As mentioned above 73 organizations responded. Table C-13 shows the sample, respondents and the response rate.
The group of banks and insurance companies had a substantially higher response rate than the group of industry and service companies. One explanation might be that—on average—the IT function in banks and insurance companies in terms of number of employees is bigger and more centralized and thus it is easier (a) to determine a person suited to fill out the questionnaire and (b) for this person
18. See section 8.5 - “Résumé” on page 428.
TABLE C-13. Sample, response and response rate
sample description sample size response response rate
TOP 500 organizations 445 53 11.91
TOP 50 banks and insurance companies 59 20 33.90
total 504 73 14.48
companies (Spearman’s rho: 0.279, significance: 0.027, n=63).
Respondents were asked about the job position they held. Out of the 71 answers 65 different terms describing the position were used showing the wide variety and the low degree of standardization of KM-related positions in today’s organizations.
Thus, the terms were classified according to the two dimensions “generic position”
in the sense of a level of hierarchy (employee – manager – senior manager – exec- utive) and “functional area”. Table C-14 shows the distribution of generic positions that the respondents held. 52 out of 63 respondents (= 82.5%) answering this ques- tion held a managing position. The rest either were functional specialists, indicated in the table as “employee” (7 cases), or internal consultants of the organization (4 cases). As some respondents were more specific in their answers, department heads and heads of main departments/areas were separated from the group of senior man- agers and project managers were separated from (line) managers. The number of project managers filling out the questionnaire was quite low compared to the high figure of senior line managers which were in most cases CIOs or heads of the IT/
organization department.
Table C-15 shows the functional areas which the respondents worked for. More than half of the respondents belonged to the IT area. One in five respondents held a job position in an organizational unit called knowledge management, document management or the Intranet area/internal communications. Of the 8 respondents specifically indicating a job position in knowledge management, three were on the senior manager level, two were project managers, one internal consultant and two held the position of a functional specialist. Examples for positions were “knowl- edge manager”, “knowledge networking officer”, “consultant knowledge pro- cesses” or “project manager knowledge management”.
TABLE C-14. Generic position (level of hierarchy) which the respondents held respondent's generic position frequency percent
senior manager 30 47.62
department head 8 12.70
manager 8 12.70
employee 7 11.11
internal consultant 4 6.35
head of main department/area 3 4.76
project manager 3 4.76
total 63 100.00
dents’ positions had to do with business development, organization or general man- agement. As for the other functional areas one respondent working in the public relations department coordinated several organizational members who contributed to the questionnaire and one respondent belonged to the department “protection of the environment and security” and was supposedly also coordinating the KM activ- ities of that organization.
Similarly, in the 2001 KPMG study 36% of the respondents stated that the IT area had initiated KM (KPMG 2001, 9, multiple responses possible). 19% said it was R&D, 18% marketing, 15% corporate organization and 13% sales and distri- bution and only 2% production. In the same 2001 KPMG study, IT (28%), the executive board (27%) and corporate organization (13%) were also found to be the primary units coordinating the KM activities (KPMG 2001, 12, multiple responses possible). HRM (10%) and marketing/communication (7%) were in charge in sub- stantially less cases.
To sum up, knowledge management at this stage seems to be mostly dealt with in traditional IT/organization units or in management services units concerned with
TABLE C-15. Functional area which the respondents worked for respondent's functional area fre-
quency percent frequency
total percent total knowledge management and related areas
knowledge management 8 12.70
document management 2 3.17
Intranet/internal communications 2 3.17 12 19.05
general IT/organization
chief information officer (CIO) 21 33.33
head of an IT group/department/project 15 23.81 36 57.14 functional areas/departments
business development 4 6.35
organization/human resource management 3 4.76
general management 3 4.76
marketing/customer Service 2 3.17
production 1 1.59
other functional areas/departments 2 3.17 15 23.81
total 63 100.00
industry sectors. The three main sectors – industry, services and trade – are detailed for all those industry sectors which were represented by more than one organiza- tion. Industry on the one hand as well as services and trade on the other hand were each represented by approximately half of the responding organizations.
In 22 out of 73 responding organizations (30.1%) KM was well established in the sense that they had already started (formal) knowledge management programs (Question: “Does your organization systematically apply knowledge manage- ment?”). A telephone survey was performed with 243 non-responding organiza- tions in the sample in order to check this percentage. 17 out of 47 phoned persons (36.2%) willing to answer this question said they had a KM initiative in place, so that all in all 39 out of 120 respondents (= 32.5%) applied knowledge management.
The 1998 KPMG study reported 43% of organizations with a KM initiative in place (KPMG 1998, 6). However, only 26% of these were in the implementation
TABLE C-16. Group of respondents according to industry sector
sector frequency percent frequency
total percent total industry
mechanical engineering 7 9.59
electrical engineering/electronics 5 6.85
chemical 4 5.48
energy 4 5.48
food 2 2.74
health care 2 2.74
automotive 2 2.74
other industry 12 16.43 38 52.05
service
financial services 12 16.44
insurance 8 10.96
IT/telecommunication 5 6.85
other services 2 2.74 27 36.99
trade
general trade 6 8.22
trade association 2 2.74 8 10.96
total 73 100.00
less restrictive than the one in the study presented here. In order to compare the results, only those organizations have to be considered that were in the implemen- tation phase. These were 11% of the organizations (0.43*0.26*100) which is sig- nificantly lower than the share of 30.1% found in the study presented here (t-test of mean differences: t-value: -3.539, significance: 0.001, n=73). In the 2001 KPMG study, 21% had an existing KM initiative and another 37% planned to introduce one (KPMG 2001, 8). As KPMG studied organizations of all sizes, the share of organizations with a KM initiative seems to be lower in smaller organizations.
Similarly, the share of 28% of organizations with KM activities as found in the 1997 survey of the Delphi group might be considerably lower when broken down into different phases (Delphi 1997, 16). Additionally, the Delphi study found an extremely high growth rate of this share with 50% of organizations either having established KM activities or planning to do so within the next year, 77% within the next two years and 93% within the next four years suggesting that (at least some form of) KM might soon be established in almost every organization (Delphi 1997, 16f). All in all, these results show a strong upward trend of KM from possibly around 7% of organizations in the implementation stage in the 1997 Delphi study via around 11% in the 1998 KPMG study to 30.1% in the study presented here.
Thus, these results support Hypothesis 1: ’The share of organizations with a KM initiative has increased compared to earlier studies’.
11 respondents answered the question about when they had systematically established KM. 8 of these (= 72.7%) had started their programs within the last two years before the study was conducted (in 1998 or 1999). In many organizations there was a project group or a committee established which was responsible for a feasibility analysis of KM. The telephone survey supported these findings. In most organizations, knowledge management either was part of other initiatives (e.g., the introduction of Intranet solutions) which meant that there was not too much atten- tion paid to knowledge management or there was a group of people who started knowledge management activities which could lead to formal projects in the future.
Thus, it can be stated that knowledge management is a very young effort. Most organizations in German speaking countries were either still engaged in prepara- tory analysis or their efforts were in the first two years after introduction.