Possible benefits from a knowledge management system - Attitudes towards the use of a knowledge management approach at a small department

Abstract: Assets of today’s organizations consist part in the form of immaterial assets. These immaterial assets often have the form of employees and their knowledge, which put a demand on effective means of communicating and organizing knowledge within an organization. To capture, facilitate, store, and communicate knowledge, several types of systems can be used. We have done an inductive case study of a small department within a large organization in the telecom industry to see if a small department could gain any benefits from implementing a knowledge management system. Our findings suggest that there are both negative and positive consequences that could arise from the implementation of a knowledge management system. However, we argue that the benefits are higher and a small department could limit interdependencies which can lead to less people involved in solving each problem, lead to users relying on the system and the knowledge within the system, shorten the learning period for new employees and finally lead to a system where knowledge is comprehensible and has a consistent high quality.