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232 Chapter 7

considering culture as the primary source of resistance to change ( Schein 1999 ). It is
at this junction — the resistance to any change in the organizational culture, that we
fi rst encounter the intersection between organizational culture and KM.

Culture at the Foundation of KM

KM implementations almost always require a cultural change — if not a complete
transformation, at least a tweaking of the existing culture in order to promote a culture
of knowledge sharing and collaboration. In almost all cases, KM will trigger a change
that will in turn trigger a maturing or evolutionary process. However, the instigator
of change rarely meets with a receptive audience. People do not necessarily always
oppose change just to be contrary, but they will oppose change if they perceive the
proposed change as an imposition rather than an improvement in their personal work
lives. They are also often left out of the loop and feel neither ownership nor vested
interest in whether or not the change succeeds. A knowledge sharing culture is one
that is built upon the foundation of trust and as such it is imperative to inform,
involve, and inspire organizational participants during the organizational changes
that are needed.
Corporate culture is a key component of ensuring that critical knowledge and
information fl ow within an organization. The strength and commitment of a corpo-
rate culture will almost always be more important than the communication technolo-
gies that are implemented to promote knowledge sharing. Traditionally, knowledge
fl ows were vertical, from supervisor to supervisee, following the lines of the organiza-
tional chart. Organizations today need to change their culture to one that rewards the
fl ow of knowledge horizontally as well.
Communication systems can be thought of as the disseminators of culture ( Bloom
2000 ). In more ancient times, physical transportation routes fulfi lled this role. For
example, the Egyptians used the Nile to unite towns across four thousand miles. The
Phoenicians sailed to shuttle goods and ideas 2,400 miles away. St. Paul used the
Roman highway systems to send his Epistles on 170-mile journeys. The Chinese
used land and river routes to pull together a three-million-square-mile empire. In all
of these systems, ideas fl owed, were shared, exchanged, or integrated. The Romans
did not just build highways — they spread a common language. The Chinese dissemi-
nated a common writing system, and the Incas disseminated a uniform system of
accounting based on knots. Knowledge dissemination therefore needs some type
of lingua franca, something in common like a language, standards, norms, protocols,
and so on.