Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Jan Pawlowski and Markus Bick
processes served as guidance to take different phases into account and to connect <strong>the</strong>m to basic
work processes. Additionally, <strong>the</strong> international collaboration processes were designed.
Providing a supporting infrastructure: Based on <strong>the</strong> barriers, support tools were planned which
are made available in a tool library (Niemann et al., 2010). The barriers from <strong>the</strong> GKMF were
extended by specific barriers in <strong>the</strong> educational domain. Based on those, tools as well as multiple
tools were selected to 1) overcome barriers, 2) support <strong>the</strong> combination <strong>of</strong> business and
knowledge processes, and 3) to address culture specific issues.
Assessing <strong>the</strong> success <strong>of</strong> collaboration: The success <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> scenario is essential for both, <strong>the</strong>
project itself as it is funded by <strong>the</strong> <strong>European</strong> Commission and thus needs to show clear success
indicators as well as <strong>the</strong> internal validation to create continuous improvements. The indicators are
based on <strong>the</strong> knowledge-focused indicators <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> GKMF.
Providing recommendations for improvement: Based on <strong>the</strong> assessment and <strong>the</strong> framework
relations itself, improvement recommendations within <strong>the</strong> project are generated. However, <strong>the</strong>re is
no guidance for this process in <strong>the</strong> GKMF, just <strong>the</strong> inherent idea <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> model to understand <strong>the</strong>
relations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> KM components.
GKMF was not used in a normative way but as a guiding instrument to support stakeholders such as
designers, researchers and project members. The project made us aware <strong>of</strong> mainly all knowledge
related aspects <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> model. Some extensions needed to be done due to <strong>the</strong> domain-specific
characteristics. For all users, <strong>the</strong> model was seen as helpful to avoid time-consuming comparison <strong>of</strong>
fur<strong>the</strong>r scenarios as those are already incorporated in <strong>the</strong> framework. In most cases, <strong>the</strong> guidance
was appreciated as a useful guideline. As <strong>the</strong> model is formulated in natural language, understanding
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> components was ra<strong>the</strong>r simple and needed no fur<strong>the</strong>r facilitation. Also <strong>the</strong> assessment metrics
were considered as very useful to provide evidence <strong>of</strong> success to <strong>the</strong> funding agency.
As a summary, <strong>the</strong> model served its intended purposes as a guideline which provides a solution
space but not <strong>the</strong> solution itself. In particular, <strong>the</strong> availability <strong>of</strong> barriers, success factors and inherent
recommendations (process embedding, analysis references) were regarded as most useful. It can be
said that <strong>the</strong> model was appreciated as a “toolbox” but not as a restricting procedure. The
observations show also that <strong>the</strong> adaptation need for <strong>the</strong> domain was small which could also be due to
<strong>the</strong> reason that educational processes were given as an example in <strong>the</strong> description <strong>of</strong> process
alternatives.
The model has proven successful based on <strong>the</strong> observations and results <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> case study. The case
was successfully supported by utilizing components and component-relations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> GKMF. However,
<strong>the</strong> case study is limited, methodologically as well as regarding <strong>the</strong> application domain. Fur<strong>the</strong>r
studies for o<strong>the</strong>r domains, contexts, and stakeholders need to be performed to understand <strong>the</strong>
generalizability <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> GKMF framework.
7. Conclusion and future research
In our paper, we have created a solution space for global knowledge management by providing a
framework identifying and harmonizing KM research efforts in <strong>the</strong> global context. We were able to
observe <strong>the</strong> usefulness <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> model in a case study which also led us to fur<strong>the</strong>r research needs.
As a next step, we intend to utilize <strong>the</strong> model for fur<strong>the</strong>r research plans and apply and assess <strong>the</strong>
model in different contexts. We believe that <strong>the</strong> model can contribute to provide proven guidance,
create comparative research models and to provide an evaluation opportunity for actors in <strong>the</strong> field.
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