The basic economic resource . . . is and will be knowledge, affirms the grand old master of management, Peter Drucker. ^[1] Certainly the business world has been effusive in taking to the ideas or at least the language of knowledge it seems hard to find an organization that isn t implementing knowledge initiatives, or a software vendor that doesn t sell knowledge management solutions.

If you read through the reams of business literature being produced about knowledge, it is almost invariably couched in terms of organizations having to develop, capture, and apply their hidden reserves of knowledge. And if you look harder, you might find something about this approach to knowledge being intended to result in better services and products for the clients out there. In this old and essentially outmoded way of thinking about business, the client is indeed out there, as some kind of box you furnish with wonderful products and services, and receive in return revenue, and possibly feedback on how you can improve your offerings. Throughout this book we will develop the case that the value added to clients will increasingly be in sharing knowledge with them making them more knowledgeable and that this approach is also central to developing the closer and richer relationships on which sustainable competitive advantage is based. In this chapter we will present the foundations and definitions...