What is it about?
This essay argues that KM should focus more on people as it was supposed to do since inception. The essay suggests that the new Society 5.0, which combines human-centered values with advanced technologies, could help shift KM back to focusing on people. The authors share their opinions on the history and future of KM, noting that it hasn't progressed much since the 1990s. They believe that the current focus on separating knowledge from the person who knows it has caused confusion and limited KM's impact. This paper provides three contributions: (1) it explains how KM is constrained by mindsets inherited from the industrial age; (2) it reveals how KM is limited by epistemologies prioritizing knowledge integration over human agency; and (3) it demonstrates how Society 5.0’s framework, combined with rKM principles, can realign the field with its original foundations.
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Why is it important?
In a society that increasingly dematerialized and where AI is taking centre stage, we must move away from simple representations of knowledge 'extracted' from their owners. This knowledge does not exist without the owner who shapes it and enact it. And this is more than ever the case with the rise of AI. Managers should take this into account and start focusing harder on the real source of their company competitive advantage.
Perspectives
I hope this article will make readers at large understand is that whatever knowledge there is to manage, it starts with people. The efforts spent removing the human from many organizational picture are from another age, and it is time to give back to people their humanity.
Yasmina Khadir
Nyenrode Business Universiteit
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Reclaiming a human-centered knowledge management in the Society 5.0 era, The Bottom Line, December 2025, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/bl-06-2025-0130.
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