Validation of the Knowledge Management Stage Model : A Triangulation Approach

Transcription

1 Validation of the Knowledge Management Stage Model : A Triangulation Approach Dae-Young Lee a and Young-Gul Kim b a Modeling & Simulation Center, Korea Institute for Defense Analyses San 5-7, Cheongryangri2-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 0-650, South Korea Tel: , Fax: , cupido@kida.re.kr b Graduate School of Management, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology 207-4, Cheongryangri2-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul,0-722, South Korea Tel: , Fax: , domino2@unitel.co.kr Abstract An effort for validating and refining an existing management (KM) stage model was made by a triangulation approach. A survey and a multiple case study were conducted and analyzed based on related literature. Our findings verify the existence of the temporal sequence in KM implementations, validating the KM stage model. In an effort to update the stage model, we propose a new management object, community of practice (COP), which has come to the front of management issues lately and supplementary managerial actions. Keywords: Knowledge Management; Stage Model; KM Implementation Introduction As the 2st century spreads out, many people regard the strategic management of resources as one of the key factors for sustainable competitive advantages. O Dell and Grayson [8] argue that those organizations that methodically, passionately, and proactively find out and transfer what they know, and use it to increase efficiency, sharpen product-development edge, and get closer to their customers, will not only survive, but excel. The increasing interest on management led to a considerable number of studies on organizational initiatives. Although many researchers have investigated which factors are essential for managing effectively [, 2, 4, 6], there is little research which focuses on when and how organizations should manage them. A management stage model proposed by Lee and Kim [5] addresses the process of building organizational capacity of management. Despite the model s contribution through the provision of an integrated management framework, the model lacked solid empirical validation. This article aims to validate and refine the management stage model based on real world KM implementations. Research Design Research Framework ] By combining perspectives of life cycle theory and teleology, Lee and Kim [5] proposed a stage model to explain the process of building organizational capacity of management. According to the model, organizational capability of management grows through the following four stages: Initiation, Propagation, Integration, and Networking. The first stage is an initiation stage in which organizations start to recognize the importance of organizational management and prepare for enterprise-wide management efforts. The major issue of management in this stage will be how to make its organization prepare for the enterprise-wide management initiative. The propagation stage is a stage where organizations start to invest in building their infrastructure such as maps and management systems (KMS) to facilitate and motivate activities. The main concerns of organizational managers at this stage are how to build infrastructure efficiently and how to expand activities. The integration stage is where organizational activities are institutionalized as daily activities across the whole organization. The key management concern of this stage is how to integrate the diverse and distributed organizational and leverage them to innovate the organizational products, services, or processes. The final stage is the networking stage where organizational, expertise, and best practices are integrated not only within an organization but also with external entities such as suppliers, customers, research firms, and universities. The key management issue of this

2 stage is how to facilitate the transfer through external alliances. Managerial actions to achieve management goals in each stage are also provided in their model. To validate the proposed stage model, they conducted a latent content analysis of 2 management case reports based on a set of checklists for management goals, managerial actions, and characteristics of management objects in each stage. While they were able to validate the existence of four distinct stages of management implementations, they could not verify the temporal sequence in management implementation. In this article, more in-depth empirical validation of the management stage model will be conducted to verify, modify, and add to the original stage model. Dimensions of the analysis address the management goals, management objects and managerial actions of management. Research Methodology Previous studies that proposed a stage model of organizational development and changes validated their models by testing the antecedents and consequences of strategic changes. While some of them utilized large samples and statistical methods, others conducted a set of in-depth case studies spanning several years [7]. Though a large sample cross-sectional study cannot explain the causes and results of the process and a small sample longitudinal study is short on generalizability, both methodological approaches in organizational change theories are mostly focused on organizational events or strategic actions [9, 0]. Therefore, in this study, a survey was conducted as a preliminary study for refining the focus of analysis, that is, selecting items worthwhile to investigate thoroughly in the checklist for managerial actions. Based on the refined focus of analysis, a multiple case study based on related literature was conducted to explore the further details of management implementations in different stages. Survey To define the scope of analysis on which we should focus in a case study, checklists for managerial actions in management implementation was distributed. Part of the checklists for managerial actions of Lee and Kim [5] are presented in table. A respondent, the leader of the management team (henceforth referred as a KM team) in each company was required to choose one answer out of three already implemented, plan to implement in half a year and no plan to implement - for each of the 7 KM action items. A KM team is an organizational unit which plans, implements, and administers management initiatives within an organization. Table Lee & Kim s checklists for managerial actions Initiation Propagation Integration Networking Create visions and goals of management. Introduce the management system.. Define core or core competence areas. Conduct case study (or benchmarks) of best practices. Set up an organizational typology. Monitor or control activities. Make alliances with suppliers, customers, or other partners. Link the sharing system to that of partners. In this survey, the unit of analysis was the organization that had launched management initiatives. To make a sample frame, a list of,7 organizations which had enrolled their employees or executives in management education programs or communities in Korea was developed. After selecting 60 organizations randomly from the list, we contacted the leader of the KM team of each organization to ascertain whether his/her organization was actually running management programs and to explain the purpose of the study. Among the organizations contacted, 250 organizations expressed an intention to participate in our survey. Survey questionnaires were mailed to the KM team leaders of the 250 organizations Out of the 250 distributed questionnaires, we analyzed 48 questionnaires which were collected from April, 2002 to May 8, As the survey items were in nominal scale, the analysis was mainly based on plotting various graphs and detecting distinctive patterns. The analysis of the questionnaires was conducted as follows: Selecting the target firms for analysis: From the initial 48 firms, three firms were excluded from further analysis because they neither implemented management nor had a plan to introduce it in the near future, leaving 45 firms as the targets of analysis. Clustering target firms into four groups: As the degree of management implementation of each firm was differentiated, target firms were clustered into four based on the number of already implemented items in each stage (Cluster Analysis). Sorting the check items: After we compared the graphs of each group, some check items which showed different characteristics from other items in the same stage were moved to different stages. Those moved items were focused on as the major foci of analysis in the case study. Adding the meaning to the sorted checklist: Some explanations and modifications were given to the sorted checklist by integrating it with the result of the case study. Then, a revised set of checklist was created as the main output of this research. 2

3 Case Study Through the systematic review of the literature, Eisenhardt [] provided a guideline for building theories from case study research. Although this research is not for building theories, empirical validation and modification of an existing model can be done through a case study in the similar way. So this research was conducted based on the Eisenhardt s guidelines as follows: Getting Started: Firstly, a comprehensive research question was defined as What should be managed for successful management evolution? How should the managerial actions for management change over time? Based on the management stage model of Lee & Kim [5], management goals, management objects and managerial actions were selected as major dimensions of analysis to answer the research question. Those dimensions of analysis were refined by a preliminary survey. Selecting Cases: As this research is for investigating the development of management in an organization, it is desirable to select firms in which it has been some time since the introduction of management and firms which show quantitative or qualitative performance as the result of management implementation. For this, six firms which were recognized as the pioneers in management implementation in Korea were selected out of the forty member firms of the KM consortium at the KAIST Knowledge Management Research Center. In addition, four firms which were in the state of management initiation were selected additionally to supplement the characteristics of the initiation stage on the grounds that management implementations of most firms in Korea were in the early stage. Crafting Instruments and Protocols: Before getting into the interview, the focus of interview was determined after some data of target firms were collected from newspapers and websites of the firms. Three different kinds of interview sheets were comprised one for CKO, one for leader of the KM team, and one for end users in functional departments. The goal and vision of management was collected through interviewing a CKO. Changes in management objects and managerial actions as the firm s management develops was collected through interviewing the leader of the KM team. And by checking the recognition and satisfaction of the end users, we were able to determine the management stage to which each firms belonged more objectively. More than three investigators participated in each interview. A discussion and assessment session was held among the investigators right after each interview. Analyzing Data: Each case was summarized after the analysis of findings in the interview and along with relevant background data. After that, characteristics of the case firms were described by applying the same dimensions to each case. Cross-case pattern analysis was also conducted. Shaping Hypotheses: After summarizing the findings of survey and cross-case analysis, efforts were made to explain the logic behind the new findings. Instead of building new hypotheses, the KM stage model was revised based on the new findings. Enfolding Literature: Additional literatures which were closely related to the findings were introduced to explain the findings which contradicted the framework of this research. Reaching Closure: Research was finished with revised management action-lists and additional management object, Communities of Practice (henceforth referred to as CoP). Results Survey Results In Figure, number of firms which implemented some activities closely related to each item in the checklist is shown. On the horizontal axis of the figure, 7 items in the checklist are indicated. 2. in the axis, for example, means it is the first item of the second stage (i.e. the propagation stage). On the vertical axis, numbers of firms are marked. Out of the 45 respondent firms, more than 5 firms implemented items such as.,.2,.5, and 2.7. As 2.7 is an item of the second stage in the checklists, it looks abnormal (i.e. too many firms already implemented it) because some items of the first stage are implemented in less than 0 firms. Item 2.5 looks also abnormal because it is implemented in less than 0 firms and more than 0 firms replied that they did not plan to implement it. To analyze such abnormal items in detail, we divided the 45 firms into distinct groups and investigated the differences in characteristics of each group. Entering the Field: Interviews were conducted from January to March of In all ten firms, a leader of the KM team and two or three end users were interviewed. For firms with no CKO positions, the interview sheet for CKO was answered by the leader of the KM team. For each company, interviews were conducted for about hours.

4 Proceedings of the 8th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences Number of Firms (a) Initiation Group ( firms) Checklist Item Figure Implementation status of KM checklist items As the degree of management implementation of each firm is different, firms were divided based on the number of items they implemented in each stage. A clustering analysis was conducted. Since there is no standard technique for determining the appropriate number of clusters, and clustering, in this research, is just for exploratory division of firms to investigate the characteristics in detail, we fixed the number of clusters as 4. A hierarchical clustering analysis was conducted with Ward s methods which apply sum of squares as measures of similarity. As a result of the clustering analysis, firms in four groups were determined. Those groups were named as the initiation group, the propagation group, the integration group, and the networking group depending on the number of implemented items, i.e. initiation group had implemented the least items while networking group, the most. There were firms in the initiation group, 7 firms in the propagation group, 2 firms in the integration group, and 5 firms in the networking group. Number of firms which implemented each item in each group is shown in figure 2. More than four firms in the initiation group implemented items -, -2, -, and -5 while less than two firms implemented -6, -8 and -0. The average number of firms that implemented the items of initiation stage of this group is.7 firms. When we draw a horizontal line which represents that average number (i.e..7), items.4,.6,.8 and.0 are detected as abnormal items because numbers of firms which implemented those items are far below the average line. Items 2., 2.7 and 2.0 are also detected because too many firms in the initiation group implemented these items of the later stage. In the same way, we can detect items ,.2,.4,.6, and.7 as abnormal ones in figure 2 (b) by drawing an average line (i.e. 0.2 firms, the average number of firms which implemented the items of the propagation stage of the propagation group). We can also detect items 2.4, 2.5,.5, and 4. in figure 2 (c) by drawing an average line (i.e. 8.7 firms), and items 4.2, 4.4, and 4.5 in figure 2 (d) by drawing an average line (i.e. 2.5 firms). (b) Propagation Group (7 firms) (c) Integration Group (2 firms) (d) Networking Group (5 firms) Figure 2 - Implementation status of checklist items in each stage group Based on the results above, arrangement of items in the checklists was modified. The rearranged checklist is shown in table 2 (Items in bold style are the ones which moved to different stages). Table 2 Rearranged checklist Stage Items # of items The st stage The 2 nd stage The rd stage The 4 th stage Those 5 items written in bold style in table 2 (i.e. the items which were rearranged to another stages) and items ( 4.2, 4.4 and 4.5 ) which most companies had not implemented yet were selected as major focus of analysis for the following case study research. To see the temporal sequence of management implementation which Lee & Kim [5] could 4

5 not verify through a latent content analysis, we calculated the average implementation period of each group. As can be seen in table, the initiation group has the shortest implementation period in average while the networking group has the longest implementation period in average. Table Implementation period of each group (months) Period Average Standard Group Deviation Minimum Maximum Initiation Propagation Integration Networking We can see that the period of KM implementation gets longer as the stage of group gets higher. Therefore, it can be concluded that firms implement items in the initiation stage firstly, and then implement items in the next stages sequentially. Case Analysis Characteristics of Case Firms Based on the degree of management implementation, case firms can be categorized into three. Firm A, B, C and D are in the integration stage because organizational activities are institutionalized as daily activities over the whole organization. Most of them consider how to integrate the diverse and distributed organizational and leverage them to innovate the organizational products, services, or processes. Although some of them make efforts to link with external entities, those are still in the incipient stage of making external networks. As firm E and F started to invest in building their infrastructure to facilitate and motivate activities, they are in the propagation stage. The main concerns of them are how to build infrastructure efficiently and how to expand activities. Lastly, firm G, H, I and J seem to be in the initiation stage. They started to recognize the importance of organizational management and prepare for enterprise-wide management efforts. Some characteristics of management implementation are provided in table 4. Firm A, B and C initiated management in 999 while firm G, H and I introduced it in 200. Although firm A, B, C, D and F introduced KMS in 2000, firm G and J do not have it yet. Top managers proposed the management implementation in 7 firms while middle managers or employees suggested it in other firms. The KM teams of firms B, C, G and J belong to human resource departments. Those of firms A, D, E, and F belong to kinds of management planning and strategic department. Other firms KM teams are in IT department. Firms in the integration stage and the propagation stage have CKO except firm A. But, the leader of KM team in firm A has enough power to implement management strategy without CKO. Firms in the initiation stage have appointed neither CKO nor full time KM related employees in the operating division. Table 4 Some KM related characteristics of case firms Firm Date of KMS Proposer Number of introduction for KM CoPs A 2000/0 Middle 900 B 2000/02 Top 20 C 2000/09 Top 420 D 2000/07 Top 50 E 200/09 Middle 25 F 2000/06 Top None G - Top 77 H 2002/02 Top None I 2002/0 Top None J - Bottom None Integration of Case with Survey Results As a result of the preliminary survey study, 8 items of the checklist for managerial actions were selected as the foci of analysis in the case study research. To explain why those items show abnormal characteristics, we analyzed each item by integrating it with the management implementation histories of the case firms. Firstly, transition period from one stage to the next stage was deduced by comparing the characteristics of management goals and major managerial actions in the stage model with those of case firms. Table 5 summarizes those transition periods of firms. As Firm A, B, C, and D were in the integration stage, they have two transition periods, i.e. one transition period from the st stage to the 2 nd and the other one from the 2 nd stage to the rd. Firm E and F have one transition period because they were in the propagation stage. Other 4 firms were still in the initiation stage. Table 5 - Transition period of KM stages Firm Date of KM initiation Transition period from st to 2 nd stage (months from initiation) Transition period from 2 nd to rd stage (months from initiation) 200/0 ~ 200/0 (22 ~ 24) 200/0 ~ 200/0 (20 ~ 22) 200/06 ~ 200/09 (29 ~ 2) 200/2 ~ 2002/02 (2 ~ 25) A 999/0 2000/0 ~ 2000/06 (2 ~ 5) B 999/05 999/2 ~ 2000/02 (7 ~ 9) C 999/0 2000/0 ~ 2000/06 (4 ~ 7) D 2000/0 2000/05 ~ 2000/07 (4 ~ 6) E 2000/04 200/06 ~ 200/08 (4 ~ 6) Not yet F 2000/ /2 ~ 200/0 (8 ~ 9) Not yet G 200/04 Not yet Not yet 5

6 H 200/06 Not yet Not yet I 200/06 Not yet Not yet J 200/09 Not yet Not yet Item II-4 is Develop KM education or training programs for managers. Firm A, B, and C made KM education program in the integration stage. Firm A developed some programs for educating Knowledge Champions at the end of 200 when the management activities of employees were settled. Firm B and C also made some programs after the settlement of management. Most case firms regarded this item as the item not so directly related with management. They had a tendency to develop education programs in some time after the settlement of management. Although the goal of this item is close to that of the propagation stage, i.e. infra-building, it would be better for this item to move into the next stage. Item II-7 is Introduce the management system. Firm A, B, C, D and E introduced the KMS in the propagation stage while firm F, H, and I introduced it in the initiation stage. The former firms introduced KMS after fostering management culture. Firm G and J also had tried to foster management culture by the time we interviewed them. As management of firm F, H, and were IT-oriented, their management started with the introduction of KMS. When we measure the performance of management by the number of registered and number of -viewing, the performance of IT-focused firms was worse than other firms which introduced KMS after fostering management culture. So we recommend the introduction of KMS should stay in the propagation stage in which the goal of management is for infra-building. Alavi and Leidner [] also pointed out the importance of fostering KM culture before introducing information systems. As space is limited, detailed explanations on other 6 abnormal items in the survey results will not presented in this article. The final results of the analysis on the 8 abnormal items can be summarized as follows. Items which need movement into other stages (i.e. items which support survey results): II-, II-4, II-5, III-4, III-7, IV- Items which need not to move (i.e. items which do not support survey results): I-4, I-6, I-8, I-0, II-7, II-0, III-2, III-5, III-6 Items which have difficulties in actual implementation: IV-2, IV-4, IV-5 Additional Analysis of Cases In this section, additional findings of the case study not directly related with the survey study will be presented. As a new management object which needs to be managed effectively, Community of Practice (CoP) is strongly suggested. Some management actions to supplement the checklist of the stage model will also be treated. As shown in table 4, a large number of CoPs are managed in many firms. Since CoPs were regarded as main subjects of managing the quality of in firm A, they had been managed since the initiation of management implementation. Firm B also had managed CoPs for cultivating -sharing mind and promoting communications between employees since September, 200. CoPs of firm C were famous for their visible performance. In the firm, culture of learning was settled and significant problem-solving had occurred through the activities of CoPs. CoPs had been managed since the beginning of year 2000 which was in the firm s initiation stage of management. CoP is defined as a group of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion. According to Wenger and Snyder [], it gives much value to companies such as solving problems quickly, transferring best practices, developing professional skills, helping strategy, starting new lines of business, and helping companies retain talent. It has not been so long time since the importance of CoP was emphasized. It has been brought to fore with the dissemination of management paradigm due to the nature of. Wenger et al. [2] explained those nature of lives in the human act of knowing, is tacit as well as explicit, is social as well as individual, and is dynamic. Although Lee and Kim [5] proposed worker as a management object, they missed regarding community as a separate object which needs to be managed specially. As methods for management of individual person are different from those for management of community, we propose CoP (or community) as a separate object of management. To provide some managerial actions for managing CoP, we adopted Wenger et al. [2] s stage model of CoP. In their model, CoPs develop through potential stage, coalescing stage, maturing stage, and stewardship stage. Firm A, B, and C in the case study introduced CoP strategically for managing quality of, promoting communications and solving lots of problems. Firm B started to manage CoP with the introduction of KMS. After appointing some CoPs instead of letting them grow spontaneously, the KM team supported them to set up their goals. And then, the team disseminated best practices of one CoP to motivate other CoPs activities. As the next step of CoP management, the team considered making networks with external partners. Based on the observations in the case study and the literature, we propose to add managerial actions in each stage to Lee and Kim s model of management implementation as shown in table 6. 6

7 Table 6 - Recommended Managerial Actions for CoP Management Stage Initiation stage Propagation stage Integration stage Networking stage Recommended Actions Discover and identify potential communities Legitimize community coordinators to help communities to set up their goals Disseminate best practices guidelines of CoP Seek relationship and benchmarks outside the organization In addition to CoP-related activities, we found two management actions to add to Lee & Kim s model. Firm A, B, C, D and E had a problem on how to measure the performance of management implementation. Their focus of management in the early part of implementation was disseminating the needs of management and promoting the employees activities. As time went by, they could not help answering what benefits management had brought to the organization. By answering this, they could get continuous support from top managers and also make employees do the activities continuously. A KM team leader reminded us of the famous saying, If you don t measure, you can not manage it. One of the common methods they tried to adopt for measuring the outcomes of KM implementation was evaluating the capital of the firm. The goal of measuring the outcomes of management also coincides with the that of integration stage in the Lee and Kim s model. Therefore, we suggest adding one action item into the integration stage as follows. Measure the outcomes of management which contribute to the organization and individual workers, for example, by surveying capital. We could find another novel action in firm A and B both of which were in the integration stage. Firm A started -based businesses (KBB) in 200 while the KM team of firm B were making a plan to start it. As they thought the outcomes of management could be commercialized, they put significant efforts for producing high-quality, best practice-based packages. It also coincides with the management goal of integration stage in the Lee and Kim s model, that is, integration of management efforts to organizational outcomes. Therefore, we suggest adding another action item into the integration stage as follows. Start -based business on the foundations the organization made through the management. Discussion and Implication To validate and refine the management stage model, this study conducted a survey and a multiple case study. As a result of the survey study, we found abnormal actions we should focus on in the case study. In the case study, we observed when each firm had implemented those actions. Based on the observation, some movements and explanations were made on the location of each checklist item. Out of the 8 items we selected as abnormal items in the case study, 6 items were moved to other stages. Besides the observation on the original checklist of managerial actions, we found one additional management object and provided related managerial actions. Two more actions which firms in the integration stage had a tendency to implement were also found. In the survey results, we could also observe the temporal sequence of management implementation which Lee and Kim [5] could not verify in their study. As the KM stages progress, firms had implemented fewer checklist items. And, as expected, the elapsed time since the start of KM implementation gets longer as the firms move to a more mature KM stage. Besides, most firms investigated in the case study also followed the sequence of their stage model. To the practitioners, this study provides richer checklists to measure various management objects and activities. As managerial action items for managing CoPs and two other actions were added, practitioners will be able to use the findings of this study as their comprehensive KM implementations guidelines as well as utilizing the checklist for diagnosing their current status of management implementation. Conclusion Summary This study is for investigating how management of organization develops and what should be managed when for successful management implementation. After reviewing the literature on and management, management stage model of Lee & Kim [5] was adopted as a basis of research framework. A survey was conducted as a preliminary study for refining the foci of analysis. After checklists for managerial actions collected from 45 firms were analyzed, 8 items in the checklist were selected as the major focus of analysis for the ensuing case study analysis. The case study was conducted based on the guidelines of Eisenhardt [] s case study process. Firstly, individual cases were analyzed. In this step, general characteristics, management implementation histories, and current states of management of 0 case firms were summarized on the same dimensions of analysis. Secondly, a cross-case analysis was made. Through investigating each item selected in the survey study, 6 items were moved to other stages and the rest 2 items were left in their original stages. We tried to explain the possible reasons on both the moved ones and remainders. Lastly, additional findings through the case study were added to the stage model. CoP (Community 7

8 of Practice) and related managerial actions were suggested as an additional management object and managerial actions of management respectively. Related literature on CoP was enfolded in this step. Other new managerial actions firms were implementing in the integration stage were also suggested as necessary managerial actions. As a result of the research, complemented checklists for managerial actions were also suggested. Limitations and Future Research Directions The findings of this study should be considered in the light of its inherent limitations. Firstly, the findings cannot be easily generalized due to the specific samples we gathered in the case study. As those samples were selected from the KM consortium at a university, there is a possibility that they may not represent the general firms. Secondly, as this case study was conducted at one point in time, it was not easy to catch the dynamics of the organization. Therefore, it might be desirable to conduct a longitudinal study on the migration of management from earlier stages and identify the critical success factors for successful management evolution over time. Thirdly, as none of the ten case firms was in the networking stage, it was hard to explore the abnormal items in the networking stage in detail. Investigation of the more mature firms in their management implementation is needed. Lastly, although 6 items were added based on the observations and related literature, they need further empirical validation in the future. References [] Alavi, M. and Leidner, D.E. (200), Review: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 25, pp [2] Becerra-Fernandez, I. and Sabherwal, R. (200), Organizational Knowledge Management: A Contingency Perspecrtive, Journal of MIS, Vol. 8, No., pp [] Eisenhardt, K.M. (989), Building Theories from Case Study Research, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 4, pp [4] Jennex, M.E. and Olfman, L. (2004), Assessing Knowledge Management Success/Effectiveness Models, Proc. 7 th HICSS, IEEE Computer Society, Jan [5] Lee, J.H. and Kim, Y.G. (200), A Stage Model of Organizational Knowledge Management: a Latent Content Analysis, Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 20, pp [6] Massey, A.P., Montoya-Weiss, M.M., and O Driscoll, T.M., (2002) Knowledge Management in Pursuit of Performance: Insights from Nortel Networks, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 26, No., pp [7] Miller, D. and Friesen, P. H. (984), A Longitudinal Study of the Corporate Life Cycle, Management Science, Vol. 0, pp [8] O Dell, C. and Grayson Jr, C.J. (998), If Only We Knew What We Know, NY: The Free Press. [9] Rajagopalan, N., and Spreitzer, G. M. (996), Towards a theory of strategic change : a multi-lens perspective and integrative framework, Academy of Management Review, Vol.22, pp [0] Van de Ven, A. H. and Poole, M. S. (995), Explaining development and change in organizations, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20, pp [] Wenger E., Snyder, M. (2000), Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, pp [2] Wenger E., McDermott R., and Snyder W. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Appendix: Checklists for managerial actions (a) Check lists for the initiation stage No Managerial Actions Conduct a feasibility study of management implementation Conduct seminars, training or education to 2 disseminate the needs of management Assess current organizational problems of management Interview or survey to extract the requirements of 4 management 5 Create visions and goals of management Disseminate the management visions and 6 goals through organizations events such as formal meetings Appoint CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer) or Make 7 T/F team to initiate management Make a long-term plan for management 8 with or without external help 9 Conduct case study (or benchmarks) of best practices 0 Conduct pilot projects No (b) Check lists for the propagation stage Managerial Actions Make a tem (Committee or management team) to manage organizational resources Define a preliminary management process ranging from management acquisition to determination Set up a performance and reward system such as mileage system or master Develop KM education or training programs for managers Make a career path program or recruiting program to acquire experts 6 Set up a organizational typology 7 Introduce the management system 8

9 8 9 0 Conduct organizational events such as a contest or fair to activate activities Encourage or support informal or formal communities such as common interest group, discussion group or study group Show leadership by top and middle managers to activate activities (c) Check lists for the integration stage No Managerial Actions Scan or analyze the changes of requirements according to environmental changes 2 Define core or core competence areas Assign ownership of areas to managers of core business functions or processes 4 Monitor or control activities Evaluate the quality and effectiveness of 5 organizational by expert groups Conduct the quality management activities such as 6 editing, feedback, and determination of organizational by expert groups Reward individuals or teams based on the quality of 7 Integrate the sharing system with other 8 related systems such as EDMS, workflow management system, GroupWare Link the sharing system to legacy 9 operating system Emphasize the leveraging organizational 0 to process innovation or improvement by managers Disseminate best practice guidelines for utilizing organizational No (d) Check lists for the networking stage Managerial Actions Manage the internal or external resources of organizational by expert groups (resource development, evaluation, maintenance) Make alliances with suppliers, customers, or other partners Conduct organizational activities such as regular meetings, and create committee with partners to share management visions and goals Extend (or link) related policies or rules (measurement, rewards) to those of partners Link the sharing system to that of partners Facilitate or support external sharing activities such as conferences, contests, seminars with partners 9