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

Kenneth Grant
<strong>of</strong> mainstream business thinking and, over a period <strong>of</strong> many years, can be seen to have developed
and evolve through a number <strong>of</strong> distinct stages.
Some proposed innovations fall somewhere between <strong>the</strong>se two situations. After a rapid rise to
significant visibility, at <strong>the</strong> highest levels <strong>of</strong> organizations, <strong>of</strong>ten causing major change to take place,
over time <strong>the</strong>y become less strategic and more operational. They become part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> environment,
having changed <strong>the</strong> way in which organizations and individuals approached <strong>the</strong> specific topic. For
example, even if business process re-engineering can be argued to have been a fad in <strong>the</strong> mid-
1990s, this has produced a continuing focus on business processes as key organizational activities.
The situation for KM is less clear. Researchers and practitioners should be concerned that, while
interest and levels <strong>of</strong> practice are high, <strong>the</strong>re seems to be an increasing divergence between <strong>the</strong>ory
and practice and should work more closely to ensure that <strong>the</strong> research carried out is both rigorous
and relevant.
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