This paper aims to look at the practices of those who are in charge of knowledge management in corporations: the knowledge managers.
Using the activity system model, the study observes the work of four knowledge managers embedded in the same organizational context (the company Lafarge).
By exposing the contradictions inside the activity systems of knowledge managers, the paper analyzes three managerial conflicts tackled by practitioners: how to measure knowledge management practices, how to set rules and processes for managing knowledge and how to create structure to support knowledge management.
The paper presents a typology of knowledge managers and discusses the competencies needed to become a knowledge manager.
The paper provides a deep analysis of actions, discourses and artifacts of knowledge managers that allows the author to present a typology of practices of knowledge managers.
