Background Bibliographic Analysis

       The significance of the KM growth pattern becomes much more apparent when one compares it with the pattern of other major business enthusiasms of recent years. Below (Figure 2.2) are the literature growth patterns of three of those major business enthusiasms. The difference is dramatic. Quality Circles, Business Process Engineering, and Total Quality Management all show an almost identical pattern of approximately five years of dramatic, exponential, growth, then they peak and all off to near nothing almost as quickly. KM, by contrast, has that same period of five years of exponential growth, 1994 to 1999, but in the decade since it has not declined, rather it has continued to grow steadily and consistently. All the hallmarks are here of a rather permanent development. There has also been substantial interest in the academic world concerning KM.The database ‘Dissertations and Theses’ includes bibliographic information about theses published by graduate students at accredited North American institutions from 1861, and from 50 European universities since 1988. A search of the database showed that all of the dissertations and theses with ‘knowledge management’ in the title or in the key word fields have been published since 1996. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations were written range from mathematics to mass

            in reading about KM as well. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations were written range from mathematics to mass communication, with business administration being strongly represented. See Figure 2.3 for the publication pattern.

An interesting observation is that there was a very brief spurt of articles about KM in journals devoted to education, but that interest soon waned. This is likely a function of the fact that KM, as mentioned previously has a very corporatist and organizational emphasis, while for most academic principals, the faculty, their commitment to their field, their discipline and sub-discipline, their “invisible college” comes first. Their commitment to their nominal home institution is quite