Successful knowledge management requires a knowledge culture: a case study

Culture is widely acknowledged to be a critical success factor in knowledge management (KM). This paper presents the case of KM implementation at MKS, an IT consulting firm based in India. Although the KM initiative at MKS had many of the hallmarks associated with successful KM projects, the initiative failed to get off the ground due to the absence of a ‘knowledge culture’ within the organisation. Subsequent interviews with MKS staff uncovered a range of cultural themes that appeared to impede the institutionalisation of KM at MKS. These cultural themes included:

• internal competitiveness among MKS staff resulting in ‘knowledge hoarding’,
• a lack of personal reward and incentive to engage in knowledge sharing,
• concerns over job security and the ‘devaluation’ of employees,
• stigma associated with the reliance on someone else's ideas,
• preference for a face-to-face mode of knowledge sharing over a tool-supported approach and
• doubts over the quality of knowledge shared by more junior staff.

     

Managing the knowledge environment: a case study from healthcare

An organization's future is viable to the degree it can create, obtain, and leverage its intellectual capital in an effort to manage knowledge for sustained, competitive advantage in the market place. Failure to do so can spell disaster. Case in point: Due to a festering crisis between his strategic intent and the organization's operational capacity to support it, in May 2000, the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (SRHS) board of directors voted for its chief executive officer (CEO) to resign. His resignation signaled the need for new learning, in addition to more effective management and communication practices in improving the identifying and codifying of knowledge and then facilitating the sharing of it organization-wide. This article focuses on delineating the process principles in managing a supportive environment necessary for the sharing of knowledge to spark creative thinking in devising innovative solutions that the hospital used in adapting to its market.     

隐性知识与企业核心能力:案例研究

随着知识经济的日益崛起,企业的经营和持续发展不再主要依赖资本、自然资源、劳动力等传统资源,而是更多地依赖专业知识、想法和洞察力这些智慧资产。就知识而言,由于显性知识容易沟通和共享,也极易被竞争对手复制和模仿,所以,显性知识显然难以形成企业持续的经营优势。案例研究表明,企业中,经验、技能、心智模式和组织惯例等这些隐性知识由于其巨大的客户价值性、稀缺性、不易模仿性和难以复制性,因此越来越多的企业将其看成企业的战略资源。而能否发掘企业中的隐性知识,充分发挥这些隐性知识的作用,便成为了获取和保持持续竞争优势的关键。     

Weblogs for organizational knowledge sharing and creation: a comparative case study

The use of weblogs as an information and communication technology for knowledge sharing and creation is a novel social and organizational phenomenon. In this paper, we identify and explain contingency factors that influence the successful use of weblogs for knowledge sharing and creation. We start from the assumption that successful knowledge management requires the motivation of people to engage in knowledge-related communication. Based on a comparison of two antithetic cases, we identify and discuss four contingency factors that directly influence the motivational impact of weblogs on organizational knowledge sharing and creation.     

Development of terminological resources for expert knowledge: a case study in mining

In this paper we outline an approach to application of ontology in knowledge management. The University of Belgrade Faculty of Mining and Geology research team has developed a terminological resource to support knowledge management in mining engineering. Mining engineering, like all other engineering disciplines, needs comprehensive, consistent and standardized definitions of terms for efficient knowledge management and interoperability among various related IT applications. This goal can best be reached by terminological resources in electronic form organized as thesauruses or ontologies. The resource used to illustrate this approach, RudOnto, is a system of ontologies developed for mining engineering and their application in mining equipment and mine safety domains. Key benefits of applying ontologies in knowledge management, aside from securing interoperability, are enhancement of browsing/searching functions, and reuse and structuring capabilities. Through export to several specific formats, RudOnto ontologies offer the possibility of generating stand-alone terminological resources or ontologies in specific sub-fields, such as mining equipment, mine safety and geostatistics.     

Organizational culture and its relationship with knowledge management strategy: a case study

In this paper, we study the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management strategy in Pars Oil, an Iranian oil refining public company. The Denison organizational culture model is used. The model measures four essential traits of culture and leadership: involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission. Each of these traits has three indices providing a richness of detail about the trait. Data collection method is a survey using a suitable questionnaire. The results of data analysis show that there are significant relationships between four dimensions of knowledge management strategies (creation and transfer of knowledge) and organizational culture in the organization studied. Moreover, the results of ranking the factors influencing the knowledge management strategy show that the priority and importance of the organizational culture traits based on their effects on knowledge management strategy are, respectively, participation, adaptability, consistency, and mission cultures.     

Aggressively pursuing knowledge management over 2 years: a case study at a US government organization

As the US federal civilian workforce is ‘graying’, knowledge management (KM) can play a critical role in the strategic management of human capital in a government organization. KM should probably be a key pillar of the human capital strategy, along with competency management, performance management, and change management. Even though the need is great for knowledge management in government organizations, many of these agencies do not have a clear vision or strategy as to how to implement KM in their organization. To help those in the federal sector in implementing KM, this paper will discuss components of the knowledge management implementation plan at a leading US government organization (using GOV as the pseudonym) following a KM pyramid framework.     

Employee relationship and knowledge sharing: a case study of a Taiwanese finance and securities firm

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Knowledge is a very important resource for preserving valuable heritage, learning new things, solving problems, creating core competences, and...     

Impelling research productivity and impact through collaboration: a scientometric case study of knowledge management

A case study for impelling university research productivity and impact through collaboration is presented. Scientometric results support the hypothesis that a knowledge management model increased research collaboration and thereby boosted a university’s number of publications and citations. Results come from fifteen years of data at a Mexican university with 2400 researchers who produced 24,000 works in fifteen research disciplines. These data are treated with social network visualizations and algorithms to identify patterns of collaboration and clustering, as well as with normalizations to make disciplines comparable and to verify increasing citation impact. The knowledge management model implemented in the study may be a cost-effective way for universities to intensify collaboration and improve research performance.     

Identifying the information management process and knowledge creation in technology-based companies: a Brazilian comparative case study

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Information and knowledge have been cited over the last two decades as competitive advantage tools. Recently, the use of them has been discussed to...     

知识传导、动态能力与后发企业成长研究——中兴通讯的案例研究

后发企业的动态能力指吸收、转移和整合知识,最终实现知识创造和创新的能力。本研究探讨了知识传导-动态能力-企业成长的逻辑关系,研究认为动态能力是企业成长的动因,知识传导通过动态能力间接作用于企业成长,企业成长体现为企业边界、企业行为、企业结构和企业绩效的成长。最后通过中兴通讯公司的案例研究佐证相关结论。     

Understanding knowledge management software-organisation misalignments from an institutional perspective: A case study of a global IT-management consultancy firm

Inspired by the proposition that “Enterprise IS configurations chosen by the organisations will encode institutionalised principles into these systems” (Gosain, 2004, p. 169), this study seeks to draw attention to potential sources of misalignment between knowledge management (KM) software and the implementing organisation from an institutional theory perspective. Using a case of a global consultancy firm, the study elucidates such misalignments as the consequence of different institutional contexts where technology developers and adopters operate. This study demonstrates how institutional forces affect the implementation project and provides some lessons learned for organisations that are rich in high-value text-based knowledge for making decisions.     

不同新颖度知识创造与企业成长动态关系研究——基于华为时间序列数据的探索性案例研究

知识创造作为企业内生性知识存量积累的来源以及获取自主知识产权的基础,在我国强调自主创新的转型经济背景下变得日益重要。相关研究多基于过程视角探索知识创造过程(能力)对企业创新绩效的影响,却对企业创造的新知识到底如何影响企业成长关注不够,这使得现有研究不能解释为什么具有相同知识创造过程的企业最终会获得不一样成长结果的现象。本文基于新颖度区分的企业知识创造结果视角,以华为时间序列数据为对象进行探索性纵向案例研究,对企业所创造的不同新颖程度的新知识与企业成长间动态关系进行研究。发现:知识创造对企业成长的积极效应具有一定的滞后期,并随时间推移呈现出先递增再递减的倒U型特征;随着所创造知识的新颖程度提高,知识创造对企业成长的影响呈现出近似U型的特征。最后,文章讨论了理论贡献、管理意义与研究局限。     

Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake

The US response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake was a large effort coordinated by three major agencies that worked in tandem with the Government of Haiti, the United Nations, and many countries from around the globe. Managing this response effort was a complex undertaking that relied extensively on knowledge management systems (KMS). For the first time, however, US government agencies employed social media technologies such as wikis and collaborative workspaces as the main knowledge sharing mechanisms. In this research we present a case study developed through action research of how these social media technologies were used, what influences they made on knowledge sharing, reuse, and decision-making, and how knowledge was effectively (and at times ineffectively) maintained in these systems. First-hand knowledge of the response is used, offering strategies for future deployment of social media and important research questions that remain regarding social media as knowledge management systems, particularly for disaster and emergency management.     

International academic knowledge creation and ba. A case study from Finland

Knowledge is created through discourse in ba that is the physical, mental and/or virtual arena of knowledge creation. This article studies ba in international humanist (H-group), technical (T-group) and scientific (S-group) research groups. These international groups consist of members originating from many countries. The empirical evidence is derived from interviews and discourse analysis of three research groups from the University of Oulu which, by staff, is the most international large university in Finland. The article advances understanding of ba by considering the theory of ba in relation to the discourse and exploratory case study. In the case groups, ba is formed in relation to the knowledge type created, suitable characteristics of a group member and structural factors related to administrative responsibilities. Humanist knowledge, with abstract concepts and philosophical discussions, is created with deeper attention to language and social bonds inside the H-group than the more accurate scientific and technical knowledge in the S- and T-groups.     

Managing technology alliances: The case for knowledge management

Organizations need to form alliances with external entities in order to acquire or access resources outside ones bounds. In recent times, we have seen an increased number of alliances geared towards acquiring technology capabilities. Alliances for technology capabilities include software application licensing agreements, access to technological infrastructure, and accessing technological know-how. While a lot of attention has been paid to the financial, economic, legal, and architectural issues of such arrangements, one dimension has been under debated and discussed—the knowledge component. Knowledge is the critical resource that is exchanged, managed, and integrated, in technology alliances. Managing knowledge in and around technology alliances is of utmost importance if we want to reap the strategic and operational benefits of such engagements. In this case study analysis, we share crucial knowledge management concerns to bear in mind while constructing, governing, and terminating technology alliances.     

Composite diversity,social capital,and group knowledge sharing: a case narration

Composite diversity among team members is one of the noteworthy but neglected issues for its contingent effect on knowledge management processes. This paper presents that these often contingent and sometimes bipolar effects of composite diversity occur in their relationship with knowledge sharing, which is one critical element for knowledge management. Nevertheless, we argue that this contingency does not stem from the diversity per se, but from the social-cognitive state (i.e. social capital) that moderates in this diversity-sharing relationship. In addition to the conceptual deductions, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in a real-life group setting as a preliminary endorsement for our theoretical exploration; this effort serves as a setout in assisting the illustrative conceptual deductions but not an attempt to be one large-scaled empirical piece of testing that should consider the generalizability more seriously. Implications for group practices and group dynamics in knowledge-sharing imperatives are discussed finally.     

标准竞争——闪联的案例研究

 研究表明在网络效应显著的信息产业,安装基础是标准竞争的核心目标。而标准发展与战略协同演进对于扩大安装基础、实现标准的产业化和国际化具有重要作用。从现有理论出发,采用案例研究方法对闪联标准及其国际化历程作了细致的考察和探究。通过分析闪联在不同发展阶段所采取的不同战略组合,从垂直整合和水平竞争两个维度进行归纳和总结,建立了一个对中国企业开展标准竞争有启示意义的整合框架。     

Implementing a knowledge management system within an NHS hospital: a case study exploring the roll-out of an electronic patient record (EPR)

This research aims to contribute to understanding the implementation of knowledge management systems (KMS) in the field of health through a case study, leading to theory building and theory extension. We use the concept of the business process approach to knowledge management as a theoretical lens to analyse and explore how a large teaching hospital developed, executed and practically implemented a KMS. A qualitative study was conducted over a 2.5 year period with data collected from semi-structured interviews with eight members of the strategic management team, 12 clinical users and 20 patients in addition to non-participant observation of meetings and documents. The theoretical propositions strategy was used as the overarching approach for data analysis. Our case study provides evidence that true patient centred approaches to supporting care delivery with a KMS benefit from process thinking at both the planning and implementation stages, and an emphasis on the knowledge demands resulting from: the activities along the care pathways; where cross-overs in care occur; and knowledge sharing for the integration of care. The findings also suggest that despite the theoretical awareness of KMS implementation methodologies, the actual execution of such systems requires practice and learning. Flexible, fluid approaches through rehearsal are important and communications strategies should focus heavily on transparency incorporating both structured and unstructured communication methods.