Can Knowledge Be Managed?

In today’s dynamic and complicated environment، knowledge is the most important growth factor of organizations to gain a competitive advantage. In agricultural societies، labor and land were the main factors of manufacturing. Passing through a transitional period from agricultural to industrial society، capital was considered as one of the main factors of production in addition to labor and land. With the advent of knowledge society، knowledge was considered as a major factor of production because labor، land and capital will gain more added values by application of knowledge. Hidden nature of knowledge has made it a unique source that could create values in the organization. With this aim، knowledge management was placed on the agenda of directors. If something can be administrated، undoubtedly، it should be administrated، but could we manage knowledge as a resource? In this paper، first we study the nature of knowledge and explain different dimensions expressed by different authors. Then، we study the accuracy of putting the two words together; knowledge and management.