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To migrate from traditional business planning, which confines itself to analyzing the current situation, to planning an innovation strategy, which incorporates innovation and uncertainty, you need more than a map—you need an atlas.

This paper argues that the foundation for a new economic order has been laid. It is one that rests on the value of human potential and how it might be systematically leveraged for the benefit of mankind. The challenge is to determine the integral linkage between human potential and economic performance. This will be accomplished by creating a worldwide innovation vision and culture, supported by innovation tools, techniques and metrics.

Anyone can argue that great knowledge management benefits the business. But how do you measure the results?

For most companies the immediate challenge is to create a knowledge‐based business which can capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the emerging knowledge economy. This includes the challenge of gaining acceptability within the organization of the theory and practice of Knowledge Management. It also includes the challenge of institutionalizing the Knowledge Management process, with attention to both sharing existing knowledge and creating and commercializing new knowledge.

Leaders of successful organizations are consistently searching for better ways to improve performance and results. Frequent disappointments with past management initiatives have motivated managers to gain new understandings into the underlying, but complex mechanisms ‐ such as knowledge ‐ which govern an enterprise’s effectiveness. Knowledge Management, far from being a management “fad”, is broad, multi‐dimensional and covers most aspects of the enterprise’s activities. To be competitive and successful, experience shows that enterprises must create and sustain a balanced intellectual capital portfolio. They need to set broad priorities and integrate the goals of managing intellectual capital and the corresponding effective knowledge processes. This requires systematic Knowledge Management. With knowledge as the major driving force behind the “economics of ideas”, we can expect that the emphasis on knowledge creation, development, organization and leverage will continue to be the prime focus for improving society.

The world has entered the Knowledge Age. Numerous events provide evidence that traditional organizational systems are finding it difficult to maintain their competitiveness in this unpredictable world. The “organization” itself has become the most important factor of competition.Organizational revolution is the first item on the agenda. This paper examines traditional Chinese research organizations and concludes that organizational innovation is a precondition for creation and innovation. The author discusses a new type of reserach organization ‐ the virtual institute (VI), its background and significance. The author also looks at the organizational change in China and offers examples of VIs both in the USA and in China. The experiences of implementing VIs in China indicate that the VI is an inevitable trend for the future. Finally, the author discusses the outlook and challenges of VI.

The paper aims to focus on the definition, meaning and functions of knowledge innovation culture (KIC) of libraries, its influencing factors and some strategies to develop it.

The paper gives a definition of KIC, discusses its meaning and functions, analyzes several influencing factors, and suggests some strategies and provides a case study.

The paper finds that the KIC of libraries is a kind of value, behavior and institutional system, which gains competitive advantages and sustainable development of libraries through knowledge creation. This kind of culture is different form traditional library culture and has several specific functions. Some factors like environment, resources and business may affect the development of KIC of libraries. Therefore, it is necessary for libraries to establish environment beneficial to knowledge innovation, enhance trust and cooperation within staffs, create a kind of learning culture, shape knowledge‐based team organization, enhance human resource development and cultivate knowledge innovation talents in order to build up KIC of libraries.

The paper demonstrates how libraries can develop KIC.

This paper examines the role of information technology as an enabler of Knowledge Management. It begins with the premise that Knowledge Management requires an under‐standing of knowledge creation at the individual level, and argues that IT tools are necessary, but not sufficient, for enabling sense‐making. The organizational IT role is assessed in terms of: mechanisms to facilitate knowledge creation; the information sources organizational decision‐makers use; and sense‐making activities to support innovation. Frameworks for thinking about initiatives that include IT capabilities and people capabilities are presented for each of these concepts, along with relevant examples. The paper concludes with four IT management guidelines.

An international survey, sponsored by the Journal of Knowledge Management in association with the Best Practice Club™ and The Benchmarking Exchange, sought to explore the drivers and approaches to creating knowledge‐based organizations from the viewpoint of those practitioners who are actually responsible for implementing Knowledge Management as a business strategy. Three major conclusions have emerged from the study. Whilst organizations recognize the importance of creating, managing and transferring knowledge, so far they have been unable to translate this competitive need into organizational strategies. Secondly, successful Knowledge Management implementation is mainly linked to “soft” issues, such as organizational culture and people. Finally, most organizations are struggling to effectively use Knowledge Management tools and techniques. The study reveals that although most of the survey group understood the commercial or institutional imperative to implement Knowledge Management as an organizational strategy, few benchmarks of best practice have yet to emerge.