Informative Title1 In knowledge management, there are two gaps between

research and practice: 1st between knowledge

management and the corporate information practice, and
2nd between knowledge management and research.
Full Title Bridging the Two Research-Practice-Gaps in
Knowledge Management
Focused Question S2 Setting: Academic desk research (conceptual paper).

P3 Perspective: Knowledge managers in companies and other

organizations.
I4 Intervention: Founding the merging of Knowledge Management
(KM), Evidence-Based Management (EBM) and Evidence-
Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP); bridging the
research-practice gaps in KM.
C5 Comparison: Traditional, "main stream" knowledge
management.
E6 Evaluation: Only theoretical justification.

OBJECTIVE7 Companies and other organizations are going to view knowledge as

a valuable and strategic resource to be competitive in their
environment (Wu & Lin, 2009). Knowledge management is
concerned with the optimal flow of information inside an organization
and between the organization and its environment. The corporate
knowledge management is confronted with two gaps between
research and practice:
The gap between the knowledge manager (as a researcher)
and the employees and other stakeholders of the company
(as practitioners) (gap 1),
The gaps between the knowledge manager (now acting as a
practitioner) and "his" research literature and the gap between
the knowledge manager and the research literature of his
clients (gap 2).
While the 2nd gap is well known in evidence-based library and
information practice (Booth, 2002; Booth, 2003; Booth & Brice, 2003;

1
Short title that gives the bottom line main results of your study in a single sentence (e.g. Young university
researchers use Google heavily but have little contact with the Library)
2
SETTING Where was the Research conducted? (E.g. Swedish University Library)
3
PERSPECTIVE What was the main Perspective adopted? e.g. Professionals, Users, Managers, Commissioners,
Service Providers etcetera (e.g. Young University Researchers)
4
INTERVENTION What was actually done/delivered/provided/investigated? (e.g. Use of Google)
5
COMPARISON What were the alternatives to the Intervention or Method Used? (e.g. Use of the Library)
6
EVALUATION How were the Outcomes/Impact/Effects Measured? (e.g. Frequency of Use; Proficiency of Use
etcetera)
7
For guidance see http://research.mlanet.org/structured_abstract.html
 Booth & Brice, Ed., 2004; Crumley & Koufogiannakis, 2002;
Eldredge, 1997; Eldredge, 2000; Eldredge, 2002; Trinder &
Reynolds, Ed., 2000), the 1st gap did not reach much attention so far
in evidence-based information practice, but in evidence-based
management (Pfeffer & Sutton, 1999; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006;
Rousseau, 2006; Zimmermann & Frank, 2008).
A research area and corporate practice, which is able to bridge both
gaps, may be called "evidence-based knowledge management
(EBKM)" (Gust von Loh, Stock, & Stock, 2008). EBKM is a blend of
knowledge management (KM),
evidence-based management (EBM),
and of course evidence-based library and information
practice (EBLIP).
METHODS To establish evidence-based knowledge management (EBKM), we
followed consequently an interdisciplinary approach. We made use of
economic foundations of knowledge management (mainly a criticism
of main stream approaches by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, and by
Probst, Raub, & Romhardt, 2006), of philosophical results (e.g., the
distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge), of hermeneutics
(applied on corporate language and corporate culture), of Cognitive
Work Analysis (including means ends analysis), of empirical social
science research methods (interview techniques), of empirical
information science methods (such as information needs analysis as
well as usage analysis), of evidence-based information practice and
finally of results of business administration concerning tools and
methods of corporate knowledge management.
RESULTS Knowledge management has remarkable problems in practical
corporate applications:
(1) Current knowledge management practice is mainly concerned
with explicit knowledge (knowledge which is fixed in documents). But
there is another kind of knowledge. Tacit knowledge is besides
explicit knowledge a kind of personal knowledge that cannot be put
into words. Polanyi's (1967: 4) famous formulation is, "We can know
more than we can tell." Main stream approaches of knowledge
management (e.g., Probst, Raub, & Romhardt, 2006) make only
marginal use of tacit knowledge or state misleadingly that tacit
knowledge can be externalized (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
(2) Many implementation activities of knowledge management
systems fail because the employees were not involved in the
preliminary tasks and because they do not recognize the merit of
such systems for their everyday work. Implementation may fail as
well, because executives "were lack of successful models that they
could use as guidance" (Wu & Lin, 2009, p. 799). Known success
factors for knowledge management systems, content, and services
(Davenport, DeLong, & Beers, 1998; Jennex & Olfman, 2006) are
ease of use, perceived usefulness (Davis, 1989; Adams, Nelson, &
Todd, 1992) and trust (Milchrahm, 2002).
(3) Especially small and medium sized companies fail to implement
knowledge management solutions, mainly because of financial
restrictions, lack of awareness and missing human resources (Gust
von Loh, 2008a, 2008b).
Our research thesis is: Evidence-based knowledge management
(EBKM) is able to bridge the two research-practice-gaps of
knowledge management (KM) and helps to solve the KM problems in
practice.
How to bridge gap 1 between KM (as a research area) and the
employees (practice)? First of all it is necessary to find an
understanding of the organizational culture, the information culture
and of the corporate language. Here we make use of philosophical
hermeneutics in the sense of Heidegger (1962[1927]) and Gadamer
(1975[1960]) and more specific for KM of information
hermeneutics (Capurro, 1986; Stock & Stock, 2008) and the
hermeneutics of artificial intelligence (Winograd & Flores, 1986).
Based upon information hermeneutics, it is possible to create
corporate knowledge organization systems (e.g., nomenclatures,
classification systems, thesauri).
The second research field is user analysis. We use the term "user
research" as a broader term of CWA, information needs analysis and
usage analysis. Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) (Rasmussen,
Pejtersen, and Goodstein, 1994) is an analytical social science
method to describe actors, activities and tasks, work domains,
organizations and work environments. The information needs
analysis is an empirical method, which applies mainly half-structured
interview techniques. The knowledge manager consults employees
and asks for their requirements of information. So the employees are
included in KM activities in "their" company ab initio. The usage
analysis consists of a lot of methods, both from business
administration (e.g., customer relationship management or customer
knowledge management) and from information science (e.g., logfile
analysis, link analysis).
Gap 2 between KM (now considered as a part of practice) and
research should be closed by known methods of evidence-based
information practice, i.e. searching for literature (e.g., systematic
reviews, research literature, descriptive surveys, case studies) or
cooperating with consultants or academics.

Figure. Bridging the two gaps of knowledge management in a multi-

loop control system.

The KM gaps and their bridges form a multi-loop control system.

There are two loops:
 loop 1: KM User Research KM tools and methods KM,
loop 2: KM evidence-based information practice KM tools
and methods KM.
Results of user research (bridging gap 1) give orientation for new
research tasks (gap 2); results of evidence-based information
practice (bridging gap 2) give hints for new questions concerning
user research (gap 1). So both loops are inextricably interconnected.
When optimal evidence is found, KM implements social KM tools
(e.g., communities of practice, knowledge cafs, story telling and
meetings), "classical" technical tools (e.g., yellow pages, groupware,
knowledge organization systems, document management systems,
content management systems, WWW portals, intranets and
extranets) and collaborative tools (e.g., wikis, weblogs including
podcasts and vodcasts, social bookmarking, social networks and
social tagging).
CONCLUSION Evidence-based knowledge management is a new and fascinating
scientific field and application area. Objective of our work was to give
justifications and theoretical foundations for this new topic. Up to the
present there is no practical deployment of EBKM, there are no
empirical results about acceptance of EBKM in organizational
environments and there is no evaluation of EBKM tools. Future work
will have to broaden the evidence for evidence-based knowledge
management.

IMPLICATIONS FOR (1) Broaden the scope of evidence-based library and information
practice!
CURRENT (2) Mind evidence-based management! Use methods of
PRACTITIONERS management (e.g., customer relationship management and customer
knowledge management) for EBKM!
(3) Mind the information need and the information usage of your
clients! Perform hermeneutical, analytical (e.g., Cognitive Work
Analysis) and empirical studies (e.g., interviews) on your clients'
information behaviour!

IMPLICATIONS FOR Evidence-based knowledge management is a very new field of

scientific activity. There are lots of open questions:
FUTURE
What is the role of hermeneutics in knowledge management
RESEARCHERS (KM) and in evidence-based library and information practice
(EBLIP)?
Which roles do organizational culture and information culture
play in KM and EBLIP?
Are knowledge organization systems (KOS) essential for the
success of a corporate KM system?
How will EBKM work in corporate practice?
Is there a successful model or a successful theory for
implementing KM systems in companies and other
organizations? Can this model or theory act as guidance for
decision makers?
Which are the "right" social methods and technical tools for the
first implementation of EBKM?
Which are the "right" social methods and technical tools for the
operation and maintenance of EBKM?
 Important for business administration: What are the costs for
EBKM implementation and operation in an organization? Is
there any benefit-cost calculation?

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PUBLICATIONS 2009.

First Author Surname Gust von Loh First Author First Sonja
Names
Job Title Scientific officer (Wissenschaftliche Rtin)
Full Institutional Dept. of Information Science
Affiliation/Address Heinrich-Heine-University Dsseldorf
Universittsstr. 1
D-40225 Dsseldorf, GERMANY
Email Address gust-von-loh@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
Telephone Phone Fax
00492118112334 00492118112917
Other Author Wolfgang G. Stock
Institutional Affiliation Dept. of Information Science
Heinrich-Heine-University Dsseldorf
Universittsstr. 1
D-40225 Dsseldorf, GERMANY
Email Address stock@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de