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

Manouchehr Ansari et al
considering <strong>the</strong> competitive environment in Iran, organizations and companies concentrate on
obtaining more competitive advantages compared to <strong>the</strong>ir competitors. One <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> main leverages
with this respect, according to experts and scholars, is <strong>the</strong> implementation <strong>of</strong> knowledge
management. In order to be successful in this, we must know that areas in which results, if <strong>the</strong>y are
satisfactory, will ensure successful implementation <strong>of</strong> knowledge management. This is a new issue,
particularly in Iranian companies and organizations. These areas which are known as success factors
are those few key areas where things must go right for <strong>the</strong> successful accomplishment <strong>of</strong> our goals.
They are variables which management can influence through its decisions. The purpose <strong>of</strong> this study
is to identify those affecting factors –success factors- related to <strong>the</strong> successful implementation <strong>of</strong>
knowledge management in order to reach a ranking <strong>of</strong> affecting factors on success <strong>of</strong> KM
implementation. For this, we chose Municipality <strong>of</strong> 22th district <strong>of</strong> Tehran. It is one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> leading
public organizations in Iran in <strong>the</strong> adoption <strong>of</strong> new ICT technologies and knowledge management
implementation.
Research flowchart is shown in figure1:
Figure 1: Research flowchart
The remaining <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> paper is organized as follows:
In <strong>the</strong> next section, initially, <strong>the</strong> definitions <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> success factors and also past researches in this field
will be presented. Then <strong>the</strong> related literature to <strong>the</strong> success factors <strong>of</strong> knowledge management
implementation will be reviewed. After this, <strong>the</strong> process for identifying and weighting <strong>the</strong> related
success factors are described which was done through Delphi method. Finally conclusion and
recommendations for fur<strong>the</strong>r researches will be presented.
2. Critical Success Factors in Implementation <strong>of</strong> KM
Critical success factors are used for identifying and prioritizing <strong>the</strong> classified technical systems <strong>of</strong>
business necessities (Flynn and Arce 1997). As Somers and Nelson assert, <strong>the</strong>se factors are
constant examples that will help <strong>the</strong> process improvement and if <strong>the</strong> process has been considered
appropriate, it will have a large impact (Somers and Nelson 2001). Using knowledge management is
not a one-day activity but also it needs coherent programs and changes in strategy and processes. In
knowledge management efforts, like o<strong>the</strong>r business activities, significant results in a series <strong>of</strong> limited
areas is leading to successful performances.
These areas are named as Critical Success Factors <strong>of</strong> KM (Stankosky and Carolyn 2001).
According to this study, knowledge management is a set <strong>of</strong> factors that leads to project success by
coordinating and effective interaction with each o<strong>the</strong>r. Malhotra& Galletta (2003), while studying <strong>the</strong>
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