KM criteria and success of KM programs: an assessment on criteria from importance and effectiveness perspectives

Abstract

Abstract In the current economy, core competencies and high performance have two primary bases, which are knowledge and intellectual capital. In fact, exploiting knowledge assets of a company is a crucial issue to creating sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, knowledge can be seen as a critical success factor for organizational performance. Similar to other business initiatives, knowledge management implementation can be seen as an investment decision and therefore its performance outcomes must be evaluated and measured. A useful set of measures grants actionable insight on providing set of performance metrics. Performance metrics also provide for accountability by outlining what is anticipated, when it is anticipated, and what action will be chosen if planned outcomes do not occur. To measure success of KM initiatives, companies need to establish metrics based on the set of KM criteria. As literature review revealed, no comprehensive sets of KM criteria have yet been developed. The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of KM criteria for organizations in the identification of performance measures oriented to knowledge management initiatives, which allow for assessing KM outcomes. A survey instrument provided a set of 26 criteria to respondents. Respondents then were requested to assign a Likert score to importance and effectiveness of each criterion. Juxtaposing importance and effectiveness open new window to organizations to discover most favored KM criteria. It is hoped that this study provides a better picture for organizations to establish a comprehensive set of criteria due to measure results of KM programs.