KM infrastructural capabilities have a significant positive effect on KM success
IT has been identified by a number of studies as a major determinant of KM success (e.g. Purvis et al., 2001). The quality and speed of knowledge transfer, for example, is considerably improved with the support of technologies (Ruggles, 1998). Common IT applications employed by firms include intranets, knowledge repositories and group decision support systems. KM tools can be classified into three general categories: generation, codification, and transfer (Ruggles, 1997). Knowledge generation requires tools that enable the acquisition, synthesis, and creation of knowledge.
Knowledge codification tools support the representation of knowledge so that it can be accessed and transferred. The capabilities of these tools vary depending on the targeted knowledge – i.e., process knowledge, factual knowledge, catalog knowledge, and cultural knowledge – and on whether that knowledge is explicit or tacit. Types of codification tools include knowledge bases, knowledge maps, organizational thesaurus/dictionaries, and simulators. Knowledge transfer tools alleviate the temporal, physical, and social distances in knowledge sharing. An alternative framework for classifying KM tools and technologies consists of five categories: business intelligence, collaboration, transfer, expertise, and discovery / mapping. Such frameworks can help organizations to select the appropriate technology for a given KM task.
Mere adoption of information technologies, however, does not necessarily achieve its intended purposes. According to the theory of technology assimilation (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Fichman and Kemerer, 1997), technologies must be infused and diffused into business processes to enhance organizational performance. Assimilation is defined as “the extent to which the use of a technology diffuses across organizational work processes and becomes routinized in activates associated with those processes” (Tornatzky and Klein, 1982; Chatterjee et al., 2002). It is a key factor that explains the influence of IT adoption on organizational performance (Jarvenpaa and lves, 1991; Armstrong and Sambamurthy, 1999; Chatterjee et al., 2002). In the initial adoption stage, it is challenging yet users need to reconceptualize business process activities in order to use the technology effectively (Saga and Zmud, 1994; Fichman and Kemerer, 1997; Purvis et al., 2001). These challenges constitute ‘assimilation gaps’, i.e. the lag of rates of adoption between the organization and individuals (Chatterjee et al., 2002). Successful utilization hence requires, among other things (e.g. ease of use and reduced complexity etc.), mutual adaptation of the technology and the organizational context (Leonard-Barton, 1988; Purvis et al., 2001). In other words, IT must be adapted to the organizational and industrial arrangements (Van de Ven, 1986), while structures and norms may also need to be reformed to facilitate the use of the technologies (Kwon and Zmud, 1987). In the enablers or KM, IT should therefore become the enablers of KM processes to exhibit its effect on KM success. Without such assimilation within the KM processes, IT alone is not sufficient to improve firm performance. We hence hypothesize that IT does not affect KM success directly. Instead, its effect is fully mediated through KM process capabilities.
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