Preface for the Third Edition - Read

15. Economics 573
(67.7%) were the most important barriers to KM (Bullinger et al. 1997). In the
1998 KPMG study respondents also felt that lack of time (49% strongly or somewhat
agreeing), lack of understanding of KM and benefits (40%), lack of funding
(24%) and lack of senior management support (24%) were important barriers to
effective KM (KPMG 1998, 16). In the Jäger/Straub (1999) study, scarcity of time
(47.6% thought this barrier was highly important), lack of awareness (45.8%) and
lack of management support (44.0%) were the most important barriers to KM
whereas employees consciously holding back knowledge (20.0%) and too highly
specialized employees (4.8%) were the least important barriers.
The Delphi study showed that immature technology (20%), cost (9%) or lack of
need (3%) were only minor obstacles to KM when compared to culture which was
named by more than half of the organizations (53%) as the most important barrier
(Delphi 1997, 20). This is a similar finding than in the FH Cologne study which
found that more than half of the responding organizations (50.4%) had problems
with employees accepting KM (Döring-Katerkamp/Trojan 2000, 8). 25.1% encountered
problems with selecting the “right” (software) components to support KM,
however, only 11.2% experienced problems with implementing or installing these
components in their organization. In the 2001 KPMG study lack of time (65%), the
sharing of one’s “own” knowledge (62%), an unclear strategy (47%), weaknesses
of the ICT support (44%) and unclear information demand (38%) were cited as the
most important barriers to effective KM (KPMG 2001, 17).
Thus, it seems that from a technological perspective KM can be well supported
by sophisticated KMS if organizations succeed in convincing participants of the
advantages of knowledge sharing and organizing knowledge in a way that
improves usability of the systems. In a substantial part of the organizations, the
existing ICT infrastructure seems to be not well prepared to handle the increased
requirements of a KM initiative, though.
There are substantial differences between the studies concerning two common
prejudices about reasons hampering KM: Only 16% of the respondents surveyed
by KPMG UK (1998) and only 20% of the HR managers in the Jäger/Straub (1999)
study felt that employees were unwilling to share knowledge whereas in the 2001
KPMG study it was the second most frequently cited barrier. 62% said that the
willingness to share knowledge created a barrier to KM (KPMG 2001, 17). In the
latter study, only frequencies were investigated, though, and thus no statement can
be made concerning the importance of this barrier. Additionally, in the same study
only 35% said that employees were unwilling to accept foreign knowledge and
only 26% thought that there was a lack of trust in the knowledge presented (KPMG
2001, 17). As for the second commonly held prejudice—information overload—
only 14% of the respondents in the 1998 KPMG study and only 4.8% of the HR
managers in the Jäger/Straub study said that there was too much knowledge
(KPMG 1998, 17, Jäger/Straub 1999, 23).
Table C-53 summarizes the most important barriers to KM and shows the corresponding
values found in the various studies. However, the results cannot be com-