KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Successful Of Knowledge Management System Usage in Small Or Mid-Sized It Firms In The United States

Table of Contents

Background3

Purpose Of The Study8

Importance Of Study8

Statement Of The Problem10

Research Models16

Research Questions/Hypothesis20

Method Of Inquiry22

Assumptions22

Alternatives22

Limitations23

Paper Organization23

References24

The Successful Of Knowledge Management System Usage in Small Or Mid-Sized It Firms In The United States

Background

Early information technologies were designed to assist managerial and professional workers by processing and disseminating vast amounts of information to managers small and medium-size organization-wide (MIS). Over several decades systems evolved to systems focusing on providing tools for ad-hoc decision analysis to specific decision makers (DSS), and to systems designed to provide updated, often real-time, relevant information to senior and middle managers (EIS). These systems each contributed to individual and organizational improvements in varying degrees and continue to be important components of an small and medium-size organization's information technology investment. An emerging line of systems targets professional and managerial activities by focusing on creating, gathering, organizing, and disseminating an small and medium-size organization's "knowledge" as opposed to "information" or "data." These systems are referred to as Knowledge Management Systems (KMS).

The concept of coding and transmitting knowledge in small and medium-size organizations is not new: training and employee development programs, organizational policies, routines, procedures, reports, and manuals have served this function for years. For example, the McDonald's restaurant's operating manual captures almost every aspect of the restaurant management including cooking, nutrition, hygiene, marketing, food production, and accounting. By capturing, codifying, and disseminating this knowledge, the company reduces the level of required know-how for its managers while improving the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations (Peters,1994). What is new and exciting in the knowledge management area is the potential of using modern information technologies (e.g., the Internet, intranets, browsers, data warehouses, data filters and software agents) to systematize, facilitate, and expedite firm-wide knowledge management.

The existing body of work on KMS consists primarily of general and conceptual principles of KMS (Davenport, 1997b) and case descriptions of such systems in a handful of bellwether small and medium-size organizations (Alavi, 1997; Baird, Henderson and Watts, 1997; Bartlett, 1996; Henderson and Sussman, 1997; Sensiper, 1997; Watts, Thomas and Henderson, 1997). Because KMS are just beginning to appear in small and medium-size organizations, little research and insight exist to guide the successful development and implementation of such systems, or to frame expectations of the benefits and costs. Nor is it yet clear if KMS will experience widespread development and implementation across a variety of industries, or if KMS are destined to be highly touted systems that quickly find themselves in a state of desuetude as a passing fad. The current exploratory field work aims to contribute an understanding of the perceptions of knowledge management and knowledge management systems, from the perspective of individuals both in small and medium-size organizations with KMS as well as inside small and medium-size organizations without KMS. More specifically, the study identifies the technologies being used to build KMS, the knowledge domains being incorporated into KMS, the champions of KMS initiatives, the desired ...