The Review of “Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management”

The Review of “Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management” edited by Jay Liebowitz, Elsevier, Cambridge, MA 2016, pp. 221Reviewed by Carla Curado*The "Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management" recently edited by Jay Leibowitz gives readers a collection of contributions from prominent Knowledge Management (KM) scholars, including top KM ranked journal editors, suggesting what we can expect from future developments of KM. There is often great power in looking back when anticipating how to move forward. That is why Jay Leibowitz gathered interesting examples of KM adventures and brings them to us in this book. Let's look at the future: what can we see? Jay Leibowitz envisions some paths for KM to continue to support organizational success and he provides us with a roadmap:1. Integration Lane: KM should continue to be an integrative mechanism across the different functional areas in the organization.2. Human Capital Square: KM should noticeably contribute and be recognized as a part of human capital strategic options of the organization.3. Technology Avenue: KM should benefit from increasing technological solutions bonding structured and unstructured data emerging from digital communities.4. Sustainability Metropolis: KM should remain to be the support of organizational sustainability by providing tools to fight the effectiveness and the competitiveness challenges.I believe Jay Leibowitz continuously travels these roads guiding his students and helping professionals implementing his valuable KM recommendations. A close overview of the contents of Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management gives us a large number of examples of KM over the last decade. Apart from the diversity of firms and cases reported, the book inspires us for the present and upcoming challenges in KM. Lessons learned, achievements and disappointments are part of KM development, which is why this is a book worth reading to prepare the future. Let us take a look at each and every chapter:Holsapple, Hsiao and Oh describe on Chapter 1 a collection of nine generic activities, each one serving as a parameter for a conditioned function that indicates the degree of oiganization effectiveness: Knowledge acquisition; Knowledge assimilation; Knowledge selection; Knowledge generation; Knowledge emission; Knowledge measurement; Knowledge control; Knowledge coordination; Knowledge leadership. The parameters provide a mental framework for thinking about the relationrelationship between success and the conduct of KM. The nine parameters form a checklist for auditing how KM is being done in an organization, for systematically formulating new KM initiatives, for studying how to improve an organization's practice of KM, and for avoiding blind spots in a search for avenues to KM success.On Chapter 2 Ribiere and Calabrese identify some of the main reasons why organizations are still struggling to implement KM. Seven main categories of reasons emerge from their study: culture, measurement/benefits, strategy, organizational structure, governance and leadership, IT-related issues, and lack of KM understanding/standards. Among their findings, the concept of time was revealed to be a key factor. Organizations often do not have or take the time to wait for a new KM practice to show its value. Benefits are expected to appear quickly because the focus is often on the quarterly basis and rarely on the long term. Organizations seldom take the time to reflect on their KM activities and lessons learned, and these attributes provide KM programs enough time to show their strong value.Hoffman, Boyle and Rogers on Chapter 3 report how NASA took advantage of opportunities for greater coordination and collaboration across the organization through KM. For NASA, the federated approach allowed an effective balance of autonomy and responsibility. With this approach, the knowledge community generated common definitions and purposes and developed reinforcing products and services that addressed both local and agency knowledge considerations. …