Successful knowledge management requires a knowledge culture: a case study

Wing Lam

Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 2005, vol. 3, issue 4, 206-217

Abstract: Culture is widely acknowledged to be a critical success factor in knowledge management (KM). This paper presents the case of KM implementation at MKS, an IT consulting firm based in India. Although the KM initiative at MKS had many of the hallmarks associated with successful KM projects, the initiative failed to get off the ground due to the absence of a ‘knowledge culture’ within the organisation. Subsequent interviews with MKS staff uncovered a range of cultural themes that appeared to impede the institutionalisation of KM at MKS. These cultural themes included: internal competitiveness among MKS staff resulting in ‘knowledge hoarding’,a lack of personal reward and incentive to engage in knowledge sharing,concerns over job security and the ‘devaluation’ of employees,stigma associated with the reliance on someone else's ideas,preference for a face-to-face mode of knowledge sharing over a tool-supported approach anddoubts over the quality of knowledge shared by more junior staff.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/palgrave.kmrp.8500068 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tkmrxx:v:3:y:2005:i:4:p:206-217

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tkmr20

DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.kmrp.8500068

Access Statistics for this article

Knowledge Management Research & Practice is currently edited by Giovanni Schiuma

More articles in Knowledge Management Research & Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().