Preface for the Third Edition - Read

568 C. State of Practice
15.1.3 Résumé
As noted earlier, KM is mostly a quite decentral approach, thus expenses tracked
and budgeted for KM are low, especially when compared to the willingness to
invest in KM analyzed in the ILOI study. Three groups of approaches can be identified:
small, informal KM initiatives with anywhere from zero to five employees
responsible for KM and less than 50,000 German marks total KM-related
expenses,
medium, project-based KM initiatives with around 7.5 employees assigned to
KM and mostly between 50,000 and 100,000 German marks spent,
large KM initiatives assigned to a separate organizational unit with 10 or more
employees and more than 100,000 German marks spent.
The vast majority of organizations has separate budgets for KM. As it is hard to
determine and value KM services, it is not surprising that only two organizations
used internal accounting to spread their KM expenses to those organizational units
that (supposedly) profit most from the approach. However, the “real” expenses
taken for KM might be much higher than indicated here as respondents might not
have included e.g., expenses taken by decentral units and expenses for the implementation
of KM platforms (Groupware, Intranet) as part of the KM budgets they
reported.
15.2 Benefits
One of the most difficult research questions in the MIS discipline is the measurement
of success of complex organizational initiatives involving the application of
information and communication technologies. There have been numerous variables,
models and approaches suggested which claim to guide organizations in the
assessment of the benefits they get from such initiatives 136 .
This section discusses the subjective assessments of the respondents concerning
the benefits of their KM initiatives in support of important business goals. Additionally,
the results of related empirical studies about success factors and barriers
of KM initiatives will be reviewed. Then, the measures for success of KMS will be
analyzed. The first group of measures deals with the use of knowledge management
systems and services. The second group investigates what effects selected
factors describing the organizational design, contents and systems as well as the
funding of a KM initiative had on the support of business goals as described above.
15.2.1 Support of business goals
The primary success measure used in this study was to what extent a KM initiative
supported the business goals of an organization. Apart from the summarizing vari-
136. See chapter 8 - “Economics” on page 395.