Is the Malaysian telecommunication industry ready for knowledge management implementation?

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the perceived importance and actual level of implementation of five preliminary success factors, four knowledge management (KM) strategies and three KM processes towards the performance of the Malaysian telecommunication industry.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was conducted on telecommunication companies based on a convenience sampling technique. Data were analyzed using paired t‐tests and multiple regression analyses.FindingsThe results show that Malaysian telecommunication organizations view all the KM preliminary success factors, strategies and process as important and critical but fall short of implementation. K Audit, K Map, leadership, measurement, construction and embodiment are the variables that have the largest gap between perceived importance and actual implementation. For perceived importance, culture is the only important variable associated with organizational performance whereas for actual implementation, both business strategy and construction process are found to be significantly associated with organizational performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper was conducted in only one industry in Malaysia. Furthermore, it focuses on KM implementation rather than on learning and knowledge utilization. This paper provides a framework for developing an instrument for assessing the use of preliminary elements in the Malaysian telecommunication industry. Telecommunication organizations have to overcome problems identified and enhance their implementation level in order to achieve better organizational performance.Originality/valueThis paper has extended knowledge in KM, especially concerning implementation issues at the beginning stage of KM. Moreover, it is among the first empirical work to specifically examine preliminary success factors, processes and strategies that affect the preliminary implementation of KM.

Measurement Model of Relationship Between Knowledge Management Enablers and Knowledge Management Performance in Public Sector

“…Wei et al [15] define organizational culture as the general knowledge sharing climate of an organization as related to an integrated pattern of human behaviors -including thoughts, speeches, actions, and artefacts. The authors further argue that a company's ability to use knowledge therefore depends primarily on the level of enthusiasm among employees that is ultimately influenced by the organization's culture.…”

“…According to Wei et al [15], KM Performance measurement refers to the assessment methods of KM and its relationships with organizational performance. Many companies fail to measure their KM efforts due to reasons such as failure to operationally define performance, failure to relate performance to the process, failure to define the boundaries of the process, and misunderstood or misused measures.…”

Investigating Individuals' Intention to be Involved in Knowledge Management Process

“…Three factors of KM enablers were found worth exploring namely, organizational culture (Choi et al, 2008;Lee and Lee, 2007;Wei et al, 2009;Lin, 2007), organizational structure (Lee and Lee, 2007;Lin, 2007) and IT infrastructure (Lee and Lee, 2003;Lin, 2007). In addition, based on the theories of TRA, TPB, TAM, and UTAUT the factors of individual acceptance, namely performance expectancy of KM (Venkatesh and Morris, 2003) and effort expectancy of KM (Venkatesh and Morris, 2003) were established.…”

“…The model was conceptualized based on the studies of Choi et al (2008), Lee and Lee (2007), Wei et al (2009), Lin (2007, Venkatesh and Morris (2003) and Choi and Lee (2002). Most of these frameworks were developed based on the theory of knowledge creation and the KM enablers.…”

“…Holt et al (2007) have done a survey study highly depending on change management literature rather than KM literature. Meanwhile, Wei et al (2009) aimed to assess the organizational readiness for KM through the level of Perceived Importance (PI) and Actual Implementation (AI) of some KM success factors, KM strategies and KM process, but the study actually evaluates the influence of those factors on organizational performance. In addition to these empirical works, there are few conceptual write-ups such as, Siemieniuch and Sinclair (2004).…”