Terminological (di) Similarities between Information Management and Knowledge Management: a Term Co-Occurrence Analysis

Abstract

The terminological composition of information management (IM) and knowledge management (KM) is described in order to evidence how much do these areas overlap within the library and information sciences (LIS) space. A term co-occurrence analysis is conducted as from documents extracted from Web of Science, covering the period 1980–2015. To examine the terminological (di) similarity two approaches are applied: ‘overlay visualizationʼ and ‘topic detectionʼ. The percentage of terminological similarity oscillates between 24% and 38% according to the ‘overlay visualizationʼ and ‘topic detectionʼ techniques. At the core of the terminological intersection between IM and KM lies the study around processes, technologies and information systems. However, they are semantically two separate areas that tend to address similar dimensions -such as the managerial, educational and medical, but emphasizing different approach. Moreover, IM refers to the library and information organizations, highlighting the focus on personal information management, human information behavior, health information management, and information resource management. Oppositely, KM highlights the business, management and accounting realms in which topics like knowledge sharing and social networks, knowledge management strategies, and knowledge management projects are prevailing. These results would help to (re) define curricular contents of LIS programs as well as research and practical activities conducted by academicians and managers. This is the most comprehensive quantitative study in examining the epistemic borders between IM and KM in the LIS research. The authors consider that the methodological procedures here employed might be suitable to understand the boundaries between similar fields.