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Knowledge management efforts are often seen as being more prevalent in larger firms. However, smaller organizations also have critical needs to share and maintain employee expertise. This paper examines some of the unique issues facing knowledge‐management efforts in smaller firms and suggests techniques they can employ to retain and acquire knowledge.

Executives and strategists have long recognized the value of knowledge as a primary driving source for a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage – hence the creation by many firms of a position called the chief knowledge officer (CKO). However, many people have proposed differing perspectives and models relating to the concept of knowledge management. In this paper differing knowledge management viewpoints are examined, by examining and integrating theories relating to the diffusion of innovations and change agents. The roles of change agents, innovators, and opinion leaders, such as CKOs, are explored in terms of effective knowledge management strategies and techniques. A model and strategies are proposed that can serve as a framework for CKOs and other knowledge management change agents to effectively facilitate the acquisition and use of knowledge in the firm by effectively using an organizational memory system.

In the knowledge management domain, the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge is critical because it is a prerequisite to the knowledge amplification process wherein knowledge becomes part of an organization’s knowledge network. In this article, knowledge exchange protocols are examined as a vehicle for improving the tacit to explicit knowledge conversion process. In an experiment testing the use of knowledge exchange protocols, it is learned that while structure may significantly improve the tacit to explicit knowledge conversion process, it also may matter how the structure is employed in this process.

Review of Snyder, L. J. (2011). The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four remarkable friends who transformed science and changed the world. New York, NY: Broadway Books. ISBN: 978-0767930482. $27.00.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a thorough analysis of the difference between business intelligence (BI) and knowledge management (KM) and to establish a framework for relating one field to the other.

A review of the literature from approximately 1986 through 2004 served as the basis for analysis and comparison of BI and KM. The theoretical scope of the paper is to distinguish between BI and KM to clarify the role of each in a business environment.

BI focuses on explicit knowledge, but KM encompasses both tacit and explicit knowledge. Both concepts promote learning, decision making, and understanding. Yet, KM can influence the very nature of BI itself. Hence, this paper explains the nature of the integration between BI and KM and makes it clear that BI should be viewed as a subset of KM.

This paper establishes a clear distinction between two important fields of study, BI and KM, establishing an expanded role for BI. That is, the role of BI in knowledge improvement. This expanded role also suggests that the effectiveness of a BI will, in the future, be measured based on how well it promotes and enhances knowledge, how well it improves the mental model(s) and understanding of the decision maker(s) and thereby how well it improves their decision making and hence firm performance. The need for the integration of KM and BI is clear.

Knowledge management (KM) research lacks a common conceptual core; it is cross‐disciplinary, addresses a wide variety of phenomena, and has difficulty distinguishing itself from many related areas of research. The result is a fragmented field that is itself artificially split from the related literature on organizational learning. KM may be progressing through a predictable life‐cycle that could end in collapse of the KM concept unless researchers can develop more integrative core theories of learning‐ and knowledge‐related phenomena in organizations. The diverse body of organizational learning and knowledge management research provides an impressive foundation for the synthesis of such broader theories of learning and knowledge that are creative, new, and integrative.

Although there is an abundance of literature dealing with the techniques of work with offenders and offender‐patients, less attention has been paid to alternative and additional means of invoking empathy and insight into behaviours that often produce anxiety, confusion and, on occasion, abhorrence. This article attempts to redress the balance.

So‐called ‘serial killing’ is frequently a topic of both professional and media concern and comment. As such, the term can be misused and may serve to obfuscate rather than illuminate.This short contribution proposes a socio‐legal classification of all forms of unlawful killing into which serial killing might best be fitted.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.