The impact of semantic knowledge management system on firms' innovation and competitiveness

D.B.A ThesisIn the knowledge economy, knowledge is increasingly becoming the primary factor of production and foundational component of innovation. Firms must improve their capabilities of handling knowledge in line with its recent explosive growth to stay competitive. This research addresses the effects semantic technology-based knowledge management system (Semantic KMS) can have on firms’ performance. Based on existing literature, a conceptual model covering Semantic KMS, KM, innovation, and competitiveness was designed to test the validity of the hypotheses. A total of 640 survey questionnaires were sent to the companies that practice KM actively. 178 usable responses were received. Pearson’s correlation, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The results indicate that Semantic KMS is positively related to the KM effectiveness. Organizational KM is positively linked to innovation and competitiveness directly. In the context of KM, innovation's effect on competitiveness is not convincing. Moreover, the study could not identify that KM has any strong relationship with organizational competitiveness mediated through innovation. Being one of the first significant studies of Semantic KMS and its impact, the study adds to the growing literature on the use of semantic technology in various fields. It develops a new theoretical model which has never been tested before. The study used data collected from single respondent of each firm in a snapshot and did not consider feedback effects. It examined Semantic KMS as a holistic system, but in many cases, companies only deploy certain KM related tools supported by semantic technology. A different research approach could investigate the impacts of those tools on relevant business processes. This study demonstrates that deployment of semantic technology is beneficial for companies and allows them to take advantage of the use of advanced technologies in their KM quest. It brings significant benefits to the firm thanks to improved capabilities of the new KMS in knowledge discovery, aggregation, use, and sharing. The study also confirms that for a successful KM initiative, KM processes need to be optimized and supported by KMS. Semantic technology is a set of advanced tools used lately in many information systems. This study is one of the first in-depth research about their impacts on KMS. It will guide KM managers in their decision-making process when they consider developing or integrating newKMS tools. For academics, this research highlights the importance of investigating KM from the new technology perspective.

KIBS, Knowledge Management and Digital Product Service Systems: an explorative investigation

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Leveraging Customer Knowledge in Electronic Knowledge Repositories for Service Expertise

This study examines how three dimensions of electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs), namely customer knowledge level, customer knowledge integration and accessibility of customer knowledge, contribute to increasing customer service representatives (CSRs)’ service expertise and their customer knowledge utilization and acquisition. Furthermore, the study empirically tests the proposition that service quality is influenced by CSRs’ service expertise and their customer knowledge utilization and acquisition. To test the proposed model and hypotheses, data were collected on CSRs working for call centers using EKRs such as knowledge management systems. All the hypothesized relationships were found to be significant except that between customer knowledge acquisition and service quality. Service expertise was strongly affected by customer knowledge level. While customer knowledge utilization was strongly increased by the accessibility of customer knowledge, customer knowledge acquisition was strongly increased by customer knowledge integration. This study offers an insight into how EKRs, which will have been accumulated by firms over time, ultimately influence the performance of CSRs

Organizational Knowledge Sharing Culture and KMS Effectiveness

Organizations are increasingly adopting Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) to realize firm and operational level benefits. Many KMS fail to yield desired outcomes due to the lack of understanding of the antecedents of successful KMS. Prior studies have established organizational culture as a key antecedent of successful KM. This study investigates the relationship between KMS effectiveness, in terms of its impact on performance, and organizations’ knowledge culture. We develop a model of organizational knowledge processes and employ simulations to examine how the cultural values that govern the employees’ knowledge seeking and sharing propensities influence the impact of KMS on decision making performance. We find that knowledge seeking propensities have a greater influence on KMS effectiveness than knowledge sharing propensities. We also find organizational cultures that foster such knowledge sharing behaviors can expect greater and sustainable performance gains if proactive knowledge seeking is incorporated into work processes

Antecedents And Outcomes Of Knowledge Retention

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan faktor-faktor yang membolehkan kejayaan pengekalan pengetahuan dalam syarikat, dan juga hasil pengekalan pengetahuan terhadap prestasi syarikat. This research seeks to identify the antecedents which act as the enablers to the success of knowledge retention in an organization, as well as the outcome of knowledge retention on organization’s performance

A multiple perspectives review of knowledge management literature

This paper reviews articles on knowledge management (KM) research published in journals within the disciplines of Information Systems (IS), Computer Science (CS), Information Technology (IT), Business & Management, and Sociology.Multiple Perspectives Theory (Mitroff and Linstone, 1993) was used as a theoretical framework to classify KM research into three perspectives, namely technical, organizational and personal perspectives.The multiple perspective classification of KM research is then used to analyze articles which discuss research issues related to KM.The review found that the most dominant perspective adopted mainly by researchers is the organizational (O) perspective.The O perspective is adopted mainly by researchers within the social science, and business & management disciplines.KM articles within the O perspective mainly discuss the organization’s capability to manage knowledge as a resource for competitive advantage.The technical (T) perspective of KM research is mainly adopted by researchers within the CS, IT, and IS disciplines. The T perspective of KM research discusses the technology that can be used to support KM process in an organization. Very few articles approach KM from a personal (P) perspective, which discusses attitudes and behavior of KM stakeholders

Knowledge Management in Organizations: Gateway to Sustainable Competitive Performance

The important role of knowledge management as a strategic resource in a competitive business environment cannot be overemphasized. Today’s business is plagued with turbulence and stringent competition in the world market resulting in paradigmatic paralysis, and significant organizational changes that necessitate salient and innovative operational processes. For survival, organizations must monitor trends and adapt to both the external and internal environments, make changes in the form of innovation, improve operational processes, increase flexibility and adopt sustainable knowledge-creation activities. This study is qualitative. An in-depth review of literature was conducted across multiple online research databases, supported by accrued knowledge obtained from the author’s long work experience in the field of knowledge management. This study has three objectives: The first is to provide an overview of knowledge management; the second is to highlight the role of knowledge management in supporting organizational goals and objectives; the third is to provide strategies and pathways to a successful implementation of knowledge management. The study argues and justifies why knowledge management practices should be adopted by management. Pathways to achieving organizational success have been designed. Major advantages of implementing knowledge management were elaborated. Findings reveal that for an organization to effectively implement knowledge management, and to achieve optimal organizational performance, attention must be paid to three key components: - people, processes, and technology. These components should liaise strategically, with knowledge creation, sharing, and application processes. The paper strongly recommends knowledge management as the key to sustainable organizational performance

An empirical investigation of knowledge management support for software projects.

Projects are unique by definition. Due to this novelty software development projects, in common with all other projects, require knowledge for effective implementation. Most knowledge management frameworks reported in the literature address the organisational need to manage knowledge. The existing frameworks typically discuss the dichotomy between tacit and explicit knowledge, and lay an emphasis on managing the latter. However, software development projects rely upon the experience, creativity and intuition of individual team members to address unstructured situations typified by inherent uncertainty, ambiguity and change. Therefore software projects require the facilitation and interaction of tacit knowledge along with managing and leveraging explicit knowledge.This research examines how tacit and explicit knowledge generated while implementing a software development project can be leveraged and effectively reused in future software projects. In order to address the need to provide knowledge management support to software projects an extended case study was conducted at one of the world's largest software project-based organisations. The aim of the research was to identify and analyse the flow of knowledge, and the capabilities required to support this flow. The research design utilised a combination of open-ended interviews, survey questionnaires, observations of team functioning, work methods and development practices, and a detailed examination of the knowledge management infrastructure and process capabilities. The extensive and exceptional access negotiated for this project enabled the research to focus on a single organisation and resulted in 100 hours of interviews and 340 hours of observations from 98 ongoing projects. Established case study protocols were used for data collection. The data analysis focused on determining categories from the different streams of activities and assigning attributes using Nudist software for data reduction and displaying group-nodes, and conclusion drawing. This enabled the research to establish the 'processual' nature of knowledge, and identify the capabilities required to mobilise and utilise knowledge assets. The research critically analysed the three parallel themes of knowledge management, project management and software engineering, and the outcome of the conceptual synthesis and validation is a dynamic model which represents the knowledge processes that facilitate the flow of tacit and explicit knowledge between software projects. The model depicts the relationships and interactions between the functional areas of the development effort, and presents a continuous and long-term view of supporting the implementation of software projects and developing knowledge practices. For software project-based organisations this research has implications for their ability to manage context, provide feedback and facilitate interaction, and thus build upon their existing knowledge resources and capabilities. The research provides such organisations with a perspective to achieve excellence not only through optimisation of software process improvement, but also through learning, and, the creation and sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge as facilitated by the proposed model