Knowledge management (KM) has become a pervasive imperative for organizations because knowledge is perceived to be a strategic resource necessary for achieving and sustaining competitive advantage. Given the strategic importance of knowledge, organizations are engaged in active management of their knowledge resources, which has spawned significant growth and maturing of the KM field. The formative work in the KM field focused on conceptual issues, such as distinguishing between data, information, and knowledge, as well as the different types of knowledge. The current dominant perspective views KM as a process involving various activities which include the creation, transfer (including storage and retrieval), and application of knowledge. Among other things, an effective KM process requires transfer of knowledge from place of creation to the user. This is because knowledge is of little value if it is not supplied to the right people at the right time. This is often a challenging process that entails getting people to share knowledge; and devising infrastructure, processes, and procedures for creation and transfer of knowledge.

 Information Systems research has played a critical role in identifying technical and organizational factors that support the KM process. Among these factors are 1) design, development and use of information systems to support the creation, storage, transfer, sharing, integration, and utilization of knowledge assets, 2) structured methods for managing knowledge, and 3) social and behavioral implications of implementing knowledge management processes and knowledge management systems (KMS). Despite strident efforts made, KM continues to present researchers with a variety of complex issues that warrant research attention.