KMS re-contextualization – recognizing learnings from OMIS research
| Published date | 14 August 2017 |
| Date | 14 August 2017 |
| Pages | 302-318 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-05-2016-0021 |
| Author | Manuel Mühlburger,Stefan Oppl,Christian Stary |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,Knowledge management systems |
KMS re-contextualization –
recognizing learnings from
OMIS research
Manuel Mühlburger,Stefan Oppl and Christian Stary
Department of Business Information Systems –Communications Engineering,
Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz, Linz, Austria
Abstract
Purpose –Deployment of knowledge management systems (KMSs) suffers from low adoption in
organizational reality that is attributed to a lack of perceivable added value for people in actual work
situations. Poor task/technology fit in the process of knowledge retrieval appears to be a major factor
influencing thisissue. Existing research indicates a lack of re-contextualizingstored information provided by
KMSs in a particular situation.Existing research in the area of organizational memory informationsystems
(OMISs) has thoroughlyexamined and widely discussed the topic of re-contextualization.The purpose of this
paper, thus, is to examine how KMS design can benefit from OMIS research on approaches for re-
contextualizationin knowledge retrieval.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper examines OMIS literature and inductively derives a
categorizationscheme for KMS according to their strategyof re-contextualizing knowledge. The authorshave
validated the scheme validatedin a multiple case study that examines the differentiatory value of the scheme
for approacheswith various re-contextualizationstrategies.
Findings –The classificationscheme allows a step-by-step selection of approachesfor re-contextualization
of information in KMS design and development derived from OMIS research. The case study has
demonstrated the applicability of the developed scheme and shows that the differentiation criteria can be
applied unambiguously.
Research limitations/implications –Because of the chosen case study approach for validation, the
validationresults may lack generalizability.
Practical implications –The scheme enablesan informed selection of KMSs appropriate for a particular
OMIS use case, as the scheme’s attributesserve as design rationale for a certain architectureor constellation
of components. Developers cannot only select from various approaches when designing re-contextualizaton
but also come up withrationales for each candidate because of structuredrepresentation. Hence, stakeholders
can be supported in a more informed way and design KMSs more effectively along organizational change
processes.
Originality/value –The paper addresses an identified need for systematic characterization of KMS
approaches and systems intending to meet theobjectives of OMISs. As such, it allows streamlining further
research in this field, as approaches can be judged according to their originality and positioned relative to
each other.
Keywords Classification, Knowledge management systems,
Organizational memory information systems
Paper type Research paper
© Manuel Muhlburger, Stefan Oppl and Christian Stary. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial &
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
VJIKMS
47,3
302
Received 14 May 2016
Revised 21 November 2016
10 April 2017
Accepted 3 May 2017
VINEJournal of Information and
KnowledgeManagement Systems
Vol.47 No. 3, 2017
pp. 302-318
EmeraldPublishing Limited
2059-5891
DOI 10.1108/VJIK MS-05-2016-0021
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-5891.htm
1. Introduction
Knowledge management systems (KMS) have been recognized as essential socio-technical
instruments to facilitate organizational learning since more than two decades (Damodaran
and Olphert, 2000). KMSs are organizational information systems that focus on “capturing
important (content and process) ‘knowledge’and making it available to employees as
required”(ibid.). Though their relevance and potential added-value is well-understood and
argued for organizational development in literature (Gold et al., 2001), their practical
deployment has remained below expectationsin terms of reach and impact (Lin and Huang,
2008). The lack of adoption appears to be influenced by several impact factors, most
importantly among them the lack of perceivable added value for operative staff in actual
work situations (Damodaranand Olphert, 2000;Lin and Huang, 2008).
Recent research still diagnoses the lack of perceivable added value for operative staff
because of poor task/technologyfit(Baloh, 2007;Turner et al., 2009),which can be attributed
to the lack of contextualizing the information provided by KMSs in a particular situation
(Baloh et al.,2012;Barroset al.,2015). Knowledge needs of organizational actors in business-
relevant situations seem to be largely ignored in terms of the selection of relevant content
and appropriate deliverychannels (ibid.). The present article aims at contributingto address
this issue by providing a framework for considering re-contextualization options in KMS
selection and design.Re-contextualization here refers to the process of deliveringknowledge
stored in a KMS to actors in a particular worksituation in a way that enables them to adopt
this knowledge to complete their task at hand (Schwartz et al.,2000). We hypothesize that
existing research in the area of organizational memory information systems (OMISs) can
inform KMS design in this area, as the topic of re-contextualization has been thoroughly
examined and widelydiscussed in this field.
OMISs have been introduced almost 30 years ago (Wegner, 1987;Barros et al.,2015).
Research has focused on the opportunities for organizational stakeholders to use existing
information, therefore pursuingsimilar objectives as KMSs. Research under the OMIS label
is usually linked to adopting a socio-technicalperspective on knowledge use and sharing in
actual work situations (Ackerman and Halverson, 2004;Ackerman et al., 2013b), while
KMSs research usually adopts a more techno-centric perspective on knowledgestorage and
retrieval (Toledo et al., 2011;Zhang et al.,2011) and often does not explicitly consider the
social and organizationalcontext of knowledge delivery.
Hence, OMISs research, in general, is complementary to research on KMSs with respect
to knowledge delivery and, thus, could inform approaches to address the issue of re-
contextualization in KMS design.Consequently, the key objective of this work is to develop an
understanding of how KMS design can benefit from OMIS research on stakeholder-centered
and (procedurally)structured ways of re-contextualizationin knowledge retrieval.
OMIS research offers different perspectives on re-contextualization, which we
consolidate in a common framework. The framework should highlightdifferent options on
re-contextualization, allowing to explicitly consider this aspect in KMSs selection and
design. Methodologically, we have conducted a literature survey to identify existing
approaches to re-contextualization in OMISs, including schemes to structure them. We
further screened the literature for (possible) connectors allowing for a combination of
existing structure schemes. After identifying and checking the relevance of each connector,
we aggregated the findings in a comprehensive categorizationframework. This framework
allows the classification of approaches into categories by matching the properties of an
approach with differentiators specified for each of the different categories. The validity of
this framework has beenchecked by applying it to state-of-the-art KMISs approaches.
Recognizing
learnings from
OMIS research
303
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