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Knowledge management has become the latest strategy in increasing organizational competitiveness. Proponents are calling it the only solution for competitive advantage in the new century (Evans, 1997; Hedlund, 1994; Hibbard, 1997; Martinez, 1998; Trussler, 1998) and critics are calling it the worst in passing fads (Hibbard, 1997). Robert H. Buckman, CEO of Buckman Labs, says the purpose of the knowledge management and sharing system at his corporation is to “facilitate communication across all of the organization's boundaries, so that the entire company works together to help everyone to be the best they can be” (Buckman, 1998, p. 11). Buckman Labs has become the first name in knowledge management with its innovative and relatively long‐standing (since 1991) approach to harnessing employees' collective knowledge.

The specialty chemical maker's CEO explains how his firm became a leader in managing knowledge.

At any given time 86 per cent of Buckman Laboratories’ 1,300 employees are out of the office working with customers located in 102 countries. This diverse and dispersed workforce presents special problems for the creation and management of the company’s intellectual capital. Faced with these challenges and the need to bring new knowledge and skills to its employees in a cost effective manner, Buckman Laboratories has created an online, multi‐lingual learning centre.

What do you know and when did you know it? That's a hard enough question to answer personally, but getting a grip on what an organization knows is tougher still. And it implies more than accumulating billions of bytes in the corporate databases. In business, the line between information and knowledge can be subtle.

With ongoing globalisation, organisations are increasingly confronted with worldwide competition. In order to build and sustain their competitive advantage, the knowledge and expertise of an organisation’s staff needs to be seen as a critical strategic resource. This paper presents a general overview of knowledge management and discusses the transfer of knowledge and expertise throughout organisations operating on a global scale. A particular emphasis is placed on the importance of global assignments in transferring knowledge and furthermore on the implications for HRM practices to ensure the successful and effective retention of expertise. Practical examples are presented from Robert Bosch AG, a German multinational organisation and its Australian subsidiary. In this paper, the term “expatriate” is used, however the importance of host country nationals as well as third country nationals should not be ignored in the effective transfer of knowledge and the retention of expertise.

This paper examines four underlying trends in the changing business environment relating to information technology and geographic, functional and sectorial integration. It discusses three required changes in management focus needed to reach global profitability from product inception to promotion. The skills required for this change are listed by functional area, although the techniques are predominantly cross‐cultural. This paper explains the steps needed to move from a traditional firm to a globally competitive network and the cultural barriers to building consumer‐focused extended‐value chains. Finally it discusses ways in which business school education can promote strategic thinking about profitability and heighten awareness of the potential gains from cooperative inter‐firm partnerships.

THE new library building has been open for six months now. It is pleasantly situated in an area of new buildings, and occupies a prominent island site just on the edge of the shopping centre. The old library was in the middle of a shopping area, and it has been interesting to note that our removal from that site has had a more considerable effect on the traffic pattern than one would have thought.

This article is based on the results of a benchmarking study of knowledge management that was initiated at the Knowledge Imperative Symposium in Houston, Tex., in September 1995. The symposium was co‐sponsored by Arthur Andersen and the Houston‐based American Productivity & Quality Center.

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.