Chinese business managers' perceptions in KM-related decision making: Environmental, informational, individual, and decision-specific perspectives.

摘要

Knowledge Management (KM) to date has been poorly recognized, explained, and applied in China, and lack of empirical evidence has become a major barrier to the development of KM research in the Chinese academic community. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of Chinese business managers in the processes of KM-related decision making, from environmental, informational, individual, and decision-specific perspectives. A qualitative, multiple-case study strategy was used. Primary data were collected from the semi-structured interviews conducted with seventeen Chinese business managers who worked in either the manufacturing or telecommunications industry, and then the data were analyzed using thematic-analysis techniques.;Participants perceived KM to be a long term process and believed that KM could not contribute to organizational survival. They thought that the most difficult challenge to successfully implement KM was to nurture a KM-friendly organizational culture. Three factors greatly affected their decision about whether to use KM strategies: perceived importance of knowledge-based assets, perceived contribution to organizational survival, and perceived organizational stability and health. They stressed that Chinese organizational leaders often agreed to support KM in word but not in action, due to KM's low business priority in their managerial agendas. In addition, participants perceived high uncertainties with respect to their internal organizational environments that arose from five major perspectives: 1) willingness to share and learn, 2) shared awareness and understanding, 3) level of management involvement, 4) status of product R&D, and 5) organizational policy and strategy. They also perceived high uncertainties regarding their external organizational environments from three perspectives: 1) customer needs, 2) competitive intensity, and 3) technological development. Participants generally preferred to use internal information sources in the processes of KM-related decision making, and perceived these sources to be relevant, comprehensive, reliable, and accessible. They found external impersonal sources to be highly accessible, but only considered business or professional associates to be relevant, comprehensive, and reliable. They believed that only a systematic, synthesized review of the information collected from multiple information sources could be considered to be complete, and insisted that source reliability was the most fundamental source characteristic.;The findings systematically explain why KM has not been extensively applied and developed in the Chinese community, and thus contribute to the promotion of KM practices in China and to the overall development of KM research. The findings also present important theoretical and practical implications for strategic decision making, KM, and information science.