Foreword

Citation

Tsui, E. (2009), "Foreword", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jkm.2009.23013baa.001

Foreword

Article Type: Foreword From: Journal of Knowledge Management, Volume 13, Issue 2

Since the early 1990’s, the importance of Knowledge Management to create competitive advantage for organizations has been recognized worldwide. Three recent reports published by Economic Intelligence Unit, Bain and company, and McKinsey all revealed that the adoption of KM in the update worldwide and in particular, medium size enterprises in Asia Pacific lead their counterparts in introducing and valuing the importance of KM to enhance a firm’s competitiveness. Early efforts in KM concentrated on the introduction of IT systems to automate the collection and searching of explicit knowledge assets whereas in recent years much of the KM effort has been directed at providing an environment that entices the elicitation and sharing of tacit knowledge as well as the fostering of a co-learning environment among knowledge workers free of organizational and location constraints.

The 3rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Knowledge Management was held in Hong Kong from 11-13 December 2006, and had attracted more than 700 delegates, including practitioners, academics and civil servants, from more than 30 countries. Up to now, this event is still the largest of its kind in the region. With six keynote speakers and over 100 presentations, the conference brought together renowned speakers from all over the world and the presented topics covered almost the complete spectrum of knowledge management from management of intangible assets; knowledge discovery through data mining and taxonomy, capturing and sharing tacit knowledge, and collaborative technologies and systems. All in all, the event has provided a good opportunity for both practitioners and researchers to update their knowledge of the latest developments in this field.

This special issue contains nine selected papers from the Conference and covers a broad spectrum of insights and research findings in the area of knowledge culture, information management, knowledge sharing and applications in various industry sectors. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the contribution from the members of the Technical Committee, reviewers and the authors who have made this special issue possible.

Eric TsuiProfessor of Knowledge Management, based at the Knowledge Management Research Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.