Does Knowledge Management Really Work?: A Case Study in the Breast Cancer Screening Domain

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management (KM) has been acknowledged to be an integral part of management culture which provides methodologies through models, frameworks and approaches with appropriate objectivity via rigorous studies (Wickramasinghe et al., 2007). The following section provides a brief introduction to KM and its focus areas. The core of KM is knowledge; KM identifies how knowledge is created and shared among different stakeholders in a business paradigm. KM is a multidisciplinary management science and every organization has come to appreciate the importance of knowledge and its management. Modern understanding of knowledge has its basis on the teachings of Plato and Aristotle (Pemberton, 1998). Organizations adopting KM have come a long way in their quest for managing knowledge. Taylor started to view knowledge in a scientific perspective and the Hawthorne’s experiments highlighted the humanistic nature of KM in modern management (Kwon, 2004). Drucker coined the term “Knowledge worker” (Ellingsen, 2003) and experts who followed (such as Porter, Cohen, Senge and Nonaka) defined and redefined on this idea of knowledge and how to best manage it (Kwon, 2004). A reasonable understanding of the core elements and the different facets of KM will not only assist in better application of this paradigm but also would provide sufficient expertise to adapt KM proactively while tackling the current business challenges.