Knowledge Management Gap: Determined Initiatives, Unsuccessful Results

Abstract

Knowledge increasingly is recognized to provide a foundation for creating core competences and competitive advantages for organizations, making effective knowledge management (KM) crucial and significant. Despite evolving perspectives and rigorous endeavors to embrace KM intentions in business agendas, it is found that organizations always cannot realize expected benefits and improve their performances. This study reports a case study of an organization in Hong Kong that shares the typical characteristics of other organizations with strong awareness and expectation of KM yet experienced failure of its program in two years. Our findings showed that KM activities carried out in the organization were fragmented and not supported by members. Based on this failure case, four lessons learned are identified for improving KM performance.