Practical Relevance of Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Scholarly Research: Books as Knowledge Translation Agents

Abstract

To enhance our understanding of the relevance of knowledge management/intellectual capital (KM/IC) academic research, this study explores the sources authors utilize to develop their book content. Ten prominent KM/IC book authors were interviewed to identify if and how the KM/IC academic literature is being disseminated through books. It was confirmed that the body of knowledge present in peer-reviewed journals is utilized in the development of book/textbook content. Thus, books serve as knowledge translation agents through which academic literature is summarized, aggregated, and transformed into a format that may be easily comprehended by non-academics. In addition to peer-reviewed journals, KM/IC book authors utilize other sources, including personal research, experts’ opinions, personal experience, practitioner magazines, conferences, books, and informal discussions with academics. The model, which was developed within this study, demonstrates that the book’s target audience and author’s motivation serve as a pure moderator of the relationship between the available content sources and actual book content. Books targeted to practitioners and inspired by a desire to bring theory to practice are based on the author’s personal experience and contain many non-peer reviewed sources, whereas books written for academic readers have content that is mostly derived from peer-reviewed journals, books, and the author’s personal research. Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.