The Role of Fit in Knowledge Management Systems: Tentative Propositions of the KMS Design

Abstract

While most organizations have deployed knowledge management systems (KMS), only a handful have been able to leverage these investments. Existing knowledge management (KM) research offered valuable insights on how to introduce KMS in a sense of innovation-diffusion, yet little guidance has been offered to KMS developers who need to decide on functionalities of a tool they are to introduce in a particular organizational setting. The goal of this paper is to propose theoretical background for design of IS that successfully support and enable decision making, which is seen as the ultimate form of knowledge creation and utilization. By using principles of the design science, design profiles proposed build upon works from organization and IS sciences, primarily the evolutionary information-processing theory of knowledge creation (Li & Kettinger, 2006) and the task technology fit theory (Zigurs & Buckland, 1998), the latter being amended for particularities of the KM environment. Proposed fit profiles suggest that one-size-fits-all approaches do not work and that organizations must take, in contrast with suggestions of extant literature, a segmented approach to KM activities and fitting IT support.