Peter Baloh, PhD
I have successfully defended my doctoral dissertation at Faculty of Economics today in front of the committee:
- Prof Dr Talib Damij, Faculty of Economics at University of Ljubljana, defense chair, committe member
- Prof Dr Cene Bavec, Faculty of Management Koper at University of Primorska, committee member
- Prof Dr Kevin C Desouza, Information School at University of Washington, dissertation committee chair, advisor
The title of the dissertation was: Towards Knowledge Needs-Technology Fit Model for Knowledge Management Systems. The extended abstract is as follows:
Improving how knowledge is leveraged in organizations for improved business performance is today considered as a major organizational challenge. Knowledge management (KM) projects are stigmatized as demanding, fuzzy and complex, with questionable outcomes. While information technology (IT) is seen as important factor in KM-related organizational activities, more than 70% of technologically enabled KM initiatives fail, according to some statistics. Existing research and practice shows that knowledge management systems (KMS) are many times used indiscriminately, without regard to the type of knowledge being managed or the nature of work being conducted by the knowledge worker. To the best of researcher knowledge, the current literature has not yet provided an answer on how to go about designing KMS. The basic proposition of this research is that KMS has to fit knowledge needs and that the latter will differ across different organizational contexts. In order for KMS to provide value, KMS-design process needs to account for these differences and suggest what kind of technology meets these needs. The tentative design model suggested in this research tells how to analyze knowledge needs of employees, and how the nature of knowledge needs influences the design of a KMS that enables and supports knowledge creation and utilization in everyday working practices. Based on thorough scrutiny, synthesis and combination of existing literature from fields of Information Systems (IS), KM, and management/organizational science, and based on findings of rigorously executed multiple qualitative case study, a KMS design model is suggested in this design-science-type research. Besides a practically relevant question, the choice of research approach is also timely; recently, there has been an increasing demand for this type of research in prominent IS journals (Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Hevner et al., 2004; March & Storey, 2008; Markus & Saunders, 2007; Straub & Ang, 2008; Venkatesh & Ramesh, 2006). Taking steps in appropriately grounding the model in existing theories (i.e. Process value of IT theory (Barua et al., 1995; Barua & Mukhopadhyay, 2000; Sambamurthy, 2001; Tallon et al., 2000), Evolutionary information processing theory (Li & Kettinger, 2006)), and Task-Technology Fit concept (Goodhue, 1995; Zigurs & Buckland, 1998)) ensured indispensable rigor in the build phase of research. Similarly, in empirical part, appropriate steps were taken in the data analysis and data collection to ensure plausibility of findings. Undertaking an exploratory study in Parsons Brinckerhoff, knowledge intensive multinational engineering company, helped in establishing face validity of the initially (theoretically) proposed model. To evaluate the model an in-depth exploratory qualitative case study was performed in Samsung Electronics, which has just undergone a similar organizational change project. Data-collection sites and key informants chosen for participation were of ‗revelatory‘ type, and findings from both ‗build‘ and ‗evaluation‘ phases were analytically generalized. The design model presented in this dissertation will enable the KM community to critically evaluate efforts underway to leverage organizational knowledge with KMS. The model suggested has made several advancements over the existing KMS work. Contrary to mainstream research, it confirmed that developing one company-wide KM solution could not be fruitful. This calls for a portfolio of KM solutions which are tailored to satisfy the knowledge needs of an individual. Next, it has introduced a Knowledge needs / KMS fit concept, which is not a monolithic or ‘black box‘ structure, but rather a well defined union of its rightful constituent parts. Additionally, practitioner guidelines on how to use the model to build KMSs as a part of knowledge-related organizational change projects were proposed. Hence, besides the model, first steps toward another design science artifact, a method on how to use the proposed model, were made. Findings represent the first step towards construction of a solid design theory and provides contributions to the growing literature on knowledge management, organizational learning, information systems, and strategic management.
I have learned immensely during the process. Now, it is time to harvest and breathe.
