Meanings of the knowledge in knowledge management

"Knowledge" is the most important characteristic for the knowledge economy age, and the key resource for the development of an individual, an organization, a nation and even all the world. So, knowledge management appeared as a new specialty. Understanding knowledge exactly is the premise for managing knowledge. This article is focused on understanding the "knowledge" through researching on different fields of philosophy, economics, managerial science and information technology, and from several angles such as hypostatic attributes and origin of the knowledge, cognitive process, the roles in the economic growth of the whole society and the continuable increase of the enterprises played by knowledge, and distinguishing knowledge from others in practice.