MITS5505 Knowledge Management: Case Study Analysis of KM Failure

This case study examines the failure of knowledge management (KM) implementation within a global company, focusing on five distinct stages: advocate and learn, develop a strategy, design and launch KM initiatives, expand and support efforts, and institutionalize knowledge management. The analysis reveals that the company's KM project, Alpha, failed due to several factors, including the lack of a dedicated KM team, inadequate resource allocation, insufficient funding for pilot projects, poor team coordination, and the inability to learn from competitors. The study contrasts two approaches to knowledge developer selection, favoring the pairing of a talented generalist with strong interpersonal skills and analytical abilities with a competent knowledge developer. The case highlights the importance of a holistic approach to KM implementation, emphasizing the need for strong leadership, adequate resources, effective team collaboration, and continuous learning to achieve successful knowledge management within an organization. The document concludes with a list of references.

Running Head: KM 1
KM
Author’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

KM 2
KM
Task 5.2 selecting an approach
I am persuaded to select the second approach for productive knowledge development.
“Send me a talented generalist with well-developed interpersonal skills or somewhat more
delicately, ‘a user friendly person’ and a rigorously analytical mind, and we’ll team him or her
with a competent knowledge developer.”
For a better understanding of why I have chosen the above answer, I will define what
knowledge management is in order to clarify my choice. KD (Knowledge development) is
viewed as a process that offers the decision makers a wider perspective of a complex
environment (1). In addition, knowledge development does not happen immediately since it is a
process. For a person to experience knowledge development, they would have to spend a
significant amount of time to develop knowledge and gain a deeper comprehension of difficult
situations that require knowledge-based solutions.
In brief, I am going for the second statement because I feel that a talented generalist
does not have the know-how on some specific areas. But if guided a generalist stands a a greater
chance to learn and broaden understanding of every problem that arises in the workplace,
organization or community. Also, take this analogue, a talented generalist is a like a student who
has some knowledge, but does not have expertise. However, if such a student is given to a
competent knowledge developer, he/she would be better placed to learn and be like the
knowledge developer who taught them.
7.1
Implementing KM

KM 3
7.1
Step 1: Advocate and learn
Stage 2: Develop a strategy
Stage 3: Design and launch K.M. initiatives
Stage 4: Expand and support efforts
Stage 5: Institutionalize knowledge management
In general, for smooth running of organisations, knowledge management should be
implemented (2). When there is poor or no implementation of KM, organizations may face some
global problems such as difficult in starting and lack of motivation among the employees.
Employees would wish to work in a comfortable and conducive environment. In most cases,
implementation of KM is not successful due to inability to keep up with changes that are
technological. On the contrary, there are other factors that lead to poor implementation of KM
that go beyond technological changes. Therefore, KM implementation based on the global
organization case study is analyzed as follows.
Advocate and learn
First, this stage introduces KM, identifies important points and KM team. It requires the
KM team to set aside some time in which they should learn the experiences of their competitor
and try to comprehend the environment that they operate from (3). The KM team needs to
identify people that will advocate initiatives that support KM. Following the case study, the
major problem was that the company did not form a knowledge management team that was
ready to share ideas and also learn. This primary stage requires learning which means that the
KM team must store and share data liberally among its members. It is significant to always keep
the team at peace and motivated to encourage idea sharing and working as a team. Unfortunately,

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at this global company there is an unfriendly environment and there is no team work. In this
case, the main drawback to KM implementation is seen as lack of idea sharing in the team.
Failure in the primary stage affects proper implementation of KM in the succeeding stages.
Develop a strategy
Developing a strategy is an important stage as it is in this stage that the best practices in
the firm are established. The functional steering team is formed in this stage. In this stage, those
implementing KM, will select a pilot, make a policy, and also develop KM strategies. In the case
study, there was a failure in the selection of pilots and thus signifying the Global Company was
going to fail. The resources are supposed to be identified and allocated appropriately to support
pilots. Considering the case study there the company only depended on the IT systems. This
indicates that that other pilots did not have adequate funding and that led to failure of
implementation of KM.
Design and launch KM initiatives
In this phase, lessons learned are noted down, teams are formed, and pilots are
implemented. Also, money is released in this stage to fund the pilot projects. However, the
failure occurred in this stage when the company was unable to fund its pilot projects after
running short of money. The money allocated to the projects was insufficient.
Expand support initiatives
In this stage, the company failed because it did not have enough budgets to support KM
initiative. Also, the team was not coordinated properly and this stifled efforts for expansion of
initiatives.
Institutionalize knowledge management

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Failure in this phase occurred because there were no achievements in the preceding stage.
There was no way; performance would have rewarded when there was no any expansion of
initiatives in the previous stage. Further, the decision to end Alpha project signified a complete
failure in this stage.
Reference
1. G.John, and J. Girard. "Defining knowledge management: Toward an applied
compendium." Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management vol.3, no. 1, pp.1-20,
2015.

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2. S. Gabriele, D. Vrontis, A. Thrassou, and L. Dezi. "The Internet of Things: Building a
knowledge management system for open innovation and knowledge management
capacity." Technological Forecasting and Social Change vol. 136, pp.347-354, 2018.
3. E. John S. "Business processes and knowledge management." In Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, pp. 4491-4498. IGI Global, 2015.