One out of two companies have increased their productivity or saved costs with knowledge management. This is a result from a comprehensive cross-industry survey in Europe about knowledge management run by the Competence Center Knowledge Management at Fraunhofer IPK, Germany. Best practices in knowledge management from leading companies are described for practitioners in different industries. The book shows how to integrate knowledge management activities into the daily business tasks and processes, how to motivate people and which capabilities and skills are required for knowledge management. The book concludes with an overview of the leading knowledge management projects in several European countries.

Comprehensive overview with detailed description of Knowledge Management methods

1 Introduction.- I: Design Fields.- 2 Business Process Oriented Knowledge Management.- 3 The Fraunhofer Knowledge Management Audit (FKM-Audit).- 4 Motivation for Knowledge Management.- 5 Role Models, Human Resources and Strategy.- 6 Knowledge Management Tools.- 7 Intellectual Capital: Measuring Knowledge Management.- II: Survey.- 8 Delphi Study on the Future of Knowledge Management - Overview of the Results.- 9 A Survey on Good Practices in Knowledge Management in European Companies.- 10 How German Companies Employ Knowledge Management. An OECD Survey on Usage, Motivations and Effects.- III: Case Studies.- 11 Knowledge Management - Results of a Benchmarking Study.- 12 Knowledge Management: The Holistic Approach of Arthur D. Little, Inc..- 13 The Aventis Approach to Knowledge Management: Locating Inhouse Expertise for Immediate Anytime, Anywhere Availability.- 14 Cultural Change Triggers Best Practice Sharing - British Aerospace plc..- 15 Knowledge Management and Customer Orientation Hewlett Packard Austria.- 16 Knowledge Management in a Global Company - IBM Global Services.- 17 Open Minded Corporate Culture and Management Supports the Sharing of External and Internal Knowledge - Phonak.- 18 Sharing Process Knowledge in Production Environments - Roche Diagnostics - Laboratory Systems.- 19 KnowledgeSharing@MED - Enabling Knowledge Sharing by Turning Knowledge into Business.- IV: KM - Made in Europe.- 20 Building Communities. Organizational Knowledge Management within the European Commission's Information Society Technologies Programme.- List of Figures.- References.- Recommended Further Readings.- Editors.- Contributors.

By Leif Edvinsson Professor of Intellectual Capital University of Lund Lund, Sweden In a marketplace, characterized by the growing importance of intangibles and knowledge, as we have not only in Europe today, it has become more and more evident how important knowledge management and Intellectual Capital manage ment has become. Some of us who started this knowledge exploration journeys some decades ago could perhaps realize how quickly this theme should become so important. Today it is on almost every executive's agenda. The timing, the context and the comprehensive content of this second edition could not have been better. In this second edition the authors have extended their overview with case studies and facts that confirm what we intuitively knew. Knowledge and intangibles are a top strategic issue. It is vital for an organization if it wants to be competitive, sus tainable and profitable. The solid overview and the holistic review and testing of the theories with real cases, gives the reader a lot of facts and models of how man agement could invest in this area with very good return, in one case with a return of investment of 200 % in one year! It is a very extensive work on the growing field of knowledge management. In its extension guidelines and emerging standards are already visible, as e. g. the guide lines from the Danish government on IC reporting or of the Norwegian Associa tion of Financial Analysts.