Preface for the Third Edition - Read

430 B. Concepts and Theories
Many of the KMS functions aim at a stronger support of a more active role of
users than is the case in basic Intranet systems. In Intranet solutions, the publication,
structuring and organization of documents are often centralized. Looking at
the market for KMS, the most propagated benefits of the use of KMS are that it is a
lot easier to document, publish and distribute knowledge elements, to comment on
documents, to locate and to communicate with knowledge providers as well as
knowledge seekers, to share in an electronic discussion or to give feedback to questions
or proposals of participants or experts than before. Additionally, the integration
between documentation, contextualization and communication functions eases
direct or indirect interactions between participants.
Hypothesis 22: The more employees have access to Groupware and/or KMS, the
more they are willing to share knowledge
The implementation of Groupware tools or KMS requires that the organization
focuses more on the support of groups and teams as well as the communication and
collaboration between groups and teams. The higher the share of employees who
can access these systems, the easier it is for these employees to exchange ideas
within and between groups and teams and the more groups and teams are emphasized
as the units holding documents and receiving messages rather than the individual.
This heightened awareness, the increased ability to share knowledge, the
higher visibility of groups and teams as well as the easing of knowledge-related
tasks with respect to groups might support willingness to share knowledge.
Additionally, the following hypothesis concerning general success of the KM
initiatives will be tested:
Hypothesis 23: The more rigorously knowledge management is established in an
organization, the more business goals are achieved in that organization
Rigor of the systematic establishment of knowledge management will be measured
according to the investment in KM per participant. There were two measures
for this: firstly, the ratio KM expenses divided by the number of participants and
secondly the number of employees assigned to KM divided by the number of participants.
Supposed that KM instruments generally support the achievement of business
goals, then the more organizations invest into that approach, the more they
should benefit.
Relationships between the organizational design of a KM initiative, the use of
contents and the application of KMS and the achievement of business goals will be
explored along with this hypothesis. As the state of theory in this area is still in its
infancy, the statistical tests will be run in the sense of exploratory research and
used to generate hypotheses for subsequent studies. The following measures will
be correlated to business goals:
Reporting level of the head of knowledge management. This measure is a good
indicator for the attention that the organization pays to KM. The higher the attention
and the closer the KM initiative to the CEO, the more probable it is that business
goals can be supported with the help of this initiative.