xix Foreword MESSY COHERENCE Unlike many of the management movements of the last half century knowledge management has no single origin or unambiguous instantiation. Business Process Reengineering, the Balanced Score Card and the Learning Organisation (to mention but a few) all originate with a single book which then defines the field. In Knowledge Management The Knowledge Creating Company has considerable status but it is only one of multiple sources in a heterogeneous field. While Nonaka with his various co-authors popularised a partial account of Polanyi's distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge, other thinkers and practitioners drew on a body of information theory that can be traced back to Shannon. Add to that the Intellectual Capital movement associated with Edvisson and Stewart which is a distinctive and per-