INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

It’s Role in Facilitating the Sharing and Transfer of Knowledge in

Small Medium Sized Enterprises

Lila Rajabion

School of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A

Azadeh Kheirabadi

School of Business, Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran

Keywords: Knowledge sharing, Knowledge management, Information technology, Organization, Knowledge transfer,

Small medium sized enterprise, Case studies.

Abstract: This paper argues that Knowledge management and sharing is of vital importance to small medium sized

enterprise, enabling them to develop skills and competences, increase value, and sustain their competitive

advantage. In this study we have investigated the role of information technology as facilitator for knowledge

sharing in the organization. The development of KMS, in this center, demands that knowledge be obtained,

produced, shared, regulated and leveraged by a steady conglomeration of individuals, processes,

information technology applications and a knowledge-sharing organizational culture. Also we present new

technology for convenient knowledge sharing as a successful case study in the roads management center.

Implications of how this might have been achieved are also provided in this research.

1 INTRODUCTION

Due to the IT revolution and advancements of the

Internet, the value of knowledge assets has been

greatly enhanced. Many companies are building

knowledge management system (KMS) in order to

manage organizational learning and business know-

how. The main purpose of such a policy is to help

knowledge workers to create important business

knowledge, to organize it, and to make it available

whenever and wherever it is needed in the

companies (O‘Brien and Marakas, 2006).

The advent of internet-related information

technology such as intranets, extranets, and

intelligent agents has contributed significantly to the

increased interest in knowledge management:

―Organizations are beginning to connect

themselves in ways that they hadn‘t planned for or

expected… Groups, departments, and teams

suddenly find themselves being able to share

information that they hadn‘t been able to share

previously. (InformationWeek, 10/20/97).

The highest value of IT to KM is in allowing the

expansion and universalization of the scope of

knowledge and in increasing the speed of

transferability. Additionally using IT, we are able to

retrieve and store knowledge in individual or groups,

which allows this knowledge to be shared with other

divisions in the same organization or business

partners in the world. Furthermore, IT contributes to

the integration of knowledge or even to the

stimulation of new knowledge (Davenport and

Prusak, 1998).

Today, the competitiveness of the firm relies less

on traditional factors (capital, land, and labor) than

was true in the past. Knowledge now appears to be

replacing these traditional factors. Moreover,

knowledge will become not just a source of

competitive advantage but the only source of it

(Drucker, 1993).

However, many companies have faced various

kinds of difficulties in implementing KMS. First, if

knowledge is merely accumulated in workers‘

brains, there is no way of recording it systematically.

Second, even though knowledge is recorded and

recorded in documents, it is very complicated to

search for, retrieve, or review it, a problem which

275

Rajabion L. and Kheirabadi A..

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - It’s Role in Facilitating the Sharing and Transfer of Knowledge in Small Medium Sized Enterprises.

DOI: 10.5220/0003618802750282

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2011), pages 275-282

ISBN: 978-989-8425-81-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

erects barriers to the diffusion of knowledge. Even

though managers in previous times knew how

important KM was, it was very difficult to

implement it successfully (Bradley et al., 2006).

Within KM, maturity and the use of information

technology (IT) development facilitates new

methods and applications (such as groupware, on-

line databases, intranets, etc.); it allows firms to

deliver products and services better in quality and

thus to achieve competitive advantage and profit

(Hendriks, 1999); (Holsapple, 2002); (Lynn and

Reilly, 2000); (Quinn and Baruch, 1999).

Thus, the growth of KM has been closely tied to

information and communication technology

(Chumer et al., 2000). Therefore, it is found that IT

plays a major role in the implementation of KMS

(Hislop, 2002). Nevertheless, few studies explore the

role and effect of information technologies in the

KMS. Hence, the purpose of this study is to

investigate the role and effect of IT in sharing

knowledge in the KMS as a factor of success in

knowledge management project, and introducing

new and effective method for it.

To deal with this issue more effectively, we

focus on a key question:

- How can information technology facilitate

knowledge sharing in organization?

The research indicates an important issue of KM.

that, IT is an indispensable enabler of KM. while IT-

enabled knowledge management goes beyond mere

automation to play an informating‘ role in

organizations by facilitating knowledge sharing.

2 DEFINITION (KNOWLEDGE,

KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT)

2.1 Knowledge

Knowledge, learning and cognition are classical

terms that have been re-discovered in the context of

the information technology and knowledge

management revolutions. Beckman (1998) compiled

a number of useful and relevant definitions of

knowledge and organizational knowledge:

• Knowledge is organized information applicable

to problem solving (Woolf, 1990).

• Knowledge is information that has been

organized and analyzed to make it understandable

and applicable to problem solving or decision-

making (Turban, 1992).

• Knowledge encompasses the implicit and

explicit restrictions placed upon objects (entities),

operations, and relationships along with general and

specific heuristics and inference procedures involved

in the situation being modeled (Sowa, 1984).

• Knowledge consists of truths and beliefs,

perspectives and concepts, judgments and

expectations, methodologies and know-how (Wiig,

1993).

• Knowledge is the whole set of insights,

experiences, and procedures which are considered

correct and true and which therefore guide the

thoughts, behaviors, and communication of people

(van der Spek and Spijkervet, 1997).

• Knowledge is reasoning about information to

actively guide task execution, problem-solving, and

decision-making in order to perform, learn, and

teach (Beckman, 1997).

A number of other authors have also proposed

knowledge typologies. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

have divided knowledge accessibility into two

categories: tacit and explicit. Beckman (1998)

identifies three stages of accessibility: tacit, implicit,

and explicit:

• Tacit (human mind, organization)—accessible

indirectly only with difficulty through knowledge

elicitation and observation of behavior.

• Implicit (human mind, organization)—accessible

through querying and discussion, but informal

knowledge must first be located and then

communicated.

• Explicit (document, computer)—readily

accessible, as well as documented into formal

knowledge sources that are often well-organized.

2.2 Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is defined as: ―the

systematic, explicit, and deliberate building,

renewal, and application of knowledge to maximize

an enterprise‘s knowledge- related effectiveness and

returns from its knowledge assets (Wiig, 1993).

Sveiby (1998) defines knowledge management is

the art of creating value from an organization‘s

intangible assets. Moreover, he identifies two main

tracks of knowledge management activities: one

track focuses on knowledge management as the

management of information and the other track as

the management of people.

Other researches show; linking the individual

perspective of knowledge to the organizational level,

organizational knowledge creation theory is

KMIS 2011 - International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

276

concerned with the processes which make available

individual knowledge to the organizational

knowledge system (Nonaka and von Krogh, 2009).

This knowledge processes consist of several steps,

starting with the creation of knowledge followed by

the use of knowledge, the transfer and sharing of

knowledge, and the storage and retrieval for further

use (Seufertet al. 2004). A crucial and difficult step

in the organizational knowledge process is the

conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit

knowledge.as we explain before; Tacit (implicit)

knowledge is unarticulated and rooted in experience

and intuition and tied to the senses and explicit

knowledge is uttered, can be formulated in

sentences, has a universal character and is accessible

through consciousness (Nonaka and von Krogh,

2009). Only explicit knowledge can be integrated in

the organizational knowledge base. To support the

transformation of tacit to explicit knowledge and to

facilitate the remaining steps of the organizational

knowledge process, the discipline of knowledge

management has evolved since the early 1990s

(Nonaka, 1999); (Spender involves 1996).

Knowledge management (KM) all practices of an

organization to create, store, use and share

knowledge (Probst et al., 1998).

3 LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1 Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing is the behavior of an individual

dispersing his or her obtained knowledge and

information to other colleagues within an

organization (Ryu et al., 2003). Knowledge sharing

involves a process of communication whereby two

or more parties are involved in the transfer of

knowledge. Hence, knowledge sharing is defined as

a process of communication between two or more

participants involving the provision and acquisition

of knowledge (Usoro et al., 2007).

Recently, researchers have highlighted the

various factors that affect an individual‘s willingness

to share knowledge, such as information and

communication technologies, costs and benefits,

incentive systems, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation,

social capital, social and personal cognition,

organization climate, and management

championship (Alavi and Leidner, 1999); (Bock and

Kim, 2002); (Bock et al., 2005); (Chiu et al., 2006);

(Hsu et al., 2007); (Kankanhalli et al., 2005); (Koh

and Kim, 2004); (Orlikowski, 1996); (Purvis et al.,

2001); (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Therefore, we

could presume that individuals‘ behavior for

knowledge sharing is affected by the contextual

factors and personal perceptions of the knowledge

sharing in which they partake in. Social cognitive

theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1982; 1986; 1997) is a

widely accepted model for validating individual

behavior (Compeau and Higgins, 1995).

The norm of reciprocity and trust are treated as

two major contextual factors influencing personal

perceptions and a member‘s behavior. Knowledge

sharing self-efficacy, perceived relative advantage,

and compatibility are seen as predictors of personal

factors since they are all considered as the main

influences shaping users‘ behavior (Bandura, 1982;

1986; 1997); (Igbaria and Iivari, 1995); (Rogers,

2003); (Sia et al., 2004); (Verhoef and Langerak,

2001).

Having looked at the purpose and resources for

knowledge sharing, we now turn to the process of

knowledge sharing by looking the formal and

informal settings in which knowledge sharing occurs

and looking at the content of knowledge shared.

Bartol and Srivastava (2002) define knowledge

sharing as the action by which employees

disseminate relevant information to others across the

organization. According to Bock and Kim (2002),

knowledge sharing is the most important part of

knowledge management (KM). Apart from Bartol

and Srivastava‘s operational definition a more social

definition suggested by Helmstadter (2003, p. 257)

characterizes knowledge sharing in terms of

voluntary interactions between human actors

through a framework of shared institutions,

including ethical norms, behavioral regularities and

so on.

In general, social psychologists consider that

knowledge sharing motivation has two

complementary aspects: egoistic and altruistic (Deci,

1975). The first was based on economic and social

exchange theory. It includes economic rewards

empirically; Bock and Kim combined the two

theories with social cognitive theory to propose

expected rewards, expected social associations and

expected contribution as. The major determinants of

an individual‘s knowledge sharing attitudes.

Moreover, Bock et al. applied these two theories to

produce two antecedents of sharing attitude:

anticipated extrinsic rewards and anticipated

reciprocal relationships. The second, altruistic

motive, assumes that an individual is willing to

increase the welfare of others and has no expectation

of any personal returns. This resembles organization

citizenship behavior (OCB), which is discretionary

individual behavior that is not directly or explicitly

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - It's Role in Facilitating the Sharing and Transfer of Knowledge in Small Medium

Sized Enterprises

277

recognized by a formal reward system, and promotes

the effective functioning of the organization (Smith

and Organ, 1983).

In additional, according to researches;

Knowledge sharing requires collaboration between

the users of knowledge; namely the collaborators.

This task cannot be accomplished simply by storing

knowledge in the repository. It also requires a

mechanism, which helps people find the

collaborators with relevant knowledge.

Collaboration over the Internet communities has

characterized itself by heavily relying on interaction

among the collaborators (Biström, 2005);

(Eikemeier and Lechner, 2003). Collaborators can

be any virtual users who interact to achieve the goals

of resources discovery, access, knowledge sharing,

group communication and discussion. The

collaboration for knowledge sharing should be

enacted without spatial and temporal limitations. In

addition, it should take place over medium such as

the Internet and therefore beyond the geographical

boundaries.

3.2 The Role of IT in Knowledge

Sharing

The means by which knowledge is shared within

organizations and the factors that facilitate

knowledge sharing/transfer are core issues in

knowledge management. advances in technology

have facilitated the recent growth in systems

designed for managing organizational knowledge, IT

is comprehensively utilized by members in

organization, IT is comprehensively constructed in

organization, top management is capable of applying

IT, members in organization apply IT to search and

use current organizational knowledge, and members

in an organization apply IT to create new knowledge

(Sher and Lee, 2003).

The Internet, one of the IT tools, gives rise to

virtual communities that aim at facilitating

collaboration by providing an environment for

mutual sharing and interaction. A collaborative

process in such an environment involves intensive

online knowledge discovery and knowledge sharing

between collaborators, such as knowledge

consumers and knowledge contributors (Yang and

Chen, 2007).

Butler et al. (2007) indicate that effective, i.e.,

successful, KMS are constituted by highly accessible

and well-integrated web- based Intranet technologies

that facilitate knowledge sharing on tasks/processes

and/or generic/infrastructures among general and/or

specific communities-of-practice. Benbya (2006, p.

4) also argues that effective knowledge sharing

technologies (i.e., core IT artefacts) are integrative,

highly accessible, and searchable, because

integration is a strong predictor of KMS

effectiveness, the ability of a system to integrate

knowledge from a variety of sources and present it

in a manner that enables easy access and reuse is

associated with both knowledge quality and

knowledge usage. IT artefacts, such as email,

datamining and learning tools, are important, but

non-core, as they are generally not well-integrated

and do not provide a focal point or node for effective

knowledge sharing (cf. Benbya, 2006) then we need

a system can manage knowledge integrity.

In the process of KM, the absorption, creation,

arrangement, storage, transfer and diffusion of

knowledge are all dependent on assistance provided

by IT. Khandelwal and Gottschalk (2003) pointed

out that the application of IT to the support of KM

apparently influences the results of knowledge

collaboration within the organization. There are

some example of using information technology for

implementing KMS and sharing knowledge in

organization:

Hewlett-Packard (HP), a company competing in

the market of computers, peripheral equipment and

other electronic equipment developed CONNEX

(http:// www.carrozza.com/connex), a People-Finder

KMS (T Carrozza, phone interview and follow-up e-

mail with developer of CONNEX at HP Labs,

September 16, 1999). The goal of the project was to

build a network of experts, available online, to

provide a guide to human knowledge within HP.

CONNEX consists of a centralized database of user

knowledge profiles, with a Web browser interface

that allows users to find profiles in multiple ways.

User's profiles contain a summary of their

knowledge and skills, affiliations, education and

interests, as well as contact information.

CONNEX users can easily find experts within

HP by searching the database by any combination of

profile fields or by browsing through the different

areas of knowledge, geographies and/or names. To

support a large user base with high volume of

transactions, CONNEX was built using Sybase

database and Verity's Topic search engine, on an HP

platform.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has also

taken a step towards the implementation of a system

to locate experts for using their knowledge in critical

situations (Wright and Spencer, 1999). The NSA is

part of the Intelligence Community, and their two

missions are Foreign Signals Intelligence and

National Information System Security. The goal of

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278

the implementation of the knowledge and skills

management system (KSMS), a People-Finder

KMS, is to catalog the talent pool within the agency

to allow the precise identification of knowledge and

skills, and to take advantage of information

technology. The NSA went through the development

of the system by applying database engineering in

order to solve the complexities of implementing an

adequate, workable and successful KMS. They also

divided the execution of this project into several

Work Tasks and developed knowledge taxonomy

applicable to their workforce.

4 CASE STUDY

The roads management center, in Ministry of Road

& Transportation of Iran, is medium organization

with different branches across Iran. This center

recently has implemented new Knowledge

Management System by focusing on creating,

gathering, organizing and disseminating an

organization's knowledge as opposed to

`information' or 'data'. The development of KMS, in

this center, demands that knowledge be obtained,

produced, shared, regulated and leveraged by a

steady conglomeration of individuals, processes,

information technology applications and a

knowledge-sharing organizational culture.

For getting this target, they use new technology

to make appropriate condition for fascinating

knowledge sharing in organization because the

Ministry of Road & Transportation had been used

the technology for knowledge sharing in knowledge

management project already and it was not proper

for this goal. New technology is Wiki technology, as

one of the advantages of web.2, has many good

points in sharing knowledge such as in

customer/client collaboration, documentation, and

developing an online community. The information is

often added to wiki but not deleted when no longer

relevant or accurate or updated when changed. Wiki

offers an excellent way to manage documents and

knowledge integrity. In wiki, foremost is the fact

that documents are edited in a very visible way,

which adds accountability and Members of

organization have to justify the changes because

everybody can see it. Also, each of members can

edit or add new information to other knowledge or

information that has been written by other members,

previous technology did not have this feature and it

was the main weakness of that. This faint was the

reason of employee's discontent.

Wiki's inherent version control means

organization never have to worry about losing a

document again. The use of wiki can also save time

by letting organization and its clients share

documents for collaborative editing and quicker

approval. A technical advantage of wiki over other

document management tools is that there are plenty

of good open source versions available at little or no

cost. Plus, wiki is usually extensible, so organization

can customize them to its needs and doesn't need an

expert administrator or extra hardware resources.

Despite wiki's benefits, the success of wiki in KMS

depends on how dedicated the participants are in

using the wiki and checking in regularly and wiki

platforms have a bit of a learning curve. With

training members in organization the usage of wiki

reveals obviously.

The advantages of wiki technology help roads

management center for making proper condition

between clients to share their knowledge more than

before.

5 METHODOLOGY

Research methods can be generally divided into two

types: quantitative research and qualitative research.

The main objective of this research is to explore the

roles and effects of IT on successful knowledge

sharing on knowledge management project, (Berg,

2000); (Hammersley, 1996). In that case, the

characteristics of the qualitative research method

make it better suited to be applied here. Therefore,

there is a design phase involved, which possesses

distinct methodology. The phase involved

voluminous review of the literature and in-depth

interviews with senior managers in roads

management center, both of which were aimed at

collecting data. Interviews are one of the most

extensively used methods of data collection

(Bryman and Burgess, 1999). The individual in-

depth interviews conducted in this study are of a

face-to face, which is one of the most common

approaches in qualitative research. This type of

interview involves asking a number of pre-

determined questions and special topics. Under such

circumstances, respondents are able to determine the

direction and content of the interview within a

broader framework provided by the interviewer.

After the interview at each manager had been

completed, the results were assembled, transcribed

and e-mailed to the respondents for their review and

approval in order to prevent any misinterpretations.

This process is expected to provide this study with a

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - It's Role in Facilitating the Sharing and Transfer of Knowledge in Small Medium

Sized Enterprises

279

richer and more holistic appreciation of the problems

regarding. In our study, we select twenty top

managers and thirty employees of roads

management center, In order to answer research

question the following questions asked of them.

There is a list of questions in interviews?

• What is the different between new technology

and previous technology for knowledge sharing in

your organization?

• What are the advantages of wiki technology?

• How can this new technology help client in

better knowledge sharing in organization?

• Is there any limitation in using of new

technology?

• Is it critical for your organization to get

appropriate knowledge sharing?

Answers to the questions were collected and

assessed, accordingly, the following results were

obtained the replies.

6 RESULTS

After analyses of replies we found, most of the

managers and employees believed sharing

knowledge is necessary for effectiveness and having

efficiency in their organization and it can help

reduce many cost the work again. They emphasized

that new approach in implementing knowledge

management with using wiki technology has help

better and easier knowledge sharing in organization

than previous approach and technology because new

approach use story telling technic for sharing

knowledge and wiki technology supports this

method in best way. According to this method,

Categories of knowledge organization will be

recognized and important knowledge subjects in

each category is clarified, then based on this

subjects, some question will be generated. The result

of this process will be added in wiki after that

managers and employees in different sector of

organization can link to wiki with intranet or internet

and according their knowledge and experience

answer the question in their category. In previous

method and technology employees or managers had

to think a lot of hours for understanding what she or

he can write about her or his knowledge but in new

approach, appropriate context for the users is

provided to share fully organized her or his

knowledge or experience in important field or

critical Knowledge gap is expressed as a question in

her or his sector of organization.

Table 1.

No.

Most advantage of using wiki technology as facilitator of

knowled

e sharin

in or

anization

Collaborative authoring

Easy editing - knowledge can edited at any time by anyone

Easy citing and sourcing

Name of article is part of the hyperlink

Server storage of documents

Automatic Versioning and Difference Engines for documents

Search facilities

Automatic links to discussion pages

Most recent editions very visible; easy monitoring

Massively distributable collaboration

Groups and Categories

Easy links to multi-language documentation

In addition the majority of participants in

interview considered that wiki technology plays the

role of reference in organization and internal

knowledge needs of people encourage & motivate

them for using this technology as a facilitating

knowledge sharing in their organization. Also they

were very pleasure because of wiki features that

provides users, like adding film, picture, voice or

uploading files related to contents that user share

with the others. In wiki technology everyone can

access to knowledge of other people and everybody

can edit or add new entries in this system. Table1 is

revealing advantages of this technology clearly.

7 CONCLUSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

In this paper, we have analyzed the role of the

information technology as facilitator of knowledge

sharing in organization. We considered IT as a tool

which is able to manage, store, and transmit

structural knowledge is a critical solution for

implementing impressive knowledge management.

Also we realized the type of the IT's tools are so

important in quality of knowledge sharing. And we

proposed new technology for better knowledge

sharing that it is wiki technology. We understood

wiki has more benefits than the rest of technologies

that had been used for knowledge sharing in

organization. The roads management center, as a

successful case, with using the wiki technology can

make suitable condition for their clients in

knowledge sharing. Our recommendations for other

organizations in implementing a successful

knowledge management project is that before any

actions in this case first realized their organization

needs and select an appropriate information

KMIS 2011 - International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

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technology as fascinating way in knowledge sharing.

According our result in this paper, wiki is tested as

proper technology among other as a tool for sharing

knowledge so we recommend to other organization

to use this technology

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