Ronald Maier

Implementing process‐oriented knowledge management strategies

Despite growing interest about a strategic perspective on knowledge management (KM), there is still a lack of a procedure and methods to guide the implementation of KM strategies. In this paper, we review the current state of practice of KM initiatives and identify four scenarios for potentially successful KM initiatives. The majority of organizations can be described as being a knowledge management starter. In order to improve these KM initiatives and link them to business strategy, we suggest a process‐oriented knowledge management approach as a step to bridge the gap between human‐ and technology‐oriented KM. This approach is outlined with the help of the four levels of intervention: (1) strategy, (2) KM organization and processes, (3) topics/content, and (4) instruments/systems. The definition and implementation of a process‐oriented KM strategy in a large transaction bank will serve as an example to illustrate the application of our approach.

How Can Organizational Memory Theories Contribute to Organizational Memory Systems

Organizational memory systems (OMS) support organizations to ensure organizational learning, flexibility and efficiency and the management of change. The paper describes the term organizational memory and reviews a set of theories contributing to this field. As organizational memory is considered interdisciplinary, theories are drawn from research fields as different as organization science, psychology, sociology and artificial intelligence. The consequence is that the design of information systems supporting organizational memory has to be seen in this very specific context which leads to different perspectives contrasting traditional software development. These different perspectives are integrated into our view on organizational memory systems. The paper is concluded by an outlook on the main research questions which we intend to address in our research.

Social Knowledge Environments

Knowledge management represents a key issue for both information systems’ academics and practitioners, including those who have become disillusioned by actual results that fail to deliver on exaggerated promises and idealistic visions. Social software, a tremendous global success story, has prompted similarly high expectations regarding the ways in which organizations can improve their knowledge handling. But can these expectations be met, whether in academic research or the real world? This article seeks to identify current research trends and gaps, with a focus on social knowledge environments. The proposed research agenda features four focal challenges: semi-permeable organizations, social software in professional work settings, crowd knowledge, and cross-border knowledge management. Three solutions emerge as likely methods to address these challenges: design-oriented solutions, analytical solutions, and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Conceptual Foundations for a Service-oriented Knowledge and Learning Architecture: Supporting Content, Process and Ontology Maturing

Effective learning support in organizations requires a flexible and personalized toolset that brings together the individual and the organizational perspective on learning. Such toolsets need a service-oriented infrastructure of reusable knowledge and learning services as an enabler. This contribution focuses on conceptual foundations for such an infrastructure as it is being developed within the MATURE IP and builds on the knowledge maturing process model on the one hand, and the seeding-evolutionary growth-reseeding model on the other hand. These theories are used to derive maturing services, for which initial examples are presented.

Security and compliance challenges in complex IT outsourcing arrangements: A multi-stakeholder perspective

Complex IT outsourcing arrangements promise numerous benefits such as increased cost predictability and reduced costs, higher flexibility and scalability upon demand. Organizations trying to realize these benefits, however, face several security and compliance challenges. In this article, we investigate the pressure to take action with respect to such challenges and discuss avenues toward promising responses. We collected perceptions on security and compliance challenges from multiple stakeholders by means of a series of interviews and an online survey, first, to analyze the current and future relevance of the challenges as well as potential adverse effects on organizational performance and, second, to discuss the nature and scope of potential responses. The survey participants confirmed the current and future relevance of the six challenges auditing clouds, managing heterogeneity of services, coordinating involved parties, managing relationships between clients and vendors, localizing and migrating data and coping with lack of security awareness. Additionally, they perceived these challenges as affecting organizational performance adversely in case they are not properly addressed. Responses in form of organizational measures were considered more promising than technical ones concerning all challenges except localizing and migrating data, for which the opposite was true. Balancing relational and contractual governance as well as employing specific client and vendor capabilities is essential for the success of IT outsourcing arrangements, yet do not seem sufficient to overcome the investigated challenges. Innovations connecting the technical perspective of utility software with the business perspective of application software relevant for security and compliance management, however, nourish the hope that the benefits associated with complex IT outsourcing arrangements can be realized in the foreseeable future whilst addressing the security and compliance challenges.

Modell für die Er folgsmessung von Wissensmanagementsystemen

With the advent of modern information and communication technologies the discussion about organisational learning and knowledge management has found its technological counterpart: knowledge management systems (KMS). KMS are seen as enabling technologies for an effective and especially an efficient knowledge management. Knowledge management initiatives comprise a combined application of KMS, organisational and person-oriented instruments which consider the organisations culture and promise competitive advantages or improved capabilities to develop and apply organisational (core) competencies. There have been a number of corresponding success stories published in the literature. However, up to date organisations still face the challenge to measure or evaluate the success of the application of KMS. This paper proposes a framework for precisely this task. We used existing approaches to measure success of information systems and transferred them to KMS. Additionally, we integrated contributions from the knowledge management literature as well as results of an empirical analysis about the application of KMS in German speaking countries. The resulting model presents a list of measures to assess the success of KMS. The applicability of the model is discussed using two ideal KMS architectures as well as a case study of a software house that already applies KMS, Organisations can use the model as a pool to select measures from which can be applied for concrete KMS evaluations. From a research-oriented perspective the model is useful to generate hypotheses about relationships between goals and application scenarios of KMS and the resulting success.

Institutionalised collaborative tagging as an instrument for managing the maturing learning and knowledge resources

Recently, social software and collaborative tagging have received high levels of attention in Internet communities and have also been discussed as interesting approaches to annotate resources and distribute the cumbersome task of designing ontologies from few domain experts to large numbers of users of digital resources. This paper discusses the suitability of collaborative tagging for annotating knowledge and learning resources in the institutionalised setting of businesses and organisations. Specifically, the paper discusses commitment, convergence and coordination issues and presents the results of a multi-round experiment involving 174 Bachelor students at the Innsbruck University School of Management.

Strategy and Environment

This chapter will first analyze several variables describing the organizational and business environment in which the KM initiatives are embedded (section 12.1). Then, the state of strategic considerations within KM will be studied with respect to KM goals that the initiatives target, as well as estimations to what extent these goals are actually achieved and to what extent these goals are documented and systematically evaluated (section 12.2).

Benefits and Quality of Data Modelling - Results of an Empirical Analysis

In this paper the results of an empirical study about benefits and quality of data modelling are presented. The main questions addressed are: How big is the share of companies that use data models? Who is responsible for data modelling? What are the main application areas for data modelling? How should data modelling projects be organised in order to make a profit? What is the size of project, departmental and enterprise data models actually in use? How can we tell a „good“ from a „bad“ data model? Based on the results of the empirical study a new quality concept for data modelling is motivated which focusses on the design of the organisational context of data modelling. This is seen as the single most important success factor regarding data modelling efforts.

Maintenance of Knowledge Bases

To date, more and more research institutes are involved in the design, development and utilization of knowledge-based systems. Little research has, however, been published on the maintenance situation of these systems. This paper deals with the specialities of the maintenance of knowledge bases. Exemplary error sources, requests for alteration and problems are described to highlight the complex nature of this field. The activities initiated and controlled by the knowledge base maintenance management are structured. Four base and two cross-sectional activities are identified and explained in detail.