& Editorial

It is satisfying, if not a little daunting, to realize thatKnowledge and Process Management is reaching theend of its ninth year. Much has been accomplishedin these nine years but much has also been leftundone or, at best, unfinished. I have decided towrite a retrospective review of the journal’s nineyears for the last issue of this volume. For now, Iwould like to encourage readers of the journal toreflect on the last decade. I very much encouragethe submission of review articles focusing on themajor contributions to the field. Of course, I amalso most interested in receiving articles thataddress the future.

Nine years is a very short time for knowledge toaccumulate and I suspect that rather than accumu-late, some of our knowledge of knowledge man-agement and process management has beenenhanced through its combination with existingknowledge. I must admit I take great delight inreviewing how our present knowledge can beenriched through the consideration of researchand enquiry in the last century and before. As awonderful example of this I have been readingThe China Dream by Joe Studwell (Atlantic MonthlyPress, New York, 2002. ISBN 0-87113-829-8), athoughtful contributor to The Economist, the Econo-mist Intelligence Unit and a variety of other publica-tions. Studwell reminds us that we are by no meansthe first to be attracted by the lure of the ‘largestmarket on earth’. China has been attracting theattentions of Western traders for at least the lastfive hundred years. The China Dream, in a lucidand entertaining way, provides considerableknowledge of the nature and outcome of theseprior interactions between the West and China.This knowledge provides a rich context for under-standing current interactions between the West andChina.

Of course an understanding of the history of anyculture also provides us with a better understand-ing of what may work and not work in approachesto knowledge management and process manage-ment. Similarly, it can give us a clearer appreciationfor the conditions that lead to knowledge creationand refinement and the successful transfer of

knowledge. The only danger is that one can becometoo fascinated by the particulars of other cultures—become too focused on the particular and fail toprovide any real insights.

I am also planning to include extended reviewsof a number of other books in the next issue of thejournal. One seminal contribution to the field ofknowledge management, in my opinion, has beenthe book The Social Life of Information by John SeelyBrown and Paul Duguid. This book, first publishedin 2000 and now available in paperback, is a mas-terpiece of clarity and richness. Drawing on awealth of research and experience, the authorsremind us of the rich social context that envelopsand enlivens information. Brown and Duguid pro-vide a ‘must read’ guide that is especially pertinentto those of us who become enamored of technologyand complexity.

In the last week I have had the delightful andtiring experience of teaching a group of middlemanagers some aspects of strategic operations man-agement. Although I was able to discuss some of theways in which operations involving the processingof information could be redesigned to be both moreeffective andmore efficient, I felt that I was only ableto scratch the surface. Much of what I said was verygeneral. In the next issue I will review two booksthat provide both very pragmatic but also verywell thought out approaches to managing knowl-edge-rich processes. The first book is Building aProject-Driven Enterprise by Ronald Mascitelli andthe second is Successful Proposal Strategies for SmallBusiness by Robert Frey.

I had hoped to include a call for papers for a con-ference hosted by IESE Business School at the Uni-versity of Narvarra in Barcelona during April 2003.The conference addresses Organizational Knowl-edge, Learning and Capabilities. I expect the callfor papers to be available shortly and I will makeit available on my Website at:

www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/�wensley/kpm/callfor-papers.htm

If you are a conference organizer for a conferencecovering knowledge management, organizational

Knowledge and Process Management Volume 9 Number 3 pp 131–132 (2002)Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/kpm.151

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

learning, process management and related topicsplease provide me with an electronic copy ofyour call for papers. I will add the call to my Web-site as soon as I receive it. I would also encourageconference planners to give me early warning of

upcoming conferences so that I can add them to therelevant part of the KPM Website:

www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/�wensley/kpm/conferen-ces.htm

Anthony Wensley

EDITORIAL Knowledge and Process Management

132 A. Wensley