Extensive research of Information Systems (IS) and KM has bayed attention in the academic society, and shown that dual theoretical underpinnings have been broadly cited in the area of IS success or the success of KMSs: DMISSM (Delone and McLean, 1992, 2003) and (M. Jennex, 2017; Wu & Wang, 2006). Based on the revised KM success models, the proposed model of this study is slightly extended and prespecified . It can attempt in increasing our theoretical understanding as well as providing a comprehensive investigation of the KMSs literature per the following sides:
2.1 Knowledge Management Systems
With transitioning from IS success to KMSs’ success, management systems of knowledge as an IT-based system moved further to be multidimensional concepts with more complicated characteristics than systems of information (Cham et al., 2016; M. Jennex & Olfman, 2005; Kulkarni, Ravindran, & Freeze, 2006). In the literature of KMS, a stream of definitions has been terminological confusion. The term KMSs tends to principally refer to a set of designed systems to administer organizational knowledge (Murray E Jennex & Olfman, 2006). As such, KMSs are utilized to underpin organizational information through acquisitive knowledge, shared knowledge, and applied knowledge for enhancement (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; M.-H. Wang & Yang, 2016). KMSs might be defined as meta-knowledge and a systematic process of input, storage, sharing, transfer, retrieval, and capturing of knowledge (Kulkarni et al., 2006). KMSs serve as a stand of decision-making, share significant information, construct a strategy, and increase organizational intellectual-capability (Cham et al., 2016). Those systems provide an organisation with easier access to the knowledge sources, effectual engine search, as well as highly recovered techniques for locating proper information (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Kulkarni et al., 2006).
Until the last thirty years, unfortunately, HEIs have not detected the change in their traditional learning and teaching (face-to-face lectures) (Ameen et al., 2019). Historically, it is only since the work of Metaxiotis and Psarras (2003); Rowley (2000) that the research of KMSs within HEIs as knowledge-based institutions has been gained momentum to attract considerable interest by academic works. One well-known concept has been emphasized that effective KMSs are an essential strategy for assisting HEIs to achieve sustainable competitiveness through supporting organizational knowledge with the best practices of academic sharing knowledge (e.g., research and learning/teaching) as essential functions (Deja, 2019). KMSs can be conceptualized as an orderly activity associated with achieved research objectives, including appropriate KM technology instruments and improvement of created scientific knowledge (Tsui, Tian, Nakamori, & Wierzbicki, 2009). According to Rowley (2000), KMSs are several existing systems or facilities within a university such as libraries, communication, e-learning systems, networks for e-mail.
Concerning the context of Arab countries, there have been several practical examinations that focus on KMS as a key variable. Some of them highlight IT based systems. For instance, a study Al-Busaidi, Olfman, Ryan, and Leroy (2010) which applied in the Omani oil sector has focused on service quality, peers' trustworthiness, system quality, management support, and rewards policy as a scale of KMSs. A study by Albassam (2019) conducted in Saudi Arabia has highlighted the concern of developing government sector productivity, enabling supremacy systems, and conflicting corruption as essential variables of KMSs. Another previous research focuses on KMSs as practices. For example, a practical study that took place in the Egyptian ICT sector was adopted knowledge creation, acquisition, transfer, codification, and sharing as key constructs of KMSs (Saade, Nebebe, Mak, & Leung, 2011). In conclusion, we can reveal that KMSs are essential tools for Arabic organizations (Okour et al., 2019).