& Research Article Mechanisms for Knowledge Management Systems Effectiveness: An Exploratory Analysis Hind Benbya* and Nassim Aissa Belbaly e-Business Management School, University of Lecce–ISUFI, Lecce, Italy Knowledge management systems (KMS) have been implemented in many organizations, yet little research exists to guide their successful development and implementation in practice. In fact, while some firms achieve successful outcomes with regard to their IT endeavours, others continue to fall victim to the technology productivity paradox. Further, little is known about the diversity of both systems and organizations that have successfully implemented them. This article, through an analysis of successful case studies of knowledge management systems, explores the underlying mechanisms under which knowledge management systems effective- ness is most likely to occur. The findings imply that three categories of mechanisms constitute important preconditions for knowledge management systems effectiveness; they range from cultural to structural and managerial mechanisms. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION It has become largely agreed today that organiza- tional knowledge such as operational routines, skills or know-how are the most valuable organiza- tional resources of a firm. This perspective builds upon and extends the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm initially promoted by Penrose (1959) and expanded by others (Barney, 1991; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Teece et al., 1997). The premise of the RBV is that organizations employ a mix of acquisition and configuration of resources to change how their business is accomplished. Knowl- edge is often the basis for the effective utilization of many important resources. In this context, informa- tion and communication technologies may play an important role in effectuating the knowledge-based view of the firm by enhancing a firm’s capability to manage the knowledge it possesses. This aware- ness is one of the main reasons for the exponential growth of knowledge management systems (KMS). KMS are enabling technologies that support knowl- edge management in organizations (Ruggles, 1997). There are a number of perspectives on KMS, and different typologies concerning such systems have been developed in the literature. In fact, while Hansen et al. (1999) distinguish them under the personalization/codification perspective, Ruggles (1997) classifies them according to the knowledge management process they support. While this growing literature is a good indication of the importance of such systems for both theory and practice, little research exists to guide their success- ful development and implementation in practice (Alavi and Leidner, 1999). In fact, while some firms achieve successful outcomes with regard to their IT endeavours, others continue to fall victim to the technology productivity paradox. Further, little is known about the diversity of both systems and organizations that have successfully implemented KMS. To address these issues, the current study Knowledge and Process Management Volume 12 Number 3 pp 203–216 (2005) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/kpm.231 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. *Correspondence to: Hind Benbya, e-Business Management School, University of Lecce–ISUFI, Via per Monteroni sn 73100 Lecce, Italy. E-mail: Hind.Benbya@ebms.unile.it reports the result from a multiple case study of KMS. In particular, this article has two main objec- tives. The first is to show through examples the role and practical applications of KMS. The second is to analyse how some companies succeeded in deploy- ing KMS, in particular with regard to the mechan- isms they deployed to achieve succe ss. The paper is organized as follows. The first section presents a short overview of previous literature concerning KMS. In the second section the research methodol- ogy will be explained, while the third section dis- cusses our main findings concerning KMS types in practice and mechanisms for success. Finally we present the conclusions and indicate future research issues. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND KMS origins and definitions Traditionally, most research in strategic IT has focused on the ability of IT to add economic value to a firm either by reducing a firm’s costs or by differentiating its products and services. A principal argument in this line of reasoning is that the competitive use of IT has the potential to provide sustainability and competitive advantage (Kettinger et al., 1994; Clemons, 1991). As knowl- edge is often the basis for the effective use of a firm’s resources, a new line of IT-based systems to support organizational knowledge management has emer ged called knowledge management sys- tems. KMS have been defined as a line of systems which target professional and managerial activities by focusing on creating, gathering, organizing and disseminating an organization’s ‘knowledge’ as opposed to ‘information’ or ‘data’ (Becerra- Fernandez, 2000). The development of KMS demands that knowledge be obtained, produced, shared, regu lated and leveraged by a steady con- glomeration of individuals, processes and IT but still to be effective KMS should fit the overall orga- nizational culture and structure. The first and early adopters of KMS have been large consulting com- panies; today, such systems are used in a variety of areas such as medicine, engineering, product design and construction (Hendriks and Vriens, 1999; Davenport and Prusak, 2000; Tiwana and Ramesh, 2000). KMS design finds its origins in knowledge-based systems and information systems which are mainly used in intranet development and business process re-engineering. These techniques rely heavily on business process modelling, which allows the cap- ture of the significant flows, events, inputs, resources and outputs associated with business processes. Taking into account that the goal of pro- cess modelling is to reach a common und erstand- ing about how activities should be carried out (e.g. in which order) and what it produces, it has become largely agreed that knowledge manage- ment activities should be integrated within day- to-day business processes to ensure continual process improvement and facilitate learning and the gradual development of organizational memory. The main approaches that have tried to develop a systematic method to integrate knowl- edge management into business processes are the common KADS methodology (see Schreiber et al., 1999), the knowledge value chain approach (Weggeman, 1998), model-based knowledge management (Allweyer and Loos, 1998) and the model-based design of knowledge-oriented pro- cesses. Furthermore, research indicates that compa- nies focus on specific business proces ses to implement knowledge management (Mertins et al., 2001). In particular, organizations try to sustain their core processes which represent the co re com- petence and most important capability of the firm (e.g. aerospace organizations start their initiatives focusing on the design and R&D process). Nissen et al. (2000) suggest that the first stage of knowledge system design involves process analysis; in fact, until one understands the process, with its various opportunities and required knowledge, it makes little sense to begin designing systems. Therefore, business processes determine the underlying KMS because they use all the flows necessary to repro- duce the real working of the business processes (Figure 1). KMS taxonomy There are a number of perspectives on KMS, and different typologies concerning such systems have been developed in the literature. In fact, a first approach to providing a taxonomy of KMS is to distinguish them by where knowledge resides and the extent to which knowledge is structured (Hahn and Subramani, 2002). Becerra-Fernandez (2000) also provides a classification of KMS in terms of knowledge dimensions (tacit/explicit) and the extent of codifiability they require. These two classifications are an extension of the taxon- omy proposed by Hansen et al. (1999), which distin- guish mainly between two strategies: codification versus personalization strategy. While the codifica- tion strategy relies extensively on codifying and storing knowledge in databases, the per sonaliza- tion strategy focuses on the tacit dimension of knowledge and invests in networks to facilitate RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge and Process Management 204 H. Benbya and N. A. Belbaly knowledge exchange via person-to-person con- tacts. Another taxonomy of KMS differentiates them according to the knowledge management process they mainly support (creation, storage, transfer and application) (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Ruggles, 1997; Tiwana and Ramesh, 2000. However, the main important distinction between the various KMS that exist remains the one that dis- tinguishes between the tacit versus explicit dimen- sion of knowledge. Accordingly, following this articulation of knowledge in tacit versus explicit dimensions, KMS can be classified into three cate- gories: dynamic systems, process-oriented systems and integrative systems (Figure 2). Dynamic knowledge management systems Dynamic KMS support mainly interactive commu- nications between experts or team-based manage- ment and are consequently more concerned about the tacit dimension of knowledge. This category includes:  expertise location or what’s called ‘yellow pages’ or ‘people finder’ that capture and inventory the knowledge, experience and backgrounds of the firm’s experts and act as connectors between knowledge and expertise seekers and holders;  communities of practice that provide a social for- um to groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems and who deepen their knowl- edge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis (Wenger et al., 2002). Process-oriented knowledge management systems Organizations with significant intellectual capital require eliciting and capturing knowledge for reuse in new prob lems as well as recurring old pro- blems. They focus mainly on the technical side of Core processes Value Creation Information systems Knowledge-based systems Knowledge management systems Figure 1 Knowledge management systems foundations KMS Dynamic systems Process oriented systems Integrated systems Locate knowledge carriers and seekers - Create a social forum - Access to experts - Support cross functional teams - provide cross- skills set for projects - Expert networks - communities of practice - Yellow pages - Best practices - Process descriptions databases - Knowledge repositories - Corporate portal - Extranet portals - Intranet portals - Capture knowledge for reuse in solving recurring problems - Improve processes - Integrate knowledge Source and provide a Single point of access Class Objective Example Figure 2 Knowledge management systems classification and examples Knowledge and Process Management RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge Management Systems Effectiveness 205 knowledge and can be an important support for new product development (e.g. a system to store marketing-oriented documents or more focused on R&D). These systems include lessons learned systems, processes description databases, knowl- edge repositories and best practices databases. Integrative knowledge management systems While the preceding KMS categories focused mainly on one dimension of knowledge over the other—either tacit knowledge in the case of expert networks and communities of practice or more explicit knowledge focused in the case of codifica- tion systems in databases—today, most contem- porary approaches to KMS design rely on an integrative perspective on managing both explicit and tacit knowledge dimensions because it offers unrestricted possibilities for uniformly accessing knowledge across a variety of sources. This is the case for the corporate portal which integrates dif- ferent applications from collaboration tools to a database supporting knowledge embedded within business processes (Benbya et al., 2004). KMS effectiveness The benefits of using KMS are high because they include the ability of organizations to be flexible and to respond more quickly to changing market conditions, and the ability to be more innovative as well as improve decision making and productiv- ity (Harris, 1996). Some authors provided empirical evidence based on qualitative cases with regard to the performance implications of KMS (Hansen et al., 1999; Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000; Szulanski, 2000). In particular, KMS are expected to contribute to the competitive advantage of companies by sup- porting and enhancing organizational knowledge. For example, KMS foster the systematic identifica- tion of central knowledge and expertise, encourage converting knowledge into manifest forms (e.g. explicit knowled ge) and make information accessi- ble to others in the firm for local use in terms of knowledge reuse and as input for knowledge development. Thus, KMS may ease the integration of dispersed knowledge (Grant, 1996), speed up the replication of best practices across time and place (Nelson and Winter, 1982), avoid double invention, facilitate leveraging across uses and users (Quinn, 1992; Quinn et al., 1996) and reduce costs of search- ing and transforming available knowledge for local use (Hedlund, 1994). While potential ben efits of KMS have been addressed theoretically in the lit- erature, less is known about how these can be rea- lized in practice . Significant failure rates persist despite tremendous improvements in sophistica- tion of technologies and majo r gains in related price–performance ratios. These conflicting results may be attributable to: (1) incomplete or inap- propriate measures of success; (2) lack of theoreti- cal grounding of the causal mechanisms of KMS success; or (3) myopic focus on financial perfor- mance indicators. In light of the above motivations, in this section we will review the literature related to these issues, with a particular focus on the measures used to assess the effectiveness of KMS. Several perspectives deal with the assessment of KMS (Lindsey, 2002; Jennex and Olfman, 2004). One approach is whether these systems perform knowledge management processes effectively, and consequently if each step of the knowledge process is performed well the system reaches its objectives. Other authors also take into considera- tion the organizational context as they recognize that knowledge management is an organizational change process and that its success could not be separate from organizational change success. This is the case for Lindsey, who defines knowl- edge management effectiveness/success in terms of two main constructs: knowledge infrastructure capability and knowledge process capability. Knowledge infrastructure cap ability represents social capital; the relationships between knowledge sources and users; and is operationalized by tech- nology (the network itself), structure (the relation- ship) and culture (the context in which the knowledge is created and used). Knowledge pro- cess capability represents the integration of KM processes into the organization, and is operationa- lized by acquisition (the capturing of knowledge), conversion (making captured knowledge avail- able), application (degree to which knowledge is useful) and protection (security of knowledge). Jennex and Olfman (2004) propose a model for KMS success based on the Delone and Mclean IS success model. The proposed model on KMS suc- cess evaluates as an improvement in organizational effectiveness based on the use of and impacts from the KMS. The model uses the following dimensions to measure KMS success:  System quality. Defines how well the KMS per- forms the functions of knowledge man agement (creation, transfer, storage ).  Knowledge/information quality. Ensures that the right knowledge with sufficient context is cap- tured and available for the right use at the right time.  Use/user satisfaction. Reflects actual levels of KMS use as well as the satisfaction of KMS users. RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge and Process Management 206 H. Benbya and N. A. Belbaly  Perceived benefits. Measure perceptions of the ben- efits and impacts of the KMS by users and is based on the perceived benefit model.  Net impact. An individual’s use of a KMS will produce an impact on that person’s performance in the workplace. KMS and IT in general can only add value to an organization when they are used, and that value to individuals arises when use of the knowledge in the KMS enables them to perform their work in ways that are more efficient, more effective and/ or more satisfying. In this article we define the effectiveness of KMS as a value judgment made by its users and wh ich allows organizations to accomplish more efficiently what it could not any other way. We distinguish between the contex t in which the system is used and its related outcomes. We refer to the factors a cting on KMS effectiveness as mechanisms. The study of published reports on KMS has iden- tified a number of mechanisms for KMS effective- ness. The results of the studies summarized in Table 1 show that they can be clustered into three groups: structural, cultural and managerial. First is the emphasis by so many on the importance of structural mechanisms that incorporate all the functional elemen ts of the company that support and facilitate knowledge management, such as a dedicated structure, rules and routines. Second is the frequent me ntion that an organizational culture of knowledge sharing is a correlate of success. Third is the prevalent, though not universal, use of incentives to change behaviour and encourage system usage. RESEARCH DESIGN This research was undertaken through a multiple case study (Yin, 1994). In gathering the data, standard techniques for conducting qualitative case study research were followed (Yin, 1994). In the first stage, qualitative research was carried out with the objective of gaining an in-depth understanding on knowledge management sys- tems and the mechanisms identified from previous research. The mechanisms identified from the lit- erature and classified as structural, cultural or man- agerial, on the one hand, and the classification of KMS as dynamic, process-oriented and integrative on the other, were also found significant in the substantial number of surveys about knowledge management (KM) reported in the literature (e.g. APQC, 1996; KPMG, 1998; Heisig et al., 2002). These surveys, together with an abundance of case studies, give an initial overview of the state of practice of KM and in particular addresses KMS types adopted by some organizations and the conditions that were conducive to success. To further our exploration on KMS types, main bene- fits and mechanisms, we studied the 20 multina- tional organi zations that were selected for the 2003 ‘MAKE’ (Most Admired Knowledge Enter- prises) study as best practices. These organizations are, according to MAKE, ‘leaders in effectively transforming enterprise knowledge into wealth creating ideas, products and solutions. They are building portfolios of intel- lectual capital and intangible assets which will enable them to out-perform their competitors in the future.’ The classification of these best practices is based on a Delphi methodology, where a panel of experts on KM validated the results. Table 2 summaries the industry sectors repre- sented and the types of systems that these organi- zations deployed. Thematic analysis of the research find ings of the first phase, together with the analysis of published documentation and the information provided by these companies on their initiatives, served to Table 1 Example of mechanisms studied that affect KMS effectiveness Source Cultural mechanisms Structural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms studied studied studied Bartol and Srivastava (2002) — — Reward systems Janz and Prasarnphanich (2003) Organizational culture — — Argote et al. (2003) Social relations person– Organizational boundaries Rewards and incentives organization fit Rules and routines McEvily et al. (2003) Level of trust — — Gold et al. (2001) Organizational culture Structure Management support Mofett et al. (2002) Organizational climate Knowledge roles — Connelly and Kelloway Social interaction culture — Perception of management’s (2003) support Mason (2003) Organizational culture — — Knowledge and Process Management RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge Management Systems Effectiveness 207 confirm the taxonomy of KMS proposed in the arti- cle and to confirm the classification of mechanisms that these organizations deployed in three groups (cultural, structural and managerial). The second phase consisted of an in-depth analy- sis of four organizations from the above for further investigation; these were Siemens, Buckman Laboratories, Xerox and Shell. These organizations have been selected consecutively by the MAKE study as best practices for 3 years; they belong to different industries and have adopted different types of KMS. Another selection criterion related to the effectiveness of the KMS deployed in these organizations that are, according to their managers, not only fully used within their organizations but also allow their users to accomplish better what they could not otherwise. This analysis fulfils a dual function in assessing the mechanisms that constitute preconditions of KMS effectiveness in organizations, as well as forming the basis for the development of a concep- tual model of ‘Mechanisms for KMS effectiveness’ to be tested empirically in the third phase of the project. Within this context, the qualitative analysis of the cases is aimed at answering the following research questions:  What were the main functionalities of the used KMS?  What were the main benefits they achieved from their KMS?  What, according to them, are the main mechan- isms (cultural, structural and managerial) that contributed to achieving the fo remost benefits?  What measurement systems are they using to assess these benefits? The major method of data collection was based on semi-structured interviews; in fact, the themes above were explored with a series of key informant interviews involved in the different initiatives. In addition to the interview data, researchers have collected and analysed a variety of company documentation, which included: conference pre- sentations and papers developed by their own employees and with other researchers, and describ- ing their main KM initiatives; internally circulated manuals for KMS user s; reports and statistics on their use and participation levels. From the data collected on KMS under investiga- tion in this study, many comparisons and contrasts can be made. They are detailed in terms of KMS types and characteristics (Table 2) and in terms of mechanisms (cultural, structural and managerial) used to achieve success and benefits date (Table 3). DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS KMS types The majority of the cases studied were concerned with, bridging the gap between explicit versus tacit knowledge. Personalized knowledge, bound to the Table 2 Knowledge management initiatives deployed by best practices organizations Organizations Industry KMS type Accenture Consulting Integrative solution (best practices, experts .) Amazon.com Shopping site Integrative solution ( best books, experts ) BP Oil and gas Knowledge repositories Buckman Laboratories Chemicals Interactive networks (forums, case history ) Canon Networking and imaging technology Extranet portal ( CRM, SCM system) Ernest & Young Professional services Integrative solution (best practices, experts .) General Electric Diversified Knowledge repositories Hewlett Packard High technology Corporate portal Infosys Technologies Software consulting and IT services Interactive networks IBM Computers and office equipment Corporate portal McKinsey & Company Consulting Intranet knowledge portal Microsoft Computer software Communities of practice Nokia Mobile communications Knowledge repositories Price waterhouse Coopers Consulting Integrative solution (best practices, experts ) Royal Dutch/Shell Energy company (oil, gas, solar) Distributed teams and communities Siemens Diversified Integrated solution (sales documents, forums) 3M Analogue devices Knowledge repositories Toyota Motor Automobile Best practices database World Bank Bank Communities of practice Xerox Computer and office equipment Best practices database (technical tips) RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge and Process Management 208 H. Benbya and N. A. Belbaly Table 3 Summary results of the best practices analyzed Siemens case study ShareNet Description of the system ShareNet is a global knowledge database that links the salespeople of Siemens Information and Communication Networks (ICN) worldwide, making each salesperson’s accumulated learning experiences accessible to the entire sales force. Main functionalities  Customer solutions with their accompanying sales arguments, descriptions of successful projects, presentations, relevant business plan  Contact persons for technical issues and financial concepts  Chat rooms, community news, discussion groups on special issues and urgent requests  Sections: market knowledge, competitor knowledge, technology knowledge, complementor knowledge, customer knowledge Structural mechanisms Cultural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms Benefits  New organizational positions and roles were appointed to support the initiative  ShareNet Committee: highest decision body for the future development of ShareNet including the CEO, which act as facilitators and trainers ensuring the roll-out  Global editors: they act as mechanisms for making knowledge richer, more general and reusable  ShareNet managers: support contributors in capturing the project experiences and marketing know-how; drive the development of reusable knowledge  Promoters of ShareNet worked hard to spread messages encouraging knowledge sharing and reuse and to create a culture conductive to knowledge sharing  Another concern was to develop empowerment instead of strong hierarchy that naturally directed responsibility towards the top Leadership  Management support along the initiative through signals to channel organizational resources and individual commitment towards this element was important in making global knowledge sharing happen  Management helped to communicate the idea of ShareNet across organizational levels and functional departments to ensure its added value was understood and appreciated Reward system  Contributing and reusing knowledge is rewarded by ShareNet ‘shares’. Depending on the number of shares accumulated during a year, employees are rewarded with several incentives, such as conference participation or telecommunications equipment  The number of shares given to the contributor depends on the reuse feedback of the taker of knowledge, thus rewarding the usefulness of the transferred knowledge  The feedback mechanism is an important part of the quality assurance system too  The savings of costs. e.g. by reusing knowledge on how to simplify processes  Increased revenues, e.g. by increasing the quality of tenders by reusing knowledge of the success factors of tenders, or by simply being faster than the competition by reusing documents  The alignment with customer needs, by recognizing important trends and developments worldwide Continues Knowledge and Process Management RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge Management Systems Effectiveness 209 Table 3 Continued Buckman Laboratories case study K’Netix Description of the system K’Netix is the Buckman knowledge network for help answering very specific questions. The heart of the system was its forums. The majority of them aim at improving customer productivity and are organized by business area Main functionalities  Customer information centre: Buckman’s customers, internal memos, documents and sales orders  Tech forums, each with its own message board, a conference room to facilitate debate and a library section where the communication threads and other pertinent knowledge would be stored  Case history, product data sheet, technical library Structural mechanisms Cultural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms Benefits  New organizational positions and roles were appointed to support the initiative  Knowledge transfer department which aims at planning, organizing and managing information system applications and associated resources to respond to the information and knowledge needs of Buckman Laboratories worldwide  Systems operators (Sysops) were appointed to monitor the discussions in the forums, track requests and make sure they were answered  Sysops would try to get answers in 24 hours; if not they would contact people directly and ask them to respond. Additionally they were to give positive feedback to those who did respond  Content experts, two industry experts or section leaders in each forum were assigned to provide a measure of quality assurance regarding the advice given by others  A code of ethics was created to act as a glue to hold the company together and provide the basis for the respect and trust necessary in a knowledge-sharing environment  Another concern was to develop empowerment instead of strong hierarchy that naturally directed responsibility towards the top Leadership  Management support for the initiative by triggering personnel through messages and enticements was clear: ‘Those of you who have something intelligent to say now have a forum in which to say it. Those of you who will not or cannot contribute also become obvious. If you are not willing to contribute or participate, you should understand that the many opportunities offered to you in the past will no longer be available’ Motivation and incentives  Employees were encouraged to use the system in a relaxed atmosphere, such as from their homes  When the marketing department reviewed and accepted a ‘case history’ submission, the submitting sales associate received $100, which was raised later to $200  Selection of ‘the 150’ best knowledge sharers were invited to a fashionable resort  Increase of sales from new products  Increase the speed of response to customers’ needs  Increase customer intimacy and meet customer requirements  Increase customer satisfaction RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge and Process Management 210 H. Benbya and N. A. Belbaly Shell case study Wells global network Description of the system Wells global network includes technical networks and communities centred around commercial practice, procurement, benchmarking, competitive intelligence and knowledge sharing Main functionalities  Expertise directory, global consultants, global networks, centres of excellence  Standards procedures, policies, best practices, discussions with peers and colleagues Structural mechanisms Cultural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms Benefits  New organizational positions and roles were appointed to support the initiative  Global coordinator (community builder, energizer, ambassador, chaser)  Facilitator (experienced in kicking off new networks)  The organizational performance and learning team helped restructure, reinvigorate and expand the computer-based global networks  Promotion of a spirit built on friendship and a genuine desire to help each other, sharing a sense of pride in work and having fun  Trusted relationships and confidence that comes from a community with common values and a common story about their history, however short Reward system  Curiosity and gaining recognition from peers are the main motivators for participation  ‘Appearing in the Expertise Directory, is the confirmation of an individual’s credentials to perform the service which has been brokered by a more personal contact’  Interest in solving specific problems, share feedback and experience  Facilitates the sharing of lessons learned, and helps avoid repeating the same mistakes or reinventing the wheel  Cost savings  Be able to provide timely cost-effective advice which proved to be of particular benefit during the development of various front-end philosophy documents  Allows more optimal allocation of resources without physical relocation  Provides access to expertise beyond current establishment  Gain quick, informative responses and clear practical advice and experience Xerox case study Eureka Description of the system Eureka is a community-based knowledge-sharing solution for customer service engineers through tips and best practices contributed by the service technicians themselves and available to customer service technicians worldwide Main functionalities  Submission of a tip (context of the problem and the solution that was developed)  Evaluation and validation within 14 days  Database maintenance was everyone’s responsibility through votes and feedback Structural mechanisms Cultural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms Benefits  New organizational positions and roles were appointed to support the initiative  Appointment of someone in the strategy office to the position of Director of Corporate strategy and knowledge Initiatives  Sharing is voluntary; however, the organization focused on the opportunities to create growth and the proactive sharing of best practices through empowering people Leadership  Management support is key for the success of any a initiative: ‘In some locations the managers took the time towork with the teams and developed and showed them video testimonials from  Improvement of employees’ satisfaction as it made engineers’ job easier and quicker and allowed Xerox to create intellectual capital and social capital at the same time  Improving service to customers and financial performance of the business through: Continues Knowledge and Process Management RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge Management Systems Effectiveness 211 individual mind, is difficult to articulate and can- not be transferred easily. Knowledge codified in databases, manuals and project debriefings, how- ever, can be transferred with relative ease. Yet both are needed to make true knowledge sharing happen. Tacit knowledge is usually transferred by people exchanging knowledge through social inter- action, e.g. during meetings, videoconferences or in discussion groups. Transferring codified knowl- edge by means of a codification strategy is realized by capturing and storing knowledge in documents and transferring it via databases or similar means. In fact, in their preliminary stage, organizations used knowledge repositories where knowledge is codified without contextual information. Specialists were assigned to remove the context of the source material to make them more generally applicable; in doing this, knowledge loses its meaning. Furthermore, people often did not find answers to their questions in these repositories. Therefore, we believe that contextual information should be included in a knowledge rep ository and both types of knowledge have to be transferred to make true knowledge sharing happen. In the case of Siemens bridging this gap was even considered as a dilem- ma since an overemphasis on codified knowledge can miss out on important tacit elemen ts that con- stitute an integral component of the added value that solution selling provides. Consequently, Sie - mens based its approach on an interactive solution that starts with informal discussions through ques- tions and answers that, once mature enough, become documented as a ‘case history’; this is the approach used also by Buckman Laboratories to update knowledge within the system. Shell, on the other hand started with a codification strategy. The organization spent millions building databases of detailed technical documents; the problem, how- ever, was that nobody searched them and they were quickly out of date. Consequently, Shell aban- doned this approach and now focuses on e-learn- ing packages that deliver a mix of standards and a connection to a global network. KMS mechanisms for success Cultural mechanisms Organizational cultures are central to knowledge creation, sharing and use and they are increasingly recognized as a major barrier to leveraging intellec- tual assets (De Long and Fahey, 2000; Gordon and Di Tomaso, 1992). Several scholars and consultants (Davenport and Pru sak, 1998) have argued that creating a culture that values creativity, continuous improvement and the sharing of ideas is necessary Table 3 Continued Structural mechanisms Cultural mechanisms Managerial mechanisms Benefits  A community of champions supporting KM initiatives  Involving research laboratories  Validators were responsible for checking duplicates and outdated tips  Cultural barriers in the transfer of KM initiatives across national boundaries still exist other individuals. In these teams there was good deployment and high usage of Eureka. In other places it was less successful because the managers did not make Eureka a priority and the engineers just installed the software on their laptop but did not use it the same way Motivation and incentives  Being recognized as the subject matter expert is what gives participants credit and status in their community’ — savings costs in engineer’s time (5%) — reduction in the length of repair time (5%) — increased customer satisfaction and retention Measurement  Number of available solutions in the database  Number of created field tips  Time it takes to validate tips  Number of problems solved via Eureka RESEARCH ARTICLE Knowledge and Process Management 212 H. Benbya and N. A. Belbaly [...]... 15: 73–90 Hendriks P, Vriens D 1999 Knowledge- based systems and knowledge management: friends or foes? 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