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Introduction
Knowledge management (KM) has been studied from a number of perspectives (Baskerville and Dulipovici, 2006), including organizational learning (Crossan et al. , 1999), knowledge organization (Spender, 1996) and learning organization (Senge, 1990). This indicates that previous studies that analyze KM have usually examined only one aspect of the KM process. For instance, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) develop their knowledge spiral from the point of view of knowledge creation, but no application to firms can be observed. For their part, Crossan et al. (1999) develop their model on the basis of knowledge flows, feed-forward (exploration) and feed-back (exploitation), but it is not explained how this is measured, nor how it may be applied to a firm. Senge (1990) proposes an application to firms, but in a prescriptive way, which he calls "Learning organization". Senge does not clarify where the knowledge comes from, and does not propose an operational framework measuring its application to an organization. All these works, which are the major references for KM, differ in the way they study KM.
In addition, there are a number of studies dealing with KM based on different theoretical frameworks (Senge, 1990; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Crossan et al. , 1999; Moreno-Luzón et al. , 2000). This situation has made it difficult to identify and measure dimensions with clarity. There are few studies that integrate the literature on KM, and there is no consensus on the dimensions that should be measured and nobody has developed an integrated model. These shortcomings in the current literature highlight the need for the present research.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the dimensions and items of KM and to propose an integrated model which can help researchers to measure this type of management in future studies.
The paper starts with an explanation of the methodology used in the research. This is followed by a definition of the concepts of KM and the relationships between them. Next, dimensions are proposed. Then, a model for KM is proposed. The paper finishes with the main conclusions, limitations and suggestions for future research.
Methodology
To carry out this research, a number of secondary sources have been used. For the selection of the sources, an adaptation has been made of the method proposed by...