Since the mid-1990s there has been an enormous increase in the number of books and articles about knowledge management, which, it is argued, functions as a conceptual platform among a number of knowledge-related fields. These fields include the following: Learning Organization, Intellectual Capital, Information Technology, Management of Technology, Intellectual Property, Knowledge Strategy and Information Science, among others. Ironically, many practitioners in these same fields already use knowledge management as a conceptual platform, without explicitly recognizing it. The concepts and ideas related to knowledge management have existed well before 1995. This paper argues that modern knowledge management, at least as it has been conceptualized since 1995, developed out of the spontaneous interaction between two distinct fields; Learning Organization and Intellectual Capital, each of which previously had a separate evolutionary path. Beginning about 1995, however, the two fields interacted to develop our current concept of knowledge management. In succeeding years, knowledge management concepts and terms have gradually been absorbed by and applied to other disciplines and fields. Viewing knowledge management as a conceptual platform allows other knowledge-related fields to link with each other in order to embrace, share, organize and exchange ideas, knowledge and information. The authors expect that the concept of knowledge management will evolve and probably continue to link more disciplines and fields.
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