Knowledge Work and Innovation

Knowledge management has emerged as one of the most influential theoretical frameworks in the recent management literature. Prior to the 1990s, there was virtually nothing written about “knowledge management” (Spender and Grant, 1996) even though writers such as Machlup (1962) addressed the use of knowledge as a social and organizational production factor. Since the second half of the 1990s, there has been a substantial number of paper and books published on the topic; journals addressing knowledge management practices have been established, and new conferences and scientific associations and interests groups have been created—the notion of knowledge management has been instituted as a legitimate perspective on organizations. Even though the bulk of the “first wave” of knowledge management theory was published in the intersection between management and information technology (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan, 2005), today the focus has shifted from information technology to a broader view of knowledge. It is however important to emphasize the tradition of the sociology of knowledge founded by Karl Mannheim in his Ideology and Utopia (1936) and later on further developed by Robert Merton (1957) as an important forerunner to the managerial engagement with knowledge. In the sociology of knowledge tradition, knowledge is what is socially constructed and is therefore not only of ontological and epistemological interest but is equally a sociological concern.