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424 Chapter 13

5. Understand and critically debate where KM stands today, particularly with respect
to how well initial expectations of KM have been met.
6. Outline the major reasons why KM may be perceived as a success or a failure and
discuss how you would improve upon ROI measures for KM.
7. Describe the key areas of research in the fi eld of KM today and make educated
guesses about how these new developments will impact KM.
8. List the key challenges KM faces today and in the near future and provide some
recommended approaches to best address them.
9. Summarize the history of KM to date and predict some directions that the fi eld
may take with respect to the profession, the education of KM professionals, and the
types of KM implementations that will be undertaken in organizations.

Introduction

The major challenges facing KM include people or cultural issues, an overemphasis
on technology, conducting KM in isolation from business goals, ignoring the dynamic
aspects of content, and opting for quantity of content over quality. While this is not
an exhaustive list, there does appear to be a fairly good consensus on the most impor-
tant challenges that are facing KM. These can be found as recurring themes in KM
discussion groups, conferences, and publications (e.g., Firestone and McElroy 2003 ;
Tannenbaum and Alliger 2000 ).
The major problems that occur in KM usually result from companies ignoring
the people and cultural issues. In an environment where an individual ’ s knowledge
is valued and rewarded, establishing a culture that recognizes tacit knowledge
and encourages employees to share it is critical. The challenge of selling the KM
concept to employees should not be underestimated; after all, in many cases employ-
ees are being asked to surrender their knowledge and experience — the very traits
that make them valuable as individuals. One way companies motivate employees
to participate in KM is by creating an incentive program. However, there is the
danger that employees will participate solely to earn incentives without regard to
the quality or relevance of the information they contribute. The best KM efforts are
as transparent to employees ’ workfl ow as possible. Ideally, participation in KM
should be its own reward. If KM does not make life easier for employees, it will fail.
This is why the role of organizational culture is so important together with any
cultural change that needs to take place in order to better accommodate any KM
initiatives.