We have just turned the corner on a new century and there remains much promise and suspicion around the theme Knowledge Management the on‑going debate is a testimony to it as a living management topic.

Organisations face the same challenges of efficiency and effectiveness in the work they do to maintain competitiveness. Change as always is ubiquitous, both the context and the content of work evolves. The more developed nations are now working in a post‑industrialised society, however much management thinking and methods lag behind the requirements of our day. The reality of an information rich workplace requires different approaches to the classic work of management that of planning, organising, leading etc. A great array of initiatives have been suggested, tried and speculated upon in the name of knowledge management to support managers as they grapple with this emerging organisational reality. Confusion and suspicion remains as we emerge to access the lessons of the early pioneers, the what, how and why of knowledge management is not and will never be a given.

Communities, social networks, learning organisations, creativity, knowledge enabled infrastructures, knowledge work, knowledge worker, knowledge process and practice form part of the evolution of management thinking.

The great binary debate as to whether people or technology is central to knowledge management is not surprisingly, falling into a contingency position. Of course “to know” is a human quality but the amount of explicit knowledge must offer some role for hybrid solutions.

The first edition of this e‑Journal offers a series of papers, which explore questions covering both theory and practice. Here we have deliberately chosen to spread out widely and we take both a broad based position of what actually constitutes knowledge and management as the locus of the subject boundaries.

I believe that the subject of KM is one of the focal issues facing mangers, organisations and society today and will remain so for years to come. Just as scientific management was the focus of attention when the 20th century began, knowledge management has begun to assume that role for the beginning of this period. This e‑Journal welcomes papers that support a better understanding of this subject. Lets enjoy the energy that this topic brings.