Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intellectual ...

Kenneth Grant
worthy <strong>of</strong> its own management focus is relatively recent – perhaps some fifteen years. Its increased
visibility, as an important topic for both management and academic consideration, <strong>of</strong>ten closely linked
to innovation, is frequently presented in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> a new type <strong>of</strong> economy or society.
While “knowledge management” has become a frequently discussed business topic, it has proved
difficult for executives and managers to determine how best to address this new management
challenge. Indeed, business leaders, while expressing a strong interest in understanding how best to
address knowledge management within <strong>the</strong>ir organizations, have raised significant concerns about
<strong>the</strong> effectiveness <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir KM interventions to date. Spender (2005) has observed, “As KM has risen in
importance and managerial fashionability <strong>the</strong> hype and confusion has multiplied, leading some to
argue that KM is a fad <strong>of</strong> little long-term significance.” Wilson (2002) claimed that KM is, "in large part,
a management fad, promulgated mainly by certain consultancy companies, and <strong>the</strong> probability is that
it will fade away like previous fads." This has led to some early assessments <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fad/fashion
phenomenon, with Scarbrough & Swan (2001) and Ponzi & Koenig (2002) who suggested that KM
might be passing from a fad to something more enduring.
Worrall (2008) examines business knowledge, commenting that “In <strong>the</strong> recent past, <strong>the</strong>re has been a
growing appreciation in <strong>the</strong> business strategy literature, typified by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), that
knowledge is an essential, non-imitable element <strong>of</strong> a firm’s competitive strategy” and that “<strong>the</strong>re has
been insufficient analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional or practical knowledge which is <strong>of</strong>ten
experience-based, tacit, difficult to articulate explicitly”. He is concerned that “<strong>the</strong>re is ample evidence
to suggest that <strong>the</strong> management research has had, and continues to have, little effect or impact on
management practice”. Fur<strong>the</strong>r, he suggests that management fads <strong>of</strong>ten have a greater ability to
capture management attention than does more traditional management research.
No single widely accepted definition <strong>of</strong> KM exists. As Smith (2004) suggests, “knowledge
management (KM) is a rapidly growing field that crosses diverse disciplines,” from psychology to
information systems, and can be “viewed as a conceptually complex broad umbrella <strong>of</strong> issue and
viewpoints”. Sims (2008) collected 53 definitions <strong>of</strong> KM, with 54 attributes, commenting, “These are
substantially different. There are only five attributes that are seen in 30% or more <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> definitions.”
3. Methodology
This paper presents <strong>the</strong> results <strong>of</strong> an in-depth examination <strong>of</strong> KM as a management fashion, using <strong>the</strong>
framework developed by Abrahamson & Fairchild (1999), who distinguish between <strong>the</strong> discourse and
<strong>the</strong> actual use <strong>of</strong> a fashion and recommend that management fashions be studied by examining two
parallel life cycles – <strong>the</strong> evolution <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> discourse surrounding <strong>the</strong> innovation and its diffusion, <strong>the</strong>
degree to which <strong>the</strong> innovation is actually adopted for continued use:
Discourse life-cycle analysis is an approach used to examine <strong>the</strong> volume and nature <strong>of</strong> discourse
about a particular fashion over time. This is typically done by bibliographic and content analysis,
separating <strong>the</strong> various modes <strong>of</strong> discourse -- mass media, Internet, trade/business press, academic
press (journals and dissertations). This use <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> term “discourse” is quite distinct from <strong>the</strong> post
modernist <strong>the</strong>ories <strong>of</strong> Discourse Analysis (see, for example: (Brown, G. and Yule, 2003)).
Diffusion life-cycle analysis is an approach used to determine <strong>the</strong> degree to which an innovation is
actually adopted by organizations (fashion followers) and <strong>the</strong> level <strong>of</strong> use over time. This can be done
through surveys, case studies or analysis <strong>of</strong> secondary data, such as growth/decline in <strong>the</strong>
businesses <strong>of</strong> service or product suppliers and specific market sales data. Of 21 management fashion
studies reviewed, while all examine <strong>the</strong> discourse life cycle, only five examine <strong>the</strong> diffusion, usually by
referencing secondary data. This is a significant weakness in <strong>the</strong> application <strong>of</strong> management fashion
<strong>the</strong>ory, since, from a practitioner viewpoint, it is <strong>the</strong> diffusion <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> innovation that is important, not <strong>the</strong>
discourse.
This paper provides a brief discourse life cycle analysis that examines <strong>the</strong> literature on knowledge
management, <strong>the</strong>n presents a diffusion life-cycle analysis based on fieldwork in five major
pr<strong>of</strong>essional services firms. The discourse life cycle bibliographic analysis was done using <strong>the</strong> online
ProQuest Research Library Complete, which provides abstracts, indexing and full text for more than
1,800 titles from academic journals, popular magazines, business publications and newspapers and
allows a separation <strong>of</strong> sources.
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