As the turbulent 20th century is approaching to its end, we are at the threshold of the 21st century. Although how the new century will unfold is anyone's guess, it will be filled with even more turbulences and changes than the previous era.

The changes will have deep impacts upon external environments as well as internal senses of values in all fields of human endeavors. Likewise, business management will require, as the basis of insights and decision-making, wide ranges of knowledge and profound wisdom in addition to management technologies.

Concepts such as "Management Quality", "Best Practice" and "Benchmarking" are some of the manifestations of human knowledge. While the mechanical civilization of the 20th century has developed software for manipulation of machines, the civilization of the coming century will produce new value systems with knowledge as its foundation. Its development, therefore, will have to involve even ideologies and philosophies.

Knowledge is indispensable in the business management as well as in any social activities. To date, however, there has been little systematic approach to study about knowledge-based management or its methodology. We firmly believe that it is the vital challenge in the 21st century to establish theoretical system on how to effectively utilize human knowledge and to exchange the relevant information with other countries of the world.

In order to meet these challenges and needs of the new era, we have established Knowledge Management Society of Japan. We will engage the Society as well as industries and bureaucrats at large in our scientific and extensive studies. The study outcomes will be made available in the public domain so as to contribute to the society as a whole.