The Dissemination and Adoption of Knowledge Management Practices Behavioural Model Raul M. Abril Henley Management College, UK [email protected] Abstract: Moving a global consulting organisation from an attitude based on individuals’ “knowledge is power” to the advocated principles of knowledge sharing is a challenge that requires facilitation. This paper studies a real global consulting organisation that recognised that important firm resources like processes, technology and capital were not enough in order to drive the required attitudinal change. Details are presented about the lessons learned from a couple of unsuccessful past knowledge management programs and from a successful implementation of a knowledge enablement program involving agents as facilitators of attitudinal change. Some of the lessons learned were that (i) action research components were of help harvesting knowledge assets from tacit knowledge, (ii) perceived value moderates the motivation of associates to participate in the knowledge enablement program, and (iii) knowledge practice owners should perform their agentic task as consultants. A topic for discussion is if the prior knowledge of knowledge practice owners on a given knowledge domain is a requirement to facilitate an attitudinal change. Keywords: driving attitudinal change, knowledge practice owners, ethnography, knowledge enablement, global consulting organisation, action research 1. Introduction 1.1 The organisation This paper addresses a subject of business and DataCon is the fictitious name of a real business academic relevance: How to implement a unit of a big IT firm. DataCon has a global behavioural change in a professional services presence (i.e. over 100 countries), a world-class organisation that is perceived as having an customer list with more than 800 customers in excellent performance delivering projects? The industries like banking, telecommunications, retail. question has embedded a subtle distinction DataCon customer base includes firms in the top between behaviour and performance. If it is ten ranking in Fortune 500 (e.g. 90% of top global performing, why we should touch it? The communication service providers, 50% of top counterargument is that it is better to focus firm global retailers). DataCon’s technological scarce resources in changing behaviour in areas solutions are delivered by 2,500 professional that are not performing as expected. The service consultants and produced revenue of compelling business reason for implementing $1,500M in 2005. Market analysts consider behavioural change in a professional services DataCon as the dominant leader of decision- organisation that is perceived as performing well it making solutions (e.g. customer management, is essentially of competitive nature (e.g. financial management, profitability analytics, sustainability of a leadership position). supply chain management, demand chain management), which includes professional Past experiences and the lessons learned services. implementing knowledge management practices are presented with a narrative style. All the field The professional services are organised on observations were made using a combination of territorial bases. Professional services managers case study research and action research report to a sales vice-president. Consultants in the (Remenyi, Williams, Money, and Swartz 1998). A professional services organisation have strong number of working hypotheses are articulated billable time objectives and their delivery driving behavioural change towards the adoption approach is the traditional consulting project team of knowledge management practices. A research applying project management techniques (e.g. model is suggested for discussion that explains Project Management Institute 2000). Deliverables the hypothesed relationships among the drivers are produced in most of the cases in local for behavioural change and adoption of language with some remarkable exceptions. For knowledge management practices as the example, in Scandinavia and Middle East it is dependent variable. Knowledge Management common to deliver in English. In terms of Antecedents language, Europe, Middle East and Africa professional services organisations demand that best-in-class assets are translated to English. However, Asia-Pacific and Japan professional ISSN 1479-4411 131 ©Academic Conferences Ltd Reference this paper as: Abril, R.M (2007) “The Dissemination and Adoption of Knowledge Management Practices Behavioural Model” The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2, pp 131-142, available online at www.ejkm.com Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2 2007 (131 -142) services organisations demand that best-in-class ̇ A number of generic objectives (e.g. improve assets are translated to their country languages. margin and profit, improve use of The territory is clustered by location and demand. practitioners, decrease risk) So, in areas like Middle East, a professional ̇ Investment in a technology program to organisation covers more than one country and develop and deploy an environment that for all industries. However, in US, professional would support this vision. This program was organisation are segmented by industry covering named as Knowledge and Asset Manager a number of estates (e.g. South East states and (KAM). for retail industry). KAM was released last quarter 1998 and globally deployed to all the organisations. KAM used a Project teams are the organisational links among web interface and, optionally a Lotus Notes client the professional consultants. Consultants on “the interface. KAM web interface provided search and bench” (i.e. not assigned to a project) use to have submission capabilities of knowledge assets. The a virtual office. Most of the projects are done at Lotus Notes client interface provided capabilities the customer site. This means that project team for manipulating knowledge assets produced in members travel to the locations where the the context of customer facing engagements. In customer premises are located and they keep parallel, it was recognised the need for having communication links with the rest of DataCon processes documenting the knowledge asset flow using phone and e-mail when possible. The with KAM. Expectation was that the professional implementation phase of a project might last organisations delivering projects and the RandD anything between a few weeks for a basic and marketing organisations would make KAM as business intelligence reporting to several months the single centralised tool and repository of for a full data warehouse implementation. knowledge assets. KAM had limited support Consultants enter and leave the project as resources in the field and they focussed their dictated in the project plan. It is not uncommon to action to promote the usage of KAM with generic have a consultant at the customer site for six to presentations about the value of using KAM. KAM twelve weeks. The exception is the project technology received an acceptable level of manager who usually has on site presence during adoption from the RandD and marketing the entire project. Contact access is easy through organisations. This was visible in the form of mobile telephony. However, e-mail access and documentation and sales assets available in KAM. internet access is not a standard even in areas Unfortunately, there was little adoption in the like US. It is not uncommon to find customers that professional services organisations. Acceptance do not allow the consultants to gain external of processes and technology (e.g. Davis 1989) access to internet. This means that these has been frequently studied in the literature in consultants only have access to corporate work relation behavioural constructs like usage. environments when they are in their hotel rooms Frequent complains were: cumbersome access to after their long working hours. Furthermore, being assets and few or lack or relevancy for the task at at the customer site, their traditional way of hand. KAM was discontinued in October 2002. sharing assets is via memory sticks and the assets are dispersed among the laptops of the By last quarter 2002, a number of intranet sites consultants. had been operational for few years and they 1.2 Knowledge management antecedents became the prime mechanism of outbound communication. Each intranet site targeted a Knowledge management practices (e.g. function (e.g. sales, support, professional Edvisnsson, Buzan, and Truch 2004) had been in services). There was a clear conviction that place in a few local organisations. In this knowledge assets had a prime user and it was not environment, knowledge did not flow cross local needed to grant access to associates in other organisations in a smooth way. In fact knowledge functional areas. Submissions of assets were was located in organisational local silos. DataCon under control and not generally available to every recognised that knowledge was a firm resource associate. Again, this technology received an (e.g. Barney 1991, Huang, Lee, and Wang 1998) acceptable level of adoption from the RandD and and define a corporate vision towards knowledge marketing organisations and a little adoption in the management characterised by the following professional services organisations. Furthermore, constructs: the volume of assets grew and the need for ̇ A generic definition of knowledge accessing knowledge assets cross functional management based in reference material (i.e. areas became an issue. From a technology stand “Knowledge Management is the discipline that point, this issue was addressed by (i) removing promotes an integrated approach to most of the access restrictions that were identifying, managing, and sharing all of an associated to each role and (ii) with the enterprise’s information objects” development of a search engine exploring all the www.ejkm.com 132 ©Academic Conferences Ltd Raul M. Abril intranets. In parallel, to these search engines behaviour is strongly influenced by such cross intranets, DataCon considered that the objectives. There were no explicit/implicit active involvement of the practitioners was a knowledge management objectives for requirement for the success of knowledge professional services and this did not favour their management. The hope was that by actively attention for adopting enthusiastically KAM. making the practitioners players they would start Knowledge growth was enabled by training adopting their dedicated intranet site. This idea courses and mostly by experiential learning (e.g. was operationalised promoting communities of Kolb 1984). In fact, any average senior consultant interests. The management action focussed in (e.g. a logical data modeller, an architect, a communicating the message to the filed trying to project manager) required a considerable learning persuade practitioners to organise themselves curve measured in years. It was not unusual to into communities covering one specific subject. require between three and five years to reach proficiency and once this level was reached it was These communities of interest were organisational not uncommon to think that “knowledge is power”. structures characterised in reality by their informal So, as some consultants said “why should I nature (loosely coupled systems (e.g Weick, K.E. submit my templates and lessons learned?”. 2001), voluntary assignments, and not regular meetings). The hope was that the exchange of An almost only technologic approach to knowledge in these communities of interest would knowledge management, as the KAM initiative drive the usage among the participants of the represented, did not enable a significant professional services intranet. Unfortunately, few knowledge management enhancement in communities of interest were constituted and they DataCon. Professional services organisations did never were really operational. Of course, there not have the attitudes of a classical consulting were standard advocated processes for company were knowledge is the life-blood of the conducting projects and, in fact, there was a organisation and where turnaround in the junior considerable effort in the organisation developing levels is measure in months. Another lesson best in class processes. All this explicit knowledge learned was that an appropriate level of human impacted positively and had business significant resources is needed to support a technologic impact in terms of risks reduction and quality approach like KAM. It was clearly not enough to improvement. However, these artifacts (i.e. offer presentations talking about the functionalities processes, tools, templates, KAM) had some of KAM and arguing that usage of KAM was holes in terms of detail (e.g. not enough to deliver synonymous of good corporate citizenship. This being a junior consultant), in terms of subject (e.g. few resources acted as tool administrators and in released applications by RandD with no explicit their charter there was not any role in driving knowledge on how to implement them), and in change. The intranets sites became technologic terms of situations (e.g. how to design a logical environments providing pulling capabilities of data model that can be physically populated with knowledge assets. Furthermore, such assets were the existing data sources versus a theoretical systematically final versions of released logical data model that might be almost empty in documents. For example, the few knowledge the implementation). Knowledge management assets that some one could expect to find in the needs on the “front line” of customer professional services intranet were uploaded engagements were addressed by using personal when the project was closed (e.g. statements of networks of contacts and broadcasting e-mails to work, project plans, requirements documents, discussion forums requesting for help. These technical specifications, post-mortem lessons discussion groups were very popular among the learned). Most of the flow of documents during a practitioners and represented a just-in-time normal project implementation among the project access to mostly explicit knowledge in some part team members happened via e-mail. E-mail of the organisation. servers became the critical tool for disperse project teams and the inbox folder of the project 1.3 Lessons learned from the KAM and manager was the central repository for all the intranet experiences knowledge assets in the project team. From a The generic objectives (e.g. improve margin and corporate standpoint, this is an unsatisfactory profit, improve use of practitioners, decrease risk) situation to be corrected. The need for were never formally endorsed by the field collaborative environment was identified in order professional services management. So, they to allow that work-in-progress assets are became more a set of corporate values than a set exchanged among the team members. of operational objectives to be measured for guiding management attention and action. Furthermore, confusion was identified between Consultants in the professional organisations are access rights and the location of the assets. The very focussed on their yearly objectives and their implementation of dedicated intranet sites granted www.ejkm.com 133 ISSN 1479-4411 Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2 2007 (131 -142) access rights by segregating assets cross- 2006). The theorised conclusion was that “There functional areas. DataCon recognised that are unfavourable attitudes and they influence knowledge is ubiquitous through assets and that professional services behaviour which results in segregation of assets in dedicated intranet sites low adoption of knowledge management practices was in fact breaking knowledge that could be in the professional services organisation” (e.g. formed cross assets just jumping from asset to (Davis 1989) (Abril 2006)). If DataCon wanted to asset. achieve a remarkable dissemination (e.g. Schulz 2001) and adoption of knowledge management The implementation of the communities of interest principles in professional services then significant did not have the desired adoption by the management action had to be taken changing the professional services organisations because two attitudes driving such behaviour. This problem factors (i) there was not enough motivation for the statement embedded a holistic approach to consultant to participate in these forums and (ii) knowledge management. It was not enough to consultants already satisfied their individualistic formulate a vision, a set of generic objectives and needs for knowledge on just-in-time bases by to invest in a technological work environment. It broadcasting requests for help via e-mails. Of was needed to fundamentally remove all the course, a lot of the explicit knowledge (e.g. aspects that were barriers to the dissemination customer deliverables) was under the control of and adoption of knowledge management the delivery local organisation but not under the principles. Another implication of this problem control of the business unit. Not mentioning that statement was the need for a focus on execution. the consultants primarily held the tacit knowledge. Change would not happen alone. DataCon would Overall, there was not an understanding of the need to assign expensive resources and for a overall knowledge that was out of control. The considerable time in order to enforce change. suspect was that DataCon could be leaking Consequently, a broader solution approach was knowledge without being aware of it. Probably, the needed. A contingent solution plan (e.g. Payne, hardest lesson learned was the frustrating Bettman, and Johnson 1993) was formally defined understanding that outstanding management and approved. This solution plan adopted action would be needed in order to enforce the basically the shape of a change management adoption of knowledge management practices by plan. A subtle change was introduced framing the professional services organisations. Interestingly, effort. Instead of targeting “managing” knowledge, the knowledge management initiatives were DataCon moved to “enabling” knowledge (e.g. funded at the business unit level and there was a Day 1994). This new frame wanted to envelop the limited authority enforcing such initiatives among objective of providing the appropriate resources the professional services organisations because for disseminating and adopting knowledge these organisations were mostly aligned to the management practices by the entire organisation. sales territorial organisations. Therefore, This “enabling” construct fully covered the desire management communication of the goodness of of managing knowledge assets (e.g. measure knowledge management benefits in this impact) and enriched it with the recognition that organisational context was not enough to get dissemination and adoption of knowledge adoption by the professional services management practice would require facilitation for organisations. “What do we need to do in order to a considerable period of time. bring them on board?” this was the question in 2.2 Research question and research order to transition to an acceptable level of method. Action research for the knowledge capturing, sharing, and reusing. formulation of the hypotheses in 2. From knowledge management the change management plan to knowledge enablement The following research question was formulated 2.1 Enabling knowledge as opposed to “What are the drivers that will favour positive managing knowledge attitudes that will enable a behavioural change towards the adoption of knowledge management In 2004 a new push to knowledge management practices (in a professional services organisation was launched in DataCon. The lessons learned that is perceived as having an excellent from the KAM and intranet experiences were performance delivering projects)?” Once these framed in a problem statement (e.g. Dutton, drivers would be identified, then the change Fahey, and Narayanan 1983, Dutton and Jackson management plan should be constructed 1987), a theorised conclusion and in a solution identifying specific actions aligned to such drivers. approach. The problem statement was enacted as A research design was decided for addressing the “low adoption of knowledge management research question. The unit of analysis was the practices in the professional services organisation individual member of professional services after a number of unsuccessful initiatives” (Abril organisations. The research method was action www.ejkm.com 134 ©Academic Conferences Ltd Raul M. Abril research and not, as wrongly presented in (Abril The identified drivers for an attitudinal change in 2006), ethnographic. This aspect deserves DataCon towards the dissemination and adoption explanation. The main criticism characterising as of knowledge management practices in the “ethnographic” the conducted research is that the professional organisations were: personalised researcher asked questions looking for value, executive sponsorship, effective training, clarifications. This fact (i.e. asking questions) enabling support organisation, and incremental according to the literature means that the perceived successes. researcher is not a passive neutral observer and 2.3 The personalised value driver therefore, just by the fact of asking clarifications, it might influence the observations because the Individual behaviour is strongly influenced by question might impact the behaviour of the motivation according to expectancy theory (e.g. observed individuals. The feedbacks from the Vroom 1964). The benefits of knowledge experts attending the conference were we management practices would be aligned to the presented our findings (see (Abril 2006)) made us business objectives that professional services to revisit the research method that we used. organisations had. Professional services Furthermore, we consider very difficult to conduct managers were identified as the key influencers ethnographic research for knowledge on the dissemination and adoption of knowledge management in organisational environments as management practices. They fire and hire supported in (Kane, H., Ragsdell, G. and consultants. They negotiate the yearly objectives Oppenheim, C. 2006) with the consultants. The hypothesis was that “consultants’ change of behaviour towards a In essence, the objective of the action research dissemination and adoption of knowledge was to observe the members of the professional management practices would be positively organisations and formulate a set of hypotheses associated with a perception of the value of such addressing the research question. This prior adoption by their direct managers”. A knowledge declaration was key in order to identify which demand-supply approach was deployed were the findings would count as knowledge acquired value was articulated in terms of effectiveness (Checkland and Holwell 1998). Data was gathered and efficiency filling the knowledge gaps for the by asking about the lessons learned of past project teams. Two types of scenarios were experiences and by embedding researchers in identified: Presales and implementation. In project teams. This means that researchers were presales situations it is not uncommon the need not independent of research as frequently they for tacit knowledge in order to increase credibility asked questions. One of the tactics used by and or reduce risks closing deals. This knowledge researchers was “shadowing” subject matter needs had to be filled in by the project team with experts in their daily regular field jobs. the involvement of the professional services Observations were captured in the form of “a day- manager by broadcasting requests for help via e- in-the-life” storyboards (e.g. (Girard and Lambert mail and with lengthy follow up calls assessing the 2006)) for the main roles in the professional responses. In this presales scenario the services organisations. Careful attention was knowledge sources use to be in the form of tacit dedicated to the knowledge needs of the knowledge. Therefore, the key aspects in this professional services consultants. The research scenario are in the identification and qualification started in July 2005 and ended in December of the sources of the required knowledge and 2005. As a result of this research a number of linking such sources with the team looking for drivers were identified. The label “drivers” was knowledge. From the professional services used to transmit the sense of the more academic manager perspective, an increase in the construct “critical success factor”. This means, availability of tacit knowledge options (i.e. that such drivers were identified as necessary, all effectiveness) and the reduction in time and effort of them, for the successful dissemination and looking for it (i.e. efficiency) were easily perceived adoption of knowledge management practices as value. among the professional services organisations. Failure in just one of such drivers would imply that In implementation scenarios, it is common to find attitudinal change would not happen. cases that are considered best-in-class Furthermore, success implementing all the drivers implementations. Unfortunately, the explicit would not imply success in the dissemination and knowledge assets produced in such great adoption of knowledge management practices implementations have a limited reusability power among the professional services organisations because their specific details in terms of customer because an underidentification issue (e.g. Hair Jr., references, industry or implementation Black, Babin, Anderson, and Tatham 2006) could particularities. Consultants do no use to have time have happen with the drives. for making reusable their knowledge assets. When they finish a project, they use to move to www.ejkm.com 135 ISSN 1479-4411 Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2 2007 (131 -142) another project, or in the few occasions when the professional services organisations. The rational go to the “bench” they enroll in training courses. goes in the following way “if value has been Therefore, in the next project that a similar task perceived by the professional services has to be performed, consultants use and anchor organisations in the adoption of knowledge and adjustment heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman management practices then a measurable 1974). Consultants search for a past successful business value contribution should exist and be knowledge asset (i.e. the anchor) and depending measured”. Unfortunately, measuring such on the specific requirements introduce appropriate business contribution has been a difficult exercise adjustments. From the professional services that the literature on knowledge management has manager perspective, a future increase in the addressed with very limited consensus on the availability of explicit knowledge options (i.e. right approach (e.g. Marr, Schiuma, and Neely effectiveness) and the promise of reduction in 2004). The knowledge management literature has time and effort looking for it (i.e. efficiency) were an endless list of papers with suggestions on how easily perceived as an enough expectant value as to measure the organisational impact of to agree that it was of worth to invest time in knowledge management. Unfortunately there is reusability at the time that the assets were no dominant paradigm on how to do it. produced (i.e. investing now to get the pay off Nevertheless, there is a considerable stream of tomorrow). research suggesting that perceptions of value are the best proxy to the construct value. This Overall, reusability of knowledge assets covers measurement is operationalised through surveys. both explicit and tacit knowledge assets. Theoretically, benchmarking successive Reusability of explicit knowledge assets includes measurements it would be possible to measure diverse aspects as removing customer value contribution (e.g. Moslehi, Mohaghar, Badie references, translation to, for example, English (in and Lucas 2006). Europe) or from English to a local language in Asia Pacific, and cross-industry generalisation Although in the existing organisational context (e.g. from financial to retail). Reusability of tacit professional services managers were identified as knowledge, in general, it requires considerable the key influencers on the dissemination and effort and time and includes making it explicit adoption of knowledge management practices, an knowledge. Making explicit knowledge from what alternative working hypothesis was formulated as was just tacit knowledge it was definitively “change of consultants’ behaviour towards the perceived as value by the professional services dissemination and adoption of knowledge managers. Lessons learned and white papers are management practices would be positively examples of assets with a high perceived value by associated with recognitions and rewards”. The the professional services managers. It is also change management plan defined and executed remarkable to mention that the value of adoption programs (e.g. “best asset in the month”, regional of knowledge management practices was knowledge champion in the year”) pursuing this articulated in terms of instrumental utility with alternative working hypothesis. These initiatives quality improvement initiatives of interest for the have been in place for one year and the evidence professional services organisations. For example, gathered so far is that there are applications and professional services managers understood that nominations. Consultants are interested in getting knowledge management practices were of value a personal compensation in terms of value and or for them as they will help their organisations in recognition but the business impact of these achieving Capability Maturity Model level 2 (i.e. programs is marginal. repeatable) (e.g. Software Engineering Institute 2.4 The executive sponsorship driver 1980). The ideal situation would be that knowledge The change management plan has been management practices would be institutionalised executing initiatives in relation to the personalised across all organisations. This means that all levels value driver for one quarter in 2006 and anecdotic of management should enforce dissemination and evidence suggests support to the working adoption. In the existing organisational hypothesis that consultants’ change of behaviour management by objectives context (e.g. Drucker towards the dissemination and adoption of 1954) the hypothesis was that “the inclusion of knowledge management practices would be knowledge management objectives at the positively associated with a perception of the leadership team levels would be positively value of such adoption by their direct managers. associated with the consultants’ change of This initial evidence has had an unexpected behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge consequence, although reasonable, “management management practices”. stress” for measuring the impact of the adoption of The rationale for this working hypothesis was that knowledge management practices by the in a hierarchical organisation personal objectives www.ejkm.com 136 ©Academic Conferences Ltd Raul M. Abril are aligned across the different levels. Therefore, change, the learning materials had to have a a contingent effort will be performed by the practical utilisation on the daily activities of the consultants towards their personal objectives (e.g. consultants. This implied the design of learning Payne, Bettman, and Johnson 1993). Examples of courses per each specific role (e.g. project knowledge management objectives at the managers, solution architects). Additionally, basic leadership team level were “searches for existing elements of business research had to be included assets”, “submissions of reusable asset”, and in the learning courses. For example, learning “operational communities of practice”. In how to perform efficient searches is assessed as December 2005, knowledge management a behavioural change with respect broadcasting objectives were formally included in the leadership an e-mail asking for related assets. Another team members and cascaded down to all the example, filling the appropriate metadata (e.g. levels in the professional services organisations. context, industry, things did not work well) An unexpected challenge happened framing such describing the lessons learned after a project has objectives (e.g. Dutton et al 1983, Dutton and concluded is assessed as a behavioural change Jackson 1987). They should lead action towards a with respect doing nothing or describing just the change in the behaviour of consultants with title of the referred lessons learned. Overall, respect knowledge management practices careful balance had to be considered addressing indicating a clear adoption. This implied that a set the different aspects of the knowledge of standard language was recommended in order management system in DataCon. Hard lessons to keep the essence of the objectives. The two from the past, suggested that a focus in just quarter 2006 reviews since the change technology did not provide the desired results, management plan has been executed in relation therefore, many aspects had to be considered in to the executive sponsorship driver suggests the learning courses (e.g. the processes, the support to the working hypothesis that “the contact individuals facilitating the dissemination inclusion of knowledge management objectives at and adoption of knowledge management the leadership team levels would be positively practices). associated with the consultants’ change of behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge Delivery mechanism of the training course was a management practices”. Nevertheless, the next relevant factor. It was unrealistic to expect step is the assessment of the intensity of such presence of all the consultants in class rooms. behavioural change, which potentially will lead to Flexibility was a critical success factors. Most of a new set of objectives. Remarkably, the the courses were designed to be delivered on objectives in relation behavioural change with demand via internet and via scheduled seminar respect the dissemination and adoption of via telephonic conferences. Tracking the knowledge management practices were not attendance helped in the control of the training framed in terms of value contribution to the plans objectives. Objective of attendance was business (e.g. performance improvements). This agreed with the professional services managers. distinction avoided confusion between behavioural One of the variables considered for measuring the attitudes and business impact. dependent variable behavioural change in the working hypothesis “the level of trained 2.5 The effective training driver consultants in the day-in-the-life knowledge Knowledge management practices involve management principles would be positively management disciplines. In general, the associated with the consultants’ change of components of knowledge management systems behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge involve processes, technology, individuals and management practices” was usage of the assets. There is a difference between adopting available technological infrastructure. A basic knowledge management practices and adopting monthly analysis provided evidence of positive with proficiency knowledge management practices association between the level of training and (e.g. Gist 1989). Learning processes were usage. designed in order to allow a holistic learning on 2.6 The enabling support organisation the knowledge management principles in driver DataCon. The hypothesis was that “the level of trained consultants in the day-in-the-life DataCon recognised that enabling means (e.g. knowledge management principles would be Day 1994) should be deployed in order to drive positively associated with the consultants’ change change in the professional organisations towards of behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge the adoption of knowledge management management practices”. The rational for this principles. These resources were funded and working hypothesis was the aggregation of a owned by a central Knowledge Management number of arguments. Because the learning Office. As mentioned earlier, professional services outcome had to be reflected in a behavioural organisations did not have a reporting link with www.ejkm.com 137 ISSN 1479-4411 Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2 2007 (131 -142) this Knowledge Management Office. A couple of of such consultants. Because consultants perform enabling resources contemplated in the change their job in the context of project teams, management plan deserve attention: a “knowledge practice owners” were embedded in collaborative work environment for project teams such teams while performing the “shadowing” and the agentic role (Jensen and Meckling 1976) exercise. This experience took all 2006. of knowledge practice owners. Enabling knowledge would include providing a collaborative Knowledge practice owners were instrumental infrastructure that would allow collaborative effort articulating the personalised value driver of project teams. This infrastructure would be a mentioned earlier. Framing the value of the mean and not and end towards knowledge dissemination and adoption of knowledge management. This collaborative environment was management practices in the terms than implemented using technology available in the professional services organisation use was market. The hypothesis was that “the usage of the assessed as fundamental. This meant that collaborative environment for all the projects knowledge practice owners took the consulting would be positively associated with the practices of the field for performing their agentic consultants’ change of behaviour towards an task. For example, a knowledge practice owner adoption of knowledge management practices”. approached a new project team as their The rational for this working hypothesis was that customers. He had to “sell” the value for the team there was an expectation in that once all the of adopting knowledge management practices intermediate, work in progress project assets were and obtain their acceptance to be embedded in stored in a project folder in the referred the project team. The project manager was the collaborative environment then it would be owner/approver of the action performed by the relatively easy to promote some of them as knowledge practice owner. A knowledge knowledge assets that should be catalogued as assessment gap analysis had to be conducted in reusable. This environment has been operational order to identify the knowledge gaps in the project for just one quarter and there is not enough plan before the implementation phase would start. evidence to confirm or disconfirm this working As a consequence, a knowledge action plan was hypothesis. produced and included as part of the quality assurance project plan. During the project Knowledge practice owners are agents funded by implementation, the assigned knowledge practice the knowledge management office. Their role owner would support the team executing his/her consists in facilitating the dissemination and knowledge action plan until the end of the project. adoption of knowledge management practices by Knowledge assets harvested by the knowledge the professional services organisations. This practice owner would be approved/accepted by agentic role includes acting on behalf of the the project manager. The rational for the working professional services organisations as if they were hypothesis “the agentic action of knowledge members of such organisations in the context of management practitioners would be positively customer facing projects. The hypothesis was that associated with the consultants’ change of “the agentic action of knowledge management behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge practitioners would be positively associated with management practices” was that professional the consultants’ change of behaviour towards an services organisations would perceive value in the adoption of knowledge management practices”. action of knowledge practice owners and this The action of knowledge practice owners included would provide a vicarious input in their self- facilitation of communities of practice, setting efficacy believes (e.g. Bandura 1986) performing collaboration environments for project teams, ad- knowledge management practices. This agency hoc support making reusable assets, linking approach of knowledge practice owners has been sources and demand of tacit knowledge that were operational for just one quarter. The evidence globally disperse, and training. Action research gathered suggests support to the working components (Remenyi et al 1998) were of help hypothesis. A limitation of this agency approach in harvesting knowledge assets from tacit terms of the intensity of its impact it is the number knowledge. Although the academic term “action of project teams that can be enabled. There is a research” was not used in DataCon, this is what it limitation of the number of teams than a was done. The terms used were “shadowing a knowledge practice owner can support subject matter expert” and “be embedded in the concurrently (e.g. three to five). project teams”. Each knowledge practice owners 2.7 The incremental perceived shadowed a consultant in his/her regular field job. successes driver As a result of these observations a day-in-the-life storyboard was created for the main roles in the DataCon is a public (in US terms) successful professional services organisations. Careful organisation that reviews performance quarter by attention was dedicated to the knowledge needs quarter. This introduces a considerable www.ejkm.com 138 ©Academic Conferences Ltd Raul M. Abril “management stress” that has considerable the context of a community of practice, availability beneficial aspects and some undesirable bias of explicit knowledge assets for identified critical towards the time horizon of each program. A basic released products, relevancy of retrieved assets in project management lesson learned says that risk a search, and intensity of usage of the is positively associated with the duration of a collaboration environment. Examples of agreed project. Unfortunately, behavioural change in a definitions of performance success were revenue geographically and attitudinally diverse increase, margin increase, risk reduction, and professional services organisation takes some project time reduction. The change plan time. Not being able to borrow from the literature a implemented a reporting system to periodically model to predict how much time for a given track and communicate metrics about behavioural organisation it is needed for implementing a change. As expected, the difficulties measuring behavioural change a set of incremental subgoals value from a performance perspective makes that were established in order to favour a belief of the available evidence for reporting is based on continuous achievements (e.g. Gist and Mitchell anecdotic interpretative assessments of the 1992) and the hypothesis was that “incremental performance. perceived successes would be positively associated with the consultants’ change of The rational for the working hypothesis behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge “incremental perceived successes would be management practices”. positively associated with the consultants’ change of behaviour towards an adoption of knowledge It is very popular the said that “perception is management practices” was that professional reality”. This means that considerable resources services organisations would be motivated by the would be needed in order to influence the results/consequences of their adoption of perception of key stakeholders about the knowledge management practices. This successes increasing the adoption of knowledge incremental approach was operational for the last management practices by the professional quarter in 2006 and there is not enough evidence services organisations. If a success is not to confirm or disconfirm support for the working perceived as such then it is not of worth for the hypothesis. change plan. Another aspect of the language of 3. General discussion this hypothesis is that it refers to incremental. This means that the change plan included a roadmap The lessons learned from past experiences of small successes during a three-year period. An deploying knowledge management practices and assigned program manager in the knowledge the evidence gathered executing a change plan management office monitored this program. The towards the dissemination and adoption of term “success” implies that there is an agreement knowledge management practices in DataCon on the meaning of success. Examples of agreed suggest support to the dissemination and definitions of behavioural success were usage of adoption of knowledge management practices explicit knowledge assets by other project teams, behavioural model (TDAKM) showed in Figure 1 meeting the expectations of a knowledge action (Abril 2006). plan, gathering requirements for new features in Figure 1: The dissemination and adoption of knowledge management practices behavioural model (TDAKM) www.ejkm.com 139 ISSN 1479-4411 Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 5 Issue 2 2007 (131 -142) TDAKM hypothesises interdependencies among enabler of knowledge management value and the the independent variables. Obviously, TDAKM professional services organisations are adopting requires validation and it is suggested that it is knowledge management practices. done through empirical positivistic research both case and large-scale surveys. One limitation of 4. Conclusion this model is that organisational context is not visible as a moderating variable. All the This paper was produced considering the hypotheses in TDAKM consider an organisational feedback from participants in the 3rd International context where (i) there is not institutionalised Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge attitudes towards knowledge management Management and Organisational Learning to practices, (ii) there is a geographically and (Abril 2006). Researchers in Knowledge attitudinally diverse global professional services conducting research. We concluded that organisations, (iii) there is not a hierarchical ethnographic research might not be a suitable reporting line between the knowledge research design for knowledge management in an management office and the professional services organisational environment. TDAKM was the organisations, and (iv) professional services outcome learning of the conducted action organisations are strongly driven with a research and this model was tested for one year management by objectives style. TDAKM neglects in 2006. Although evidence is not conclusive, a debate around the issue of if the prior there is no refutation so far to it. The knowledge of knowledge practice owners on a interdependences among the independent given knowledge domain moderates the adoption variables highlight their nature as critical success of knowledge management practices. Arguments factors (i.e. it is postulated that you need all of in favour suggest that trust is an important enabler them) with the caveat that further research is of a good relationship with the project teams and needed in order to check the parsimony in that prior knowledge of the knowledge practice TDAKM (e.g. underinformed model missing owner (e.g. as a “doer”) will allow him/her to be relevant variables) From a knowledge respected as a value contributor. Arguments management practitioner’s perspective, TDAKM is against suggest that what matters is the ability a reference model that can be used planning a persuading the project team members on the change management plan towards the adoption value of knowledge management practices. and dissemination of knowledge management Overall, TDAKM suggest an underpinning ‘quid practices in professional services organisations. pro quo’ between the knowledge management The possible generalisation of TDAKM to other office and the professional services organisations type of organisations exceeds the scope of this where the knowledge management office is an paper. References Abril, R.M. (2006) The Role of Knowledge Practice Owners as Agents Driving an Attitudinal Change in Knowledge Management. 3rd International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning. Santiago, Chile Bandura, A. 1986 Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. 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