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

Identifying and Ranking <strong>the</strong> Critical Success Factors in <strong>the</strong>
Implementation <strong>of</strong> Knowledge Management Using <strong>the</strong>
DELPHI Method: A Case Study <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Municipality <strong>of</strong> 22th
district <strong>of</strong> Tehran
Manouchehr Ansari 1 , Hossein Rahmany Youshanlouei 2,1 Mohammad
Mirkazemi Mood 1 , Nima sarabi1, and Younis Jabarzadeh 1
1
University <strong>of</strong> Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2
Member <strong>of</strong> Young Researchers Club, Islamic Azad University, Salmas Branch
mansari@ut.ac.ir
rahmani82@gmail.com
mohamad_mirkazemi@yahoo.com
nimasarabi@yahoo.com
yjabarzade@gmail.com
Abstract: Today, one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most important ways to achieve competitive advantage is <strong>the</strong> implementation <strong>of</strong>
knowledge management. To be successful in this process, we should know and manage critical success factors
<strong>of</strong> knowledge management. In this paper, after reviewing research literature and <strong>the</strong>n using Delphi method, we
reached to a list <strong>of</strong> 21 components which were categorized into 5 groups that make our final list <strong>of</strong> critical
success factors. These are: organizational culture, organizational structure, leadership and strategy, IT
infrastructure, and human resource. Finally, using <strong>the</strong> Friedman test <strong>the</strong> relative importance <strong>of</strong> factors was
studied and <strong>the</strong> results indicate that <strong>the</strong> relative importance <strong>of</strong> factors is different.
Keywords: knowledge management, critical success factors, culture, structure, Delphi
1. Introduction
Emergence <strong>of</strong> ICT and its influence on all aspects <strong>of</strong> human life have brought about new paradigms
and change in human life (Glaser 2003). Organizations are not excluded from this and <strong>the</strong>y have
faced many changes and developments too. In <strong>the</strong> era <strong>of</strong> rapid changes and growing complexities,
Organizations, in order to achieve competitive advantages and continue to survive and deal with
changing environmental conditions, are using modern management tools, techniques and principles
(Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995).
Knowledge management as one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> latest organizational issues has been introduced to help
organizations. In <strong>the</strong> realm <strong>of</strong> management, Knowledge management encompasses a variety <strong>of</strong>
topics. This is due to <strong>the</strong> transformation and movement <strong>of</strong> industry-based economic systems toward
knowledge-based communities and knowledge-based economic development (Davenport and Grover
2001). Knowledge as one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> main factors <strong>of</strong> competitive advantage has been known in large and
small industrial and service enterprises. If organizations consider <strong>the</strong> issue <strong>of</strong> knowledge carefully,
<strong>the</strong>y will realize <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> existing knowledge in <strong>the</strong>ir organization is more than what <strong>the</strong>y have
already recognized (Ibid).
Knowledge management is a process that organizations produce wealth <strong>of</strong> knowledge and intellectual
capital (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995). Very simply, knowledge management is a process in which
organizations create value from intellectual and knowledge - based assets. Often, creating value
requires knowledge sharing between employees, organizational units or even among o<strong>the</strong>r
organizations. Successful managers always use intellectual assets in <strong>the</strong>ir organizations and have
realized its importance; but most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se activities have been done unsystematically with no defined
structure so that <strong>the</strong> managers could not be assure <strong>of</strong> spreading and deploying gained knowledge in
<strong>the</strong> organization. It is estimated that 85 percent <strong>of</strong> organizational knowledge assets have been placed
in e-mails, word processing s<strong>of</strong>tware and presentation files ra<strong>the</strong>r than storing in organization
knowledge databases (Turban 2003).
According to ano<strong>the</strong>r definition, knowledge management is a process or activity for creating,
obtaining, capturing, sharing and applying knowledge to increase learning and performance <strong>of</strong>
organizations (Swan 1999). Considering all issues, in simple words, knowledge management can be
used as <strong>the</strong> optimized processing <strong>of</strong> intellectual capital to achieve organizational goals. Today,
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