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Technology and people factors in knowledge management: An empirical analysis

Continual development of the field of Knowledge Management (KM) has led to a number of issues being highlighted. For example, as KM has its origins in a number of related areas, such as Human Resource Management, Total Quality Management and Information Systems, many organizations have found that tensions exist between KM applications and the progression of change. This antagonism often results either from an overemphasis on technology to the exclusion of adequate people/quality planning, or from strong people/quality programmes from a knowledge perspective that are hindered by inadequate enabling technologies. Understanding of these issues, in practice and in academia, is currently hindered by a paucity of systematic empirical research that addresses the relationship between the cultural and technological aspects of Knowledge Management. Thus, there is a need for a rigorous theory-building/theory-testing research programme, to inform an organizational application and to contribute to the body of knowledge within the Knowledge Management spectrum. The authors have been involved in an industrial/university partnership study. This research programme consisted of two parts. First, the theory-building phase was based on exploratory investigation. Research was conducted using a number of methodological approaches, such as ethnography, social constructionism, semi-structured interviews and empirical surveys. The findings from this research, led to the development of a prescriptive, conceptual model for Knowledge Management implementation. Secondly, theory-testing was conducted to test and refine the derived model using large survey empirical analysis. The aim of this paper is to describe the Knowledge Management model and to portray the results of the latter part of the research, with a view to improving the understanding and interrelationship of both the people and technical aspects of KM. A survey questionnaire was constructed and tested via a pilot phase. The questionnaire was then distributed to over 1000 organizations, across three industrial sectors. The findings indicate that a strong relationship exists between KM and other organizational factors, namely organizational culture and internal technical culture. Further analysis on these elements revealed that factors internal to the organization are impinged upon by macro-environmental elements.