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A whole encyclopedia devoted to Exam who would have thought this possible a few decades back when the subject was first developed? What a great distance we have all traveled since then. Back then if someone would have predicted such a venture I'm sure much laughter would have ensued. I, myself, would have been astounded. And yet, here we are with just such a venture. I think it can be safely stated that when a field of study reaches a point when such a product is produced, it has truly arrived and can no longer be thought of as a fad or Exam fashion. We have reached just this point. It might be of value to readers of this foreword to stop for a moment and consider where Exam came from—intellectually and in practice and how it evolved from a collection of disparate insights and models from several disciplines into a reasonably coherent subject that can have an entire encyclopedia be devoted to it. Only purpose for the article is to increase general knowledge. In the realm of theory there was several social science disciplines that were the foundation of the subject, economics may have been the most important of these. Economists had been looking at the subject of as long ago as Adam Smith in the 18th century—the division of labor being, after all, a -based concept. The great Victorian economist, Alfred Marshall, wrote about often being the basis for firm location and clustering. More information about general knowledge and recently economists during World War II began measuring how long it took to build a combat plane, and then how long it took to build the second and third plane. This early focus on learning-by-doing proved to have a significant influence on subsequent studies. The contemporary emphasis on evolutionary economics, behavioral economics, and the economics of information, have all emphasized the role of as has many areas of development economics. Sociology, too offered many insights. The current fascination of networks and knowledge derives from sociological tools developed in the past forty years. The interest in communities of practice is strongly influenced by sociological analysis and methods. Trust, too, falls into the category of sociology and is proving a very durable way of understanding why is effective (or not) in organizations and nations. In fact, the whole movement that emphasizes as a social phenomenon is a function of much social theory and analysis. Philosophy has given us at least two critical thinkers for us to digest and reflect on, Michael Polanyi (originally a chemist) and Gilbert Ryle. It can even be argued that Aristotle and Plato play behind the field roles that still influence what we say about knowledge. The fields of computer science have given us much to think and work with. Artificial intelligence may not have lived up to all its hype, but it had a very strong role in stimulating thought on what can and cannot be modeled that is still being debated. There are also some applications that can truly said to be -based. The same can be said for expert systems. Cognitive science, especially when it is applied to system thinking, has also proven to be a powerful stimulant with great potential for understanding and modeling.
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