Understanding Knowledge Management: a literature review

This paper presents review of literature on Knowledge management (KM) characterizing the various terminologies and aims to explore the world of KM in a different way, to review the current status andanalyze the main contributions, agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners. It provides a high-level overview of a number of key terms, concepts, traditional definition and theoryinvolved with KM, which are critically reviewed and their features are highlighted. Approaches to KM process are considered and their connections and differences are discussed. There are a number of different approaches to the KM process such as those by Dagnfous & Kah(2006), Lee et.al.(2005), Wong & Aspinwall (2004), Bukowitz & Williams (2003), Mc Elory (1999), Meyer & Zack (1996), and Wiig(1993). By comparing and doing the critical analysis of these approaches, the major stages are identified as Knowledge capture and creation, Knowledge organization and retention, Knowledge dissemination and Knowledge utilization. At the end we have summarized the benefits of KM. The main contribution of this study is the compilation of literature on KM and to understand the basic concepts and different approaches, depending on their more descriptive perspective.