Information management (IM) is the harnessing of the information resources and information capabilities of the organization in order to add and create value both for itself and for its clients or customers.

Knowledge management (KM)is a framework for designing an organization’s goals, structures, and processes so that the organization can use what it knows to learn and to create value for its customers and community.

IM provides the foundation for KM, but the two are focused differently. IM is concerned with processing and adding value to information, and the basic issues here include access, control, coordination, timeliness, accuracy, and usability. KM is concerned with using the knowledge to take action, and the basic issues here include codification, diffusion, practice, learning, innovation, and community building.