origin and
172 development of KM, based primarily on reviewing and synthesizing the scholarly
works and published practices of KM.
This paper is structured as following. Section 2 explains the role of KM in
organizations. The origins of KM are outlined in section 3. The next section presents a
discussion to address the question of what those disciplines are on which knowledge
management discourse is exactly drawn on, highlighting the main contributions,
limitations and directions for future research. Finally, the paper ends with conclusion.
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Knowledge management: what and why

Several researchers, most notably Wiig (1997), Snowden (1999), Hibbard (1997),
DeJarnett (1996), and Newman and Conrad (2000), have produced definitions of KM.
Although various definitions of KM have been mentioned by researchers, there is no
consensus. Wiig (1997), for example, views KM as the systematic creation and use of
knowledge to maximize knowledge-related effectiveness of an organization. In parallel
with this, Hibbard (1997) defines KM as the capture of an organization’s collective
expertise wherever it resides – in people’s heads, or in databases, on paper – and
distribution of the expertise wherever it can produce the biggest returns. However,
Newman and Conrad (2000) give a broader definition of KM, saying:
Knowledge management is a discipline that seeks to improve the performance of individuals
and organizations by maintaining and leveraging the present and future value of knowledge
assets. Knowledge management systems encompass both human and automated activities
and their associated artefacts (p. 11).
As time passes, one thing has become obvious is that KM is critical to organizational
survival (Beckman, 1999). In this connection, Petrash (1996) maintains that KM ensures
the availability of “right information in front of the right people at the right time” (p.
370) so that the best decisions and right actions can be taken at the right time. Quinn
et al., 1996 argue along similar lines, stating that KM is the continuous process of
managing knowledge to meet existing and emerging needs, and to identify and exploit
existing and acquired knowledge assets.
Reflecting this view, the term “knowledge management” is used to refer to the
effective and efficient exploration and utilization of organizational knowledge so as to
enhance an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage. Despite the benefits as
derived from KM initiatives are many, there is much debate in the literature on whether
knowledge management is derived from a wide range of disciplines.

Genesis of knowledge management

The genesis of KM field can be traced back to the end of the twentieth century. A
number of management scholars have contributed to the evolution of knowledge
management, among them such notables as Peter Drucker, Karl Wiig, Paul
Strassmann, Chris Argyris, Christoper Bartlett, Thomas Davenport, Laurence Prusak,
 Peter Senge, and Dorothy Leonard-Barton, stressing the growing importance of Disciplinary
knowledge as strategic resource for organizations. The systems of managing roots of KM
organizational knowledge which was very much based on the work of artificial
intelligence and expert systems in the 1980s, got new labels such as “knowledge
acquisition”, “knowledge engineering”, “knowledge-base systems”, and
“computer-based ontologies”, which have eventually led to the notion of knowledge
management. Knowledge management was popularized among academics when 173
Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi wrote a classic book The Knowledge-Creating
Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation (1995). Again
knowledge management has got much attention among practitioners when Tom
Stewart introduced it for the first time in the popular press by writing an article
“Brainpower” in Fortune magazine in 1991.
Gu (2004), for example, argues that the origin of KM research can be traced back to
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the mid seventies of the previous century. Gu (2004) also provides the evidence by
citing the works that were “authored by four pioneers respectively affiliated to
institutions of higher learning in the US, published in Public Administration Review,
Vol. 35, Iss 6, 1975” (pp. 171-172) which can be thought to be the earliest contributions
to the field of KM.
However, other scholars, most notably Cooper (2006) argues that the research and
practice of KM has grown rapidly since the 1990s, driven by economic, technological,
and social trends in the knowledge based economy. Beckman (1999), for example,
asserts that Karl Wiig had first coined the “knowledge management” concept in 1986
at a conference for the International Labour Organization held in Switzerland. Wiig
(1997) addresses the history of knowledge management from its modest beginnings in
the mid eighties to its current status, showing it is the logical next step in a sequence of
societal developments that has already been going on for a very long time.
The fact is that there are contradictory views regarding the origin of knowledge
management. While reviewing and synthesizing the scholarly works on KM, it is found
that KM has received increased attention over the last decade or so among academics
and practitioners from across a broad range of subjects. In some cases, it is found that
these disciplines are closely related, which makes difficult to separate them.
Consider a classic example of organizational learning. Rahim (2002) defines
organizational learning as the activities that involve knowledge acquisition,
knowledge distribution, information interpretation, and organizational memorization
for future access and use. While Jasimuddin (2005) states “knowledge management
involves activities related to capturing, utilizing, creating, transferring, and storing of
organizational knowledge” (p. 39). It appears that this definition of KM has been
borrowed ideas from organization learning (see Rahim, 2002). Additionally, it can be
argued that organizational learning and knowledge management are closely linked
and the latter is a part of the former or vice versa. Such increased interest from across a
wide variety of disciplines has also made it difficult to finding a comprehensive
definition of KM. This has further brought out the controversy regarding the origins of
KM. Lopez (2004) supports this by contending that “the concept of knowledge
management is difficult. This is due to the fact that this subject has been studied by
several disciplines and from different approaches” (p. 94). The next section will address
to answer the question of what those disciplines are on which knowledge management
discourse is exactly drawn on.
 IJOA Discussion
14,2 Having reviewed the knowledge management literature, there is an agreement among
the academics. That is, KM discourse is not derived from one particular discipline, for
example, information systems. Rather KM field draws from many different disciplines.
Scholars (e.g. Chae and Bloodgood, 2006; Argote, 2005; Styhre, 2004; Moffett et al.,
2003; Raub and Ruling, 2001; Prusak, 2001) observe that KM discourse draws on
174 multiple disciplines.
Prusak (2001), for instance, attempts to find the roots of KM going beyond the
broader area of management, and argues that the origins of KM can be located in
economics, sociology, philosophy, and psychology. Parallel to this, Argote (2005)
contends that understanding KM does not fall neatly into one discipline but rather
involve aspects of many, including psychology, sociology, operations management,
organizational behaviour, strategic management, economics, and information systems.
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Reflecting this view, Chae and Bloodgood (2006) also believe that “KM has been
approached from various angles, such as organizational theory, epistemology,
cognitive science, management strategy, anthropology, and computer science, to name
a few” (p. 3). Similarly, Styhre (2004) contends that KM is a special domain of
organization theory, extending that the knowledge management literature derives
from a multiplicity of disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, organizational
theory, and sociology.
On other hand, Raub and Ruling (2001) suggest that KM discourse is derived from
various subjects within broader areas of management, most specifically information
systems, total quality management, organization theory, human resources
management, and strategic management. Resonating with this, Moffett et al. (2003)
argue that:
KM has its origins in a number of related areas, such as human resource management, total
quality management, and information systems (p. 215).
Although most of the authors agree that the development of KM theory and practice
continues to involve a wide range of disciplines, but they fail to agree on the specific
disciplines that exactly contribute to the emerging KM discourse. As KM is evolved
from a variety of disciplines, then each of these disciplines brining their respective
experiences, beliefs, and practices. It is also observable that the emergence of KM
theories implies a growth in notions deriving from several disciplines.
For example, Hazlett et al. (2005) suggest that two of the main disciplines that
contribute to the KM discourse are information systems and management, revealing an
apparent dichotomy between those researchers from an information systems
background and those from a management background. The scholars (e.g. Gupta
et al., 2004; Garavelli et al., 2004; Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998) who are having
information systems background contend that KM is derived from the application of
expert systems, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Garavelli et al. (2004), for
example, observe that:
The term KM was coined at the beginning of the 1990s, a period characterized by the
information and communication technology (ICT) (p. 273).
In line with this, Gupta et al. (2004) cite that:
 The 1980s also saw the development of systems for managing knowledge that relied on work Disciplinary
done in artificial intelligence and expert systems, giving us such concepts as “knowledge
acquisition,” knowledge engineering,” knowledge based systems,” and computer based roots of KM
ontologies”. The phrase knowledge management finally came into being in the business
community during this decade (p. 9).
In a study based on a bibliometric analysis on global knowledge management research,
Gu (2004) categorically contends that KM has its origins in four different disciplines 175
that were relatively independent until the late 1990s, i.e. organizational information
processing, business intelligence, organizational cognition, and organizational
development. He sums that KM draws from a wide range of disciplines, providing a
comprehensive argument:
The first had its starting point in computer technology, the second on information services,
the third on research on organizational innovation, learning, and sense making, and the
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fourth on business strategy and human resource management (p. 181).

Table I illustrates evidence that the KM field stems from more than one discipline.
Drew (1999) contends that the tree of knowledge management has indeed grown
from many roots. In line with this, Lange (2006) concludes this debate by describing as:
Essentially a hybrid academic discipline, grounded in the perspectives of organization theory,
management, management history, the sociology of knowledge, and indeed economics (p. 15).
In essence, KM is the mixture of several different disciplines, and scholars from various
disciplines are exploring the unexplored areas with the KM and exploiting them to fit
into their area of study. It is noticeable that scholars from several disciplines are
attempting to claim ownership of the KM field. However, one thing that is in common
is that today, both practitioner and academics alike recognize that knowledge
management as an important area of management research and practice. At the same
time, they agree that KM is well-established area of academic debate.

Discipline Focuses on Sources

Information systems KM systems that support the
identification and distribution of
knowledge in organizations
Organization theory KM for the creation, transfer and use Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995);
of knowledge in organizations
Strategic management Knowledge as an organizational
resource of strategic significance
Human resources Knowledge workers for
management organizational value creation
Alavi and Leidner (2001); Blumentritt
and Johnston (1999); Hendriks (2001);
Hislop (2002); Boland and Tenkasi
(1995); Moffett et al. (2003); Argote
(2005)
Davenport and Prusak (1998); Probst
et al. (2000); Swan and Scarborough
(2001); Styhre (2004)
Barney (1991); Prahalad and Hamel
(1990); Spender (1996); Grant (1996);
Argote (2005)
Drucker (1988); Solaiman and Table I.
Spooner (2000); Scarbrough (1999); Origin of knowledge
Moffett et al. (2003) management field
 IJOA Implications for management
14,2 In recent years, knowledge management is widely viewed as crucial to ensuring
growth and survival of an organization. Managers from a variety of disciplines have
come to view KM as the new “serious issue” in business (Bushko and Raynor, 1998;
Martiny, 1998). But to many managers it may still remain unclear what “knowledge
management” really is. Since the notion of knowledge management has very diverse
176 academic and practical roots, managers might find difficult to understand what is KM
is about and how the challenges it presents can best be tackled. Furthermore, a wide
variety of disciplines, and different perspectives on KM can yield different dimensions
and meaning.
The paper seems to give managers a clearer picture of the status of KM from
disciplinary angle, as it provide stimulating debate on the origin and development of
KM. Such debate will also greatly improve managers understand how various
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disciplines have contributed to the development of KM, and provide them some
conceptual depth which will enable them to develop better approaches to addressing
knowledge management problems.
In order to reap the anticipated benefits from knowledge management,
organizations need to fit the overall organizational culture and structure. The
organizations have to change their traditional organization structure, replacing
traditional hierarchical model of management by horizontal decentralized teams of
organizational members. Similarly, since organizational culture is an important
element for the successful implementation of KM, efforts have to be taken to encourage
and develop supportive knowledge sharing culture in organizations. Moreover, it is
hoped that the paper will encourage insightful managers to examine this research in
more depth as a means of guidance for making use of KM initiatives in their
organization.

Limitations
There are still gaps in our understanding the disciplinary roots of KM and its
implications for firms and managerial practices. While there are many other topics on
which research can be conducted in knowledge management, the paper emphasizes the
disciplinary roots of KM only based on existing KM literature. Although the article
opens a KM debate on its genesis, it has not reviewed all the papers available in KM.

Directions for future research

Knowledge management researchers require to be rigorous in both disciplinary
grounding and integration. There is a need for a systematic empirical research along
with a rigorous review of KM literature that will inform an organizational application
and contribute to the body of knowledge within KM. Further research needs to be
designed to investigate the relationships among various disciplines, such as strategic
management, information systems, and organizational learning with knowledge
management. For example, the interface between strategic management and
knowledge management can be studied so as to report the strategic aspects of
knowledge management practices along with to find the linkage between them.
 Conclusion Disciplinary
Knowledge management has emerged as a fundamental concept in knowledge based roots of KM
society. Today there seems to be little question that KM is a fad or fashion. As Hull
(2000, p. 49) observe that KM is:
Not merely some passing fad, but is in the process of establishing itself as new aspect of
management and organization and as a new form of expertise (as cited in Alvesson and
Karreman, 2001, p. 995). 177
KM is eclectic field rather than grounded in a specific ideology. As was discussed
earlier, KM draws from a wide range of disciplines, and there are contradictory views
regarding the origin of knowledge management. To balance this, it can be said that
while the strategic role of organizational knowledge as a competitive resource has long
been recognized, however, the emergence of KM as an academic field is much more
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recent, dating from the 1990s. The KM research has advanced and enriched by brining
diverse perspectives and concepts, and topics of inquiry into the KM field. It is a
multi-disciplinary paradigm and eventually will become a fully-fledged discipline. The
paper offers a historical perspective on the development of the KM field in terms of its
disciplinary roots over the last 20 years. Although the paper does not attempt to detail
the origins and the gradual development of the KM field, it contributes to improving
theory, practice, and pedagogy in the field of KM by articulating its origin.

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About the author

Sajjad M. Jasimuddin is a Lecturer at the School of Management and Business, University of
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Wales, Aberystwyth, UK. Prior to joining this university, he taught at the University of Dhaka
(Bangladesh), King AbdulAziz Univeristy (Saudi Arabia), and University of Southampton (UK).
He holds his MPhil in Strategic Management in International Business Context from the Judge
Business School, University of Cambridge, and PhD in Knowledge Management from the School
of Management, University of Southampton. His articles were published, among others, in
Management Decision, Management Research News, Journal of Information and Knowledge
Management, The Encyclopaedia of Knowledge Management, Business Strategy Series (formerly
Handbook of Business Strategy), Current Topics in Management Series, Knowledge Management
Review, Advances in Doctoral Research in Management, Journal of Business and Industrial
Marketing, Encyclopaedia of Mobile Computing and Commerce, Encyclopaedia of Portal
Technology and Applications, Asian Affairs, Journal of Management, Journal of Air Transport
Management, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, and Proceedings of Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences. His current research interests are in the areas of
knowledge management, information management, international business environment, human
resource and strategic management. Sajjad M. Jasimuddin can be contacted at: smj@aber.ac.uk

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