Knowledge Management Systems Acceptance

Abstract

Knowledge management is a set of systematic actions that organizations can take to obtain the greatest value from the knowledge available to it (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Systematic means that knowledge management is made up of intentional actions in an organizational context. Value means that knowledge management is measured according to how knowledge management projects contribute to increased organizational ability (see for example Prieto & Gutiérrez, 2001; see Goldkuhl & Braf, 2002, on the subject of organizational ability). The motivation for knowledge management is that the key to competitive advantage for organizations in today’s business world is organizations’ ability to manage knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Knowledge management as an intentional and value-adding action is not easy to accomplish in practice (Scarbrough & Swan, 1999). Scarbrough and Swan (1999) present several case studies in knowledge management, successful and unsuccessful in their respective knowledge management projects. A major point and lessons learned from the case studies is that prevalent approaches in knowledge management overstate technology and understate how technology is implemented and applied. To succeed with knowledge management, encompassing development of information technology-based information system, some requirements have to be fulfilled. An important aspect in the development process is system acceptance. Implementation is at large a process of acceptance. Implementation is the process where the system becomes an integrated part of the users’ or workers’ work practice. Therefore implementation is essential to make a knowledge management project successful in order attain an increased organizational ability and to succeed with knowledge management.