Preface for the Third Edition - Read

402 B. Concepts and Theories
an organizational knowledge base, matter most for a subsequent KM initiative
(Amelingmeyer 2000, 176ff).
environment/market
knowledge
balance
sheet (t )
0
financial
balance
sheet (t )
0
opening
balance
sheet
business
goals
knowledge
goals
change incentives
to motivate
knowledge creation
and sharing
transfer
best practices
implement
ICT infrastructure
interventions
employees
motivated to
apply knowledge
improved use
of ICT
reduced
operative
costs
accelerated
decisions
FIGURE B-78. Framework to measure knowledge and knowledge transformations 620
The existing approaches to measure an organization’s intangible assets in general
and the success of KM initiatives in particular as briefly reviewed above lack
operationalization. Probst et al. simply suggest to measure system use of e.g., an
Intranet as part of the operative assessment of knowledge goals (Probst et al. 1998,
336). Other than that, success or failure of a KMS in these frameworks is only
assessed at a highly aggregate level, e.g., with respect to measures such as turnover
per employee or the share of investments in ICT infrastructure as compared to the
organization’s total value added, the fluctuation of experts or the share of customers
that improve the organization’s competencies (also Sveiby 1998, 263). These
are all measures that are influenced by the use of KMS, but also by a large number
of other interventions into an organization’s way of handling knowledge and environmental
changes as well.
Thus, the frameworks have to be detailed in order to provide an instrument
which can be applied to the assessment of the success of KMS. As KMS are a special
group of information systems, the literature dealing with measuring success of
information systems provides a good starting point for the development of a more
detailed framework to assess the success of KMS.
8.3 Information systems success
This section reviews the literature on IS success measurement (section 8.3.1). On
the basis of this literature review, the DeLone/McLean (1992) model for IS success
620. Source: North et al. 1998, 164.
improved understanding
of
customer needs
products better
meet customer
requirem ents
higher
product quality
accelerated
response time
intermediate effects
measure results
improved
customer
benefits
improved
customer
satisfa c tion
more orders
higher market
penetration
aggregated
operational
results
in the
time interval
[t ;t ]
0 1
knowledge
balance
sheet (t )
1
financial
balance
sheet (t )
1
closing
balance
sheet