Knowledge Management (KM) refers to a range of practices and techniques used by organizations to identify, represent, and distribute knowledge, know-how, expertise, intellectual capital, and other forms of knowledge for leverage, reuse, and transfer of knowledge and learning across the organization. Knowledge Management programs are typically claimed to be tied to specific organizational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific targeted results such as improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation. Knowledge Management is an evolving discipline. While knowledge transfer (an aspect of KM) has always existed in one form or another, for example through on-the-job discussions with peers, formally through apprenticeship, the maintenance of corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs, and—since the late twentieth century—technologically through knowledge bases, expert systems, and other knowledge repositories, KM programs claim to consciously evaluate and manage the process of accumulation, creation, and application of knowledge which is also referred to by some as intellectual capital. KM has therefore attempted to bring under one rubric various strands of thought and practice relating to: intellectual capital and the knowledge worker in the knowledge economy, the idea of the learning organization, various enabling organizational practices such as Communities of Practice and corporate Yellow Page directories for accessing key personnel and expertise, various enabling technologies such as knowledge bases and expert systems, help desks, corporate intranets and extranets, Content Management, wikis, and Document Management. While Knowledge Management programs are closely related to Organizational Learning initiatives, Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organizational Learning by its greater focus on the management of specific knowledge assets and development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge flows.