Chapter 16. Knowledge Management Involves Neither Knowledge nor Management

Marc S. Effron

The death knell for knowledge management (KM) as a concept was sounded with a Wall Street Journal article chronicling McKinsey & Co.'s failure to manage its "knowledge" successfully. The article quotes from an internal McKinsey report that says despite having the requisite systems in place, "the ability of our consultants to tap into and effectively leverage our knowledge is poor....Our knowledge base is mixed in quality and poorly structured. It takes much too long to find the right knowledge, and in many cases, the best existing knowledge is not identified and brought to the client."[74] If the world's most prestigious consulting firm could not successfully ...

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