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Knowledge management: metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of intranets as knowledge management tools / Jan Dopheide.

by Dopheide, Jan

Knowledge management

Information technology -- Management

Intranets (Computer networks)

Organizational effectiveness

149 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Advisor: Dr. Paul Hudec.

Committee members: Gene Wright, Gary Shimek.

Introduction -- Definition of knowledge -- Importance of knowledge -- Development of knowledge management -- Knowledge as an asset -- Categorizing knowledge assets -- Intangible assets -- Definition of knowledge management -- Analysis of current definitions of knowledge management -- Knowledge management mental model -- Core process and design fields of knowledge management -- Knowledge management strategies -- Formulating knowledge management strategies -- Current status of knowledge management in practice -- Promises of knowledge management -- Trends in knowledge management -- Current challenges of knowledge management -- Scope of the thesis -- Relationship between intranets and knowledge management -- Importance of intranets within knowledge management -- Balanced Scorecard as a measurement framework -- Knowledge asset measures -- Intranet measures -- Measures for knowledge management initiatives -- Conclusions -- Potential deficiency of suggested framework -- Future research.

In a global environment where knowledge and its usage become increasingly more important every day, many organizations employ knowledge management to manage this valuable asset. Organizations expect improvements in various areas such as an increase of productivity, improvement of processes and the exchange of information, and customer orientation and satisfaction. Among the challenges in the various approaches to knowledge management is measuring the value and the performance of knowledge assets as well as of the effectiveness of knowledge management itself. In part, this can be attributed to a lack of familiarity with methods to promote the application of knowledge in the area by using measures to control knowledge. Due to the fact that various schools of knowledge management have developed over the last years, the student has narrowed the scope of this thesis to the role that intranets in organizations can play in knowledge management efforts and how their effectiveness is evaluated.

The proposition of this thesis is that knowledge management efforts in organizations lack the metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of employed intranets. In order to be successful with knowledge management, such metrics need to be developed and implemented into the existing performance measurement activities. So far, literature seems not to focus on metrics specifically developed for intranets.

Based on the findings of this thesis, the author suggests the use of a modified version of the Balanced Scorecard framework, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of intranets as knowledge management tools. In the opinion of the author, the existing setups to evaluate intranet effectiveness are insufficient, due to their lack of a connection between the business strategy and the knowledge management strategy as well as their incompleteness in regard to their ability to capture sufficient relevant data on the knowledge processes that are facilitated by intranets. Therefore, the author proposes to use a modified version of the Balanced Scorecard concept, combining the specific knowledge measure presented in this thesis. The result of this new evaluation system should be a Balanced Scorecard for intranet effectiveness evaluation with the following performance equation: Knowledge goal achievement plus internal efficiency plus user satisfaction equals intranet effectiveness.

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