Preface for the Third Edition - Read

13. Organization 487
employees. Table C-27 shows the distribution of responding organizations according
to the two measures for participation and KM activity:
rate of participation: the share of employees participating in KM activities compared
to the total number of employees (Table C-27),
rate of KM activity: the share of active participants compared to the number of
employees participating in KM activities (Table C-28).
In seven organizations (18.9%), all employees participated in the KM activities,
thus the rate of participation was 100% (see Table C-27). In eight organizations
(21.6%), less than one percent of the employees shared in the benefits of KM
efforts. In more than two thirds of the organizations (70.3%) less than half of the
employees participated. Generally, the rate of participation varied widely: from
core groups or nuclei of knowledge management (share < 1%, 8 cases) via low (<
10%, 6 cases), medium (< 50%, 12 cases) and high penetration (< 100%, 4 cases)
to all-encompassing efforts (100%, 7 cases).
TABLE C-27. Rate of participation
x =
participants
-------------------------------employees
frequency percent
x < 0.10% 3 8.11
0.10 x < 1.00% 5 13.51
1.00 x < 10.00% 6 16.22
10.00 x < 25.00% 6 16.22
25.00 x < 50.00% 6 16.22
50.00 x < 75.00% 3 8.11
75.00 x < 100.00% 1 2.70
100% 7 18.92
total 37 100.00
Concerning the rate of KM activity, in more than two thirds of the organizations
(69%) at least every tenth participant actively contributed to KM whereas in only
one case the rate was lower than 1 percent (see Table C-28). The mean rate of KM
activity in the responding organizations was 32.5%. Thus, it can be concluded that
KM is in most organizations a highly interactive effort turning a great proportion of
the supported employees from passive receivers of organizational communication
into active participants of KMS.
The distinction between a high and a low rate of KM activity is especially
important for mid-range KM initiatives because it might reflect the process of
selecting participants. If experts with special KM needs spread across organizational
units are selected, then the rate of KM activity will be high. If a selected
business process or organizational unit is targeted no matter whether there are a