Knowledge Management

In M. Ed Master course I am studying, I am taking Knowledge Management (KM) as for elective course. I did choose that course as I do have a strong interest on that topic and I believe that KM will be one of the useful tools for my career path. In the course, it is focused on the KM in organization however, in my opinion, KM happens in individual and other groups in different situations. Among the success stories of KM I have read, I found one case study interesting for me as it was about why KM fails in one of the successful company in Hong Kong. That case study came up as the evaluation for 2 years long planned KM activities. In the case study, it was mentioned the company followed the important steps of implementing KM activities and needs assessment in the company. However, after two years later, it came out like unexpected unsuccessful results and outcomes. I was wondering even though the company applied successful KM activities and analysis with middle-up-down approach recommended by Nonaka, KM was failed to sustain successfully in the company.

Nevertheless, in that case study, the authors analyzed eight driving factors which contributed the failure of KM in the company.

(1) The top management was too ambitious or unrealistic to grasp and incorporate the best knowledge in industry into the company and their insufficient role support in encouraging the desired behavior.

(2) The mere presence of KM vision is not sufficient to guarantee KM success.

(3) There was no specific and appropriate guidelines for knowledge sharing activities had been devised.

(4) The instruments used to help acquire and stimulate knowledge creation and sharing encountered problems during implementation.

(5) Although a reward system was established for knowledge creation and sharing, the emphasis on extrinsic terms, such as monetary bonus, turned out to have an opposite and negative effect on cultivating the knowledge-sharing culture and trust among employees.

(6) There was a misleading notion that IT could be the cutting-edge solution to inspire KM in organization.

(7) It was noted that the KM initiative were left unattended once implemented.

(8) An undue emphasis and concern with the best practice knowledge at the company to improve short-term benefits at the expense of long-term goals.

As I learned from that case study is that adaptation is needed in any organization even though successful KM tools recommended by famous  scholars are applied, it is far way to be successful without adaptation which in line with the nature and culture of the company or the organization.