A large number of studies have been conducted during the last decade and a half attempting to identify those factors that contribute to information systems success. However, the dependent variable in these studies-I/S success-has been an elusive one to define. Different researchers have addressed different aspects of success, making comparisons difficult and the prospect of building a cumulative tradition for I/S research similarly elusive. To organize this diverse research, as well as to present a more integrated view of the concept of I/S success, a comprehensive taxonomy is introduced. This taxonomy posits six major dimensions or categories of I/S success-SYSTEM QUALITY, INFORMATION QUALITY, USE, USER SATISFACTION, INDIVIDUAL IMPACT, and ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT. Using these dimensions, both conceptual and empirical studies are then reviewed a total of 180 articles are cited and organized according to the dimensions of the taxonomy. Finally, the many aspects of I/S success are drawn together into a descriptive model and its implications for future I/S research are discussed.

Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable

How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

The ability to detect and accurately estimate the strength of interaction effects are critical issues that are fundamental to social science research in general and IS research in particular. Within the IS discipline, a significant percentage of research has been devoted to examining the conditions and contexts under which relationships may vary, often under the general umbrella of contingency theory (cf. McKeen et al. 1994, Weill and Olson 1989). In our survey of such studies, the majority failed to either detect or provide an estimate of the effect size. In cases where effect sizes are estimated, the numbers are generally small. These results have led some researchers to question both the usefulness of contingency theory and the need to detect interaction effects (e.g., Weill and Olson 1989). This paper addresses this issue by providing a new latent variable modeling approach that can give more accurate estimates of interaction effects by accounting for the measurement error that attenuates the estimated relationships. The capacity of this approach at recovering true effects in comparison to summated regression is demonstrated in a Monte Carlo study that creates a simulated data set in which the underlying true effects are known. Analysis of a second, empirical data set is included to demonstrate the technique's use within IS theory. In this second analysis, substantial direct and interaction effects of enjoyment on electronic-mail adoption are shown to exist.

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A Partial Least Squares Latent Variable Modeling Approach for Measuring Interaction Effects: Results from a Monte Carlo Simulation Study and an Electronic-Mail Emotion/Adoption Study

Organizations are attempting to leverage their knowledge resources by employing knowledge management (KM) systems, a key form of which are electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs). A large number of KM initiatives fail due to the reluctance of employees to share knowledge through these systems. Motivated by such concerns, this study formulates and tests a theoretical model to explain EKR usage by knowledge contributors. The model employs social exchange theory to identify cost and benefit factors affecting EKR usage, and social capital theory to account for the moderating influence of contextual factors. The model is validated through a large-scale survey of public sector organizations. The results reveal that knowledge self-efficacy and enjoyment in helping others significantly impact EKR usage by knowledge contributors. Contextual factors (generalized trust, pro-sharing norms, and identification) moderate the impact of codification effort, reciprocity, and organizational reward on EKR usage, respectively. It can be seen that extrinsic benefits (reciprocity and organizational reward) impact EKR usage contingent on particular contextual factors whereas the effects of intrinsic benefits (knowledge self-efficacy and enjoyment in helping others) on EKR usage are not moderated by contextual factors. The loss of knowledge power and image do not appear to impact EKR usage by knowledge contributors. Besides contributing to theory building in KM, the results of this study inform KM practice.

Contributing knowledge to electronic knowledge repositories: an empirical investigation

Knowledge Management

Over the last decade, there has been a growing recognition that intangible corporate assets have become the most valuable and fastest growing part of our economy. Today, it is clear that intellectual assets and their effective management may in fact, be the only form of sustainable competitive advantage (Tanazsi and Duffy, 2000). Thus, many companies want to increase their measurement of non-financial performance because it is considered strategic to overall firm performance (Bontis, 2000). Unfortunately, our awareness of and interest in the measurement of how well organizations are doing in this area far outstrips the practice. Practitioners and academics alike have expressed both frustration and dissatisfaction with the current state of our ability to measure almost any sort of intangible (Bontis, 2000). As a result, today’s knowledge managers are struggling to find ways to help their organizations understand and identify the true contribution of knowledge and other intellectual assets to a firm’ s success. To help make sense of the current state of both the theory and the practice of valuing the impact of knowledge management, the authors convened a focus group of knowledge managers from a wide variety of firms including: consulting, telecommunications, finance, healthcare, manufacturing and government. Members were asked to describe their problems with intellectual capital measurement and to discuss what metrics they use in their own organizations to monitor and document the impact of knowledge management. The findings of the focus group have been combined with a thorough review of the current academic and practitioner literature to provide a broad overview of the state of our understanding of knowledge and the knowledge management function in organizations.

Valuing the Knowledge Management Function

The knowledge management (KM) mindset is a precursor to a knowledge-sharing culture. It is often assumed that developing a KM mindset is somewhat easier than developing a knowledge-sharing culture in an organization. However, the task is daunting for knowledge managers. To explore and understand the issue, we conducted research using focus group methodology that identified the key challenges that knowledge managers face while creating a KM mindset. We present these challenges as well as a model and a series of best practices that can help managers to instill a KM mindset in their organizations.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fkmrp.2009.40.pdf

Creating the KM mindset: why is it so difficult?

This book teaches students how to use and manage IT to deliver business value, with a focus on IT management issues, rather than technical issues. KEY TOPICS: IT Strategy in Actiontackles the real world challenges of IT management first, by exploring a set of the most important issues facing IT managers today and second, by providing a series of mini-cases which present these critical IT issues within the context of real organizations. Most suited for business professionals who are interested in discovering the latest research in business solutions through IT.

IT Strategy in Action

KM is experiencing the steep downward slope of the “hype cycle” and some organizations are rushing to abandon KM as quickly as they rushed to adopt it. Unfortunately, much of our understanding of what KM can do for organizations is still limited to academic treatises and small pilot studies. Managers therefore realize they must market KM more effectively in order to communicate its potential and build a coalition of support while KM matures and evolves. To explore this issue, the authors convened a focus group of practicing knowledge managers. After examining how KM groups currently market themselves, this paper constructs a framework for marketing KM in an organization that integrates the experiences of KM managers with basic marketing principles. It concludes that KM faces many marketing challenges, including lack of understanding of the need, lack of brand awareness, and a negative brand attitude. It recommends that knowledge managers must see themselves as internal entrepreneurs, first building a market for their product and then developing an effective marketing strategy. It also suggests there is a hierarchy of knowledge needs in organizations that must be addressed sequentially in order to develop trust and credibility among general business managers.

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Developments in Practice XIV: Marketing KM to the Organization

This case study describes how Farm Credit Canada, which provides financial services for Canadian agricultural businesses, is transforming itself into a process-centric organization. To support this transformation, FCC’s IT function has restructured from a silo organization, with each silo supporting applications for a particular business function, to a “service-centered” model, where applications are constructed according to service oriented architecture (SOA) principles. The transformation is described in six steps.

James D. McKeen

Papers

Valuing the Knowledge Management Function

Creating the KM mindset: why is it so difficult?

IT Strategy in Action

Developments in Practice XIV: Marketing KM to the Organization

Creating a Process-Centric Organization at FCC: SOA from the Top Down.