Knowledge Management

Origins of the Author’s Interest

The author’s interest in organizational memory (OM) came about organically through several unconnected observations in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked for the Financial Times in London. The period spanned a decade of commercial activity in the United Kingdom that registered an event—seemingly more accidental than planned—that had a seminal effect on the country’s economic prospects. It happened when the majority of workers stopped being paid weekly in cash and bank accounts became the norm for the majority of citizens for the first time, a choice that had been commonplace for at least 40 years in the United States and which had been introduced in neighboring France by President Charles de Gaulle immediately ...