Circumstance-based categorization analysis of knowledge management systems for the japanese market

ABSTRACT

We conducted a survey of thirty of the approximately 1,700 customers of Justsystem Corporation's knowledge-management applications. Our goal was to discover the kinds of functions that customers hoped to address in their next-generation use of knowledge management technology and to assess the core processes that we will need to deploy in our products to address their desired solutions. In particular, we sought to analyze our customers' requirements along dimensions that take account of both the context of use of the application and its stage in the cycle of knowledge creation and use. As part of our analysis, we were able to classify all customer cases as focused by one or more of three Goals, supported by one or more of eleven technology Means. To establish appropriate categories of use, we exploited the stages of the <i>SECI Model</i>, several other transactional categories of knowledge use, and whether activities were targeted at internal or external users. Through the analysis, we found the typical technology components (Means) for each stage of knowledge creation and use associated with each set of goals. We consider such analysis essential to the task of designing next-generation knowledge-management applications and critical to overcoming the unfortunate tendency of developers to devise solutions that bear little relation to the true needs of users.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces

General Terms:
Languages, Management, Measurement, Theory

Keywords:
SECI model, affect analysis, decision support, information retrieval, knowledge management, knowledge management technology, natural language processing, ontology