Americas Conference on Information Systems ( AMCIS ) December 2001 Measuring the Validity of Task Technology Fit for Knowledge Management Systems

The theory of task technology fit states that for information technology to have a positive impact on the performance of an individual then it must be utilized and be a good fit for the task that it supports. If the technology provides features that support the task, then performance will be impacted. Goodhue and Thompson's (1995) research linked information systems impact on performance only when there is a relationship between the task requirements of the user and the functionality of the system. Knowledge management is an emergent strategic technology that seeks to make both tacit and explicit knowledge available to an organization in order to improve overall performance. Information technology provides a competitive advantage when it can be demonstrated that it adds real value to an organization. This poses several questions for firms that invest in knowledge management, including do knowledge management systems meet the task requirements of users, how to transform the culture of the organization to want to share information, and how to ensure that knowledge databases are kept up to date with current and relevant information. This paper presents a framework to investigate the rationale for why further study on the importance of analyzing the validity of task technology fit for knowledge management systems will be conducted. Theoretical Foundation One of the essential emerging information system strategies is the transition from competitive advantage based information into optimization based knowledge management (Malhotra, 1998). Knowledge can be defined to be information combined with experience, context, and interpretation. Knowledge management is the transformation of knowledge into a format that can be utilized effectively and efficiently throughout an organization (Davenport, Delong and Beers, 1998); knowledge management is a set of processes for transferring the intellectual assets of the firm to value processes such as innovation and knowledge acquisition (Knapp, 1998); or stated simply knowledge management is making shared information useful (Bushko & Raynor, 1998). Knowledge management involves a strategic commitment to improving the organization's effectiveness as well as improving its opportunity enhancement. The goal is not cost control (Davis, 1998). Knowledge management as a process improves the organization's ability to execute its core processes more efficiently. Holsapple and Whinston (Mirchandani, 1999) define six types of knowledge that knowledge management applications, such as decision support systems should possess. These include: descriptive, procedural, reasoning, linguistic, presentation and assimilative. Descriptive knowledge is information about the past, present, future or hypothetical states of relevance that are concerned with knowing what. Procedural knowledge is concerned with knowing how and specifies step by step procedures for how tasks are accomplished. Reasoning knowledge is concerned with knowing why, evaluating conclusions which are valid given a set of circumstances. Presentation knowledge facilitates communication. Linguistic knowledge interprets communication once it has been received. Assimilative knowledge helps maintain the knowledge base by improving upon existing knowledge. It is important to distinguish between knowledge types in order to understand how to act upon the knowledge.