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Introduction
In recent decades, particularly from the 1990s ([18] Cardoso, 2003; [27] Civi, 2000), knowledge has been recognized as organizations' key resource ([53] Ipe, 2003). Though knowledge has always been an important factor in organizations, only in recent years has it been considered the critical source of organizations' long-term sustainability ([69] Nonaka, 1991; [71] Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; [90] Wiig, 1997).
Although some authors called knowledge management (KM) a management fad just a few years ago ([60] Malhotra, 2005; [85] Sheffield, 2008), more and more organizations are realizing how important it is to know what they know, improve what they know and be able to make more effective use of their knowledge ([51] Hussain et al. , 2004) by attempting to implement KM ([53] Ipe, 2003).
KM has a strategic value because it deals with an organization's most valuable asset (Hwang, 2003). It has the potential to add value by enabling an organization to act more intelligently ([43] Gupta et al. , 2000). The real point of KM is to make organizational knowledge actionable, which means that KM is about action, not just about accumulation of knowledge or about conversion of knowledge in a passive mode ([18] Cardoso, 2003; Hussain et al. , 2000; [71] Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). KM has thus become embedded in organizations' strategy ([60] Malhotra, 2005), regardless of their size, geographical location ([91] Wong, 2005) and sector of activity or whether they are private or public, profit or non-profit organizations ([9] Berrocal and Marín, 2001).
Even though KM has the potential to help organizations make more effective use of their knowledge and expertise ([2] Alavi and Leidner, 2001; [35] Davenport and Prusak, 1998), its research and application to date have been mainly limited to for-profit organizations ([49] Hume and Hume, 2008; [59] Lettieri et al. , 2004; [78] Renshaw and Krishnaswamy, 2009). Even if the KM approach and study in social economy organizations have been scarce, because these organizations are under-resourced and dependent mainly on public and private funding to survive, they can also benefit from KM.
Despite all the advantages of KM found in the literature, it is also important to note that it does not operate in isolation, separated from the rest of the organization. Therefore, a better understanding...