Abstract
The past ten years have seen the field of information and knowledge management develop and implement new and improved technologies. Because of the ease with which information is exchanged the contribution to information overload has increased exponentially and the need for information and knowledge management is more real than ever before. Research in itself is a science of knowledge creation that continuously evolves in line with newly developed theories and research methodologies. An investigation of the theories and research methodologies that doctoral theses, completed in South Africa, ascribed to over the past ten years were conducted. Search strings containing 'information management', 'knowledge management' and 'information and knowledge management' were searched within citation, abstract and subject fields. A sample of 30 theses from a possible 47 in the relevant population was identified. Qualitative and mixed methods research design was favoured, making use of case studies and surveys, but paying little attention to theoretical approaches or paradigms. The boundaries between disciplines are continuously re-defined, new disciplines evolve and traditional disciplines suffer under the pressures of changing problems of the world. The importance of research in the field of information and knowledge management being grounded in the most recent scientific thought is emphasized.
Highlights
When throwing all retrieval principles to the wind and entering the phrase 'information overload' into a relevant electronic database or search engine, information overload is the result
Technological advances have kept up with the dilemma of information overload and the past ten years have seen the field of information and knowledge management develop and implement new and improved technologies ranging from push and pull technologies to the use of portals and blogs
The selection of completed doctoral theses was motivated by the depth of scholarship that was required by the qualification, the fact that the degree required new knowledge to be contributed to the body of knowledge, which was grounded in specific theories and made a unique contribution to the scholarship within the domain of information and knowledge management
Summary
When throwing all retrieval principles to the wind and entering the phrase 'information overload' into a relevant electronic database or search engine, information overload is the result. Within the domain of information and knowledge management, research abounds on the fact that people are facing information overload on a daily basis in their personal as well as their corporate lives. Technological advances have kept up with the dilemma of information overload and the past ten years have seen the field of information and knowledge management develop and implement new and improved technologies ranging from push and pull technologies to the use of portals and blogs. Lazlo and Lazlo (2002:401) stress the importance of research in the field of information and knowledge management being grounded in the most recent scientific thought and mention sciences of complexity such as systems theory, cybernetics, chaos theory, dynamical systems theory, non-linear thermodynamics and autopoietic theory. Lazlo and Lazlo (2002:401) stress the importance of research in the field of information and knowledge management being grounded in the most recent scientific thought and mention sciences of complexity such as systems theory, cybernetics, chaos theory, dynamical systems theory, non-linear thermodynamics and autopoietic theory. Laszlo and Laszlo (2002:405) further point out that social and human science research tends to move away from quantitative research and that researchers rather apply qualitative research in the form of dialogue-based and action-oriented forms of investigation
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