Organizational demographic variables and preliminary KM implementation success

This paper investigates the effect of organizational demographic variables on successful knowledge management (KM) implementation which insofar has not been thoroughly reported in the KM literature. For meaningful results to be generated, four organizational demographic variables, namely functional areas, years of KM involvement, KM development stage, and degree of knowledge intensity were moderated against a comprehensive set of KM activities, which comprise of KM preliminary success factors, KM strategies and KM processes, with organizational performance. The respondents comprised of middle managers working in the telecommunication industry in Malaysia. Based on the data collected from 289 respondents using a set of structured questionnaire, the results reveal that all the four demographic characteristics interacted with the degree of implementation of the KM activities, while three of the characteristics, with exception of functional areas, show significant relationships with organizational performance. The contributions of the paper, along with the implications of the results are discussed and interpreted to provide guidance to organizations for improved business performance through KM implementation success. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.