The effect of knowledge on system integration project performance
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570810858787 |
| Pages | 385-404 |
| Date | 21 March 2008 |
| Published date | 21 March 2008 |
| Author | Han‐Kuk Hong,Jae‐Sik Kim,Taehun Kim,Byung‐Hak Leem |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
The effect of knowledge on system
integration project performance
Han-Kuk Hong
Department of Management Information System,
Dong-eui University, Busan, South Korea
Jae-Sik Kim
Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, Advisory Services, Seoul, South Korea
Taehun Kim
Department of E-business, Kyungsung University, Busan, South Korea, and
Byung-Hak Leem
Department of Business Administration,
Pusan University of Foreign Studies, Pusan, South Korea
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to clarify the relationships between various components of knowledge
possessed by the members of system integration (SI) project team and the project performance of those
team members. From this lessons are learnt on SI project management issues and managerial
implications regarding team member knowledge management for project performance are provided.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors validated the model and tested the hypotheses
using the structural equation model analysis LISREL.
Findings – Using data from 49 SI projects performed by a prominent consulting firm, the authors
discovered a positive relationship between SI project team member knowledge and project
performance. Notably, tacit knowledge was found to be influential, but explicit knowledge was not.
The leadership capability of team leaders and the communication capability among team members
were found to be important factors affecting project performance.
Research limitations/implications – A limited number of SI projects were analyzed due to
difficulties with project selection and frequent movement of consultants during the data gathering
process. As a result, additional analyses considering project size and complexity were not performed.
Project team members’ personal knowledge obtained through experience in similar projects or similar
industries is very important to improve SI project performance. Leaders of participating SI projects
have to think over project team members’ tacit product knowledge and tacit process knowledge when
building their project’s team.
Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper lies in the establishment of a causal
relationship between SI project team member knowledge and project performance, as well as in the
proposed managerial implications for SI project knowledge management.
Keywords Knowledge management, Systems analysis,Project management, Tacit knowledge,
Explicit knowledge
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Consulting firms offering system integration (SI) provide clients with consulting and
system development/operation services that require intensive professional knowledge.
They rely on intellectual capital and other intangible assets which reside largely with
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Effect
of knowledge
on SI
385
Received 17 October 2007
Revised 13 November 2007
Accepted 8 December 2007
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 108 No. 3, 2008
pp. 385-404
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570810858787
the professional managerial and technical consultants who work for them. These
consultants have built their expertise from academic education, professional training
and work experiences. If a consulting firm loses a consultant, a fair share of its
embodied knowledge may be lost as well. Thus, retention and retraining of personnel
who have knowledge and extensive experience is critical to the survival and success of
a SI firm (Hong et al., 1999).
Though knowledge is a critical asset to professional firms and recognized to be
ultimately relative to the performance of such firms, relatively little effort has been
made to establish a causal relationship between business performance and employee
knowledge (Davenport, 1999; David and Edward, 2007). This is perhaps mainly due to
the difficulty in measuring knowledge (Liebowitz and Wright, 1999; Ruggles, 1998;
Teece, 2004; Kongkiti, 2007). A number of studies on measuring project performance in
SI projects have been proposed (Banker and Kemerer, 1992; Deephouse et al. 1996;
Hong et al., 1999), but few on the effects of knowledge have been carried out. Mitchell
(2006) examined the relationship between time ly project completion and the
management’s knowledge integration capability including access to external
knowledge and internal knowledge integration. Ko et al. (2005) examined the
antecedents of knowledge transfer from consultants to clients in an inter-firm complex
information system implementation context using an integrated theory and found that
knowledge-related, motivational and communication-related factors have an effect on
knowledge transfer.
In this paper, we aim to establish a causal relationship between SI project team
member knowledge and project performance, and propose managerial implications for
SI project knowledge management. For this purpose, we clarify and classify the
general construct of knowledge with reference to previous studies, define
characteristics of SI project knowledge particularly, and suggest an extended
research model of the “Knowledge Conversion Model” put forth by Nonaka (Nonaka
and Takeuchi, 1995). We used field data for the empirical study of 49 SI projects
performed by a prominent Korean consulting firm to validate our model, and tested our
hypotheses using the structural equation model analysis LISREL.
In this study, we found that SI project team member knowledge has a significant
positive impact on project performance. More importantly, our findings demonstrate
that it is tacit knowledge, not explicit knowledge, which drives project performance
improvement. In addition, we found that project leadership and team member
communication capability are important factors in project success.
The paper is organized as follows. We first present a brief review of related
literature on knowledge concepts and SI project performance. Then the research
methodology is presented, followed by the research model and samples collected, as
well as findings from the analysis. Finally, we present a summary of findings,
discussions, and implications.
2. Previous research
2.1 Knowledge in the SI project: characteristics and classification
Knowledge is often viewed as a raw material for system development and integration
tasks. For complex projects, knowledge from multiple technical and functional
domains is a necessity (Curtis et al., 1988). In general, individual team members do not
have all of the knowledge a project requires and must acquire additional information
IMDS
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386
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