Developing effective knowledge management systems

Abstract

This paper examines possible shortfalls in the design of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and proposes a way to design more effective KMS using meta-knowledge. We develop a theoretical framework for identifying the best design features necessary to support effective KM in organizations. We then apply this framework to identify possible weaknesses of 40 KMS in four different categories of tools: content management, knowledge sharing, knowledge retrieval, and general KMS. Our findings show that one of the problems in the design of existing KMS is the lack of a unified approach to meta-knowledge (knowledge about the knowledge). In the second part of the paper we propose an empirical evaluation of users’ meta-knowledge requirements using the Delphi methodology as well as conjoint analysis. We hope that our findings can be used to support the development of more effective KMS.