Is knowledge management dead (or dying)?

Abstract

Recently, Tom Davenport declared that ‘… knowledge management isn’t dead, but it’s gasping for breath.’ This declaration is investigated from an historical perspective, tracing some previous statements of knowledge management’s death back to the mid 2000’s. Then this paper investigates this declaration in the context of three emerging technologies and their potential contributions to knowledge management: social media / enterprise social media, crowdsourcing and IBM Watson-like systems. We also examine evidence that knowledge management creates value and the extent to which knowledge management actually is needed. If knowledge management is dead then some very similar idea is needed and would create value.