Knowledge management is a key differentiator in the highly competitive business world of today. Organizations have knowledge distributed across people, technologies, and organizational practices. They need to manage effectively the knowledge they have and also acquire new knowledge that will enable them to stay competitive in the market place. Little wonder then, knowledge management is fast emerging as a core strategy, that organizations worldwide are adopting to manage and leverage organizational knowledge for sustainable business advantage. However, the implementation of knowledge management initiatives cannot be easily accomplished in an organization. There is a need for better understanding of the `nuts and bolts' of the implementation of knowledge management projects. This paper highlights the barriers and challenges that come up while managing knowledge. It reviews the current literature on knowledge management, paying particular attention to factors which are critical to the implementation of knowledge management projects in organizations.

An organization must become a learning organization to grow and prosper in this information age. Both commercial and public organizations have understood the significance of being an effective learning organization. Drawing from a social view, Hall, Sapsed and Williams (2000) put organizational learning as a reflective process, played out by members at all levels of the organization, which involves collecting information, filtering through a collective sense-making process and sharing the interpretations that can be used to instigate actions resulting in enduring changes to the organization's behavior and the theories in use. Knowledge is a fundamental factor for any organization. Successful application of knowledge helps organizations deliver creative products and services. Davenport, Long and Beers (1998) express that knowledge is information that has been combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection. They define knowledge as ".. a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information". Knowledge is a broad and abstract notion that has defined epistemological debates in western philosophy since the classical Greek era (Alavi, 1999). Most organizations already have a vast reservoir of knowledge in a wide variety of organizational processes, best practices, know-how customer trust, management information systems, culture and norms (Gupta, Iyer and Aronson, 2000). Knowledge is collectively recognized as the most powerful asset and a source of competitive advantage to improve business performance.

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