Knowledge-based systems and knowledge management: Friends or foes?

Knowledge-based systems (KBS) provide a way of formalizing and automating knowledge. Their worth for managing the knowledge assets has not gone unnoticed: they have been promoted as safeguards to retain expert knowledge, to avoid knowledge erosion, etc. KBS are the outcome of a knowledge engineering process that may be seen as providing some of the building blocks of knowledge management. Although 'knowledge' is the first word in knowledge-based systems, they are hardly ever considered from a knowledge perspective. As a result, a biased view of the organizational value of KBS exists in the literature, putting an undue emphasis on technology. The key issue addressed in this article is: how does knowledge engineering relate to a broader perspective of knowledge management? A way to identify the issues to be addressed when valuing KBS as potential measures for knowledge management is presented. To illustrate its value, the outcomes of a recent empirical investigation of how KBS function within organizations are presented. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.