And changing the culture for purposes of knowledge management would be like the tail wagging the dog. If you don't have a friendly political or cultural environment, you need to find a part of the organization that does, and work within it for a while. The organizational chart reflects power, not knowledge. If you want a map to who knows what you've got to create one. It's not that expensive and can be done at a basic level in a few months.
Intellectual curiosity is the most important factor.
As a simple guide, if the applicant hasn't studied your literature and web site before the interview, it's a very bad sign. It's difficult to train someone to be interested in acquiring knowledge. You may be fighting fifteen years of negative experience in the educational system. Working Knowledge is heavily informed by an original study you conducted of 31 knowledge projects in 20 different companies. Of all the projects you examined, you said that most successes involved operational improvement of an isolated process or function, rather than fundamental transformation of the firm.