Using wikis in knowledge management - Pros, cons and in-between

Web 2.0 services are being used in knowledge management systems (KMS) more and more as they gain popularity continuously. One of the most well known web 2.0 tools is the wiki. A wiki is a space (similar to a usual website) where people can contribute with their knowledge and experience freely, browse or search for entries made by others (just like in internet web pages through any internet browser software) and also they are provided with the ability to modify published content (Richardson, 2008). A lot of organizations are considering the usage of wikis as a KMS or as a part of their KMS and there are quite a few organizations that are already using wikis for knowledge management purposes effectively (Hasan and Pfaff, 2006).

The reasons that organizations chose to use wikis as knowledge repositories are clear. There are a lot of advantages such as abolishing the need of having a webmaster or a group of people updating the organizations intranet and/or knowledge repository by themselves or even eliminate the need of having an organization intranet by replacing it with a wiki. Also, a wiki does not require specialized training or knowledge to use and it is highly customizable (Andersen 2005, Blake 2001, Hasan and Pfaff 2006).

While the benefits of using wikis in knowledge management are more or less clear there are some problems that are frequently overlooked. As Hasan and Pfaff (2006) point out there are organizations that are quite skeptical on using a wiki as part of their KMS due to the disadvantages they might face by the usage of this tool. The major issues of incorporating a wiki are (Andersen 2005, Hasan and Pfaff 2006, Henriksson et al 2008, Wiki Advantages and Disadvantages 2009)

· improper usage

· track down user & organization benefit

· recognition of contributor

· eradicate traditional hierarchical organization structure

· quantity and quality issues

All the mentioned issues are of high importance and must be considered before deciding to go ahead and use a wiki as part of the organizations KMS but none of them should be considered as prohibitive. For example, a wiki manager or a wiki team can be appointed by the organization to monitor the wiki activity (but not to censor or control it as this would be strongly against the liberal nature of the wiki). By monitoring the wiki the content can be validated and if needed discussions with the author(s) can take place. Furthermore, the wiki team can be used to provide feedback to top level management such as amount of clicks in the wiki pages, amount of articles contributed, active users, etc to provide some kind of measurement which can help the organization to make some estimation on the benefit of the wikis usage.

As far as the contributor’s recognition and even his/her reward is concerned, some people like Andersen (2005) suggest that members of the organization should be encouraged to contribute for the wikis but with moral rather than material rewards. I disagree with that statement. I believe that it is better to reward those who contribute with a tangible reward as this way they feel that their contribution got them something more than just a pat on the back.

The most serious obstacle in initiating wiki usage in an organization is overcoming the strict hierarchical structure that a lot of organizations are built up on (Hasan and Pfaf, 2006). As it was mentioned, the wiki is distinguished by its liberal nature. This liberal nature comes against strict hierarchical structures that carry barriers to the free flow of knowledge. It is hard to convince such organizations to use a wiki even though the benefits are clear since there is no remedy for this issue. The organization has to accept the idea of free knowledge flow and understand the potential payback of this ‘retreat’ or simply reject the wiki concept and retain their current strategies.

As a closing statement I think it is important to consider this. In a case study made in Finland (Henriksson et al, 2008) it is indicated that no one tried to sell them the idea of using wikis but it came up spontaneously from within the employees and all the companies who introduced the wikis in the organization has stick with them. This proves that people like wikis, use them systematically and certainly want them into their organizations.

References

Andersen, E. (2005). Using Wikis in a Corporate Context. http://www.espen.com/papers/Andersen-2005-corpwikis.pdf (accessed March 18, 2009).

Blake, J. WikiWikiweb. Computerworld, January 29, (2001). http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2001/0,4814,56996,00.html (accessed March 13, 2009).

Hasan, H. and Pfaff, C. C. (2006). The Wiki: Anvenvironment to revolutionize employees’ interaction withvcorporate knowledge. OZCHI 2006, November 20-24, Sydney Australia. New York: ACM Press, 377-380.

Henriksson, J., T. Mikkonen, T. Vadén. (2008). Experiences of Wiki use in Finnish companies. MindTrek. P. 150-153.

Richardson, W. (2008). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms Edition: 2, illustrated. Corwin Press.

Wiki Advantages and Disadvantages. (2009). http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages (accessed March 14, 2009).

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Putting social aspects of KM into practice

Knowledge management is not just about IT practices and tools to manage and store knowledge. Except of IT, knowledge management can be backed up by social and cultural measures which are strongly related to a very important aspect of knowledge management, creating an ideal environment for knowledge and promoting the knowledge sharing culture. The following suggestions are based upon solutions that have been successfully implemented into organizations and on ideas that most probably will have a strong contribution in developing a knowledge-sharing and knowledge-friendly environment.

First of all, I believe that it is very important to create an ideal knowledge sharing environment because as Earl (2001) notes down, tacit knowledge usually is passed down from person to person through everyday interaction and conversation. So in order to pass tacit knowledge around the organization, interaction between the people within the organization should be encouraged and this leads to a solution that promotes the knowledge sharing culture. Two examples are Skandia’s future center (Earl and Nahapiet, 1999) and British Airway’s Waterside (CABE, n.d.) offices. Both companies have created their sites having in mind how to ‘enforce’ their employees to interact with each other and increase the possibility of tacit knowledge exchange. For example, a good idea would be the redesign of the office space can be made to rearrange the way employees interact. Cubicles (if any are present) must be abolished and create a feeling that there are no boundaries between each and every employee. Also, offices can be set up so they all face each other to promote the team spirit within the office and pass the message that the employees are not individuals who work at the same room but they are a team working together for common targets and goals.

Another way to promote the knowledge sharing spirit would be a reward system for the employees who are contributing the most to the organizations knowledge management system (KMS). This way those who share the knowledge are rewarded so they know their contribution was not for nothing and also once people start getting rewards for their contribution it is very possible that they will become trendsetters and influence others to start contributing into the KMS as well.

People who put effort in knowledge sharing can be rewarded differently. For example (Velker, 1999) Xerox gives people the opportunity to get recognition when sharing their knowledge with others so the reward for them is being recognized as an expert or a specialist in the field. A different method of rewarding knowledge contributors could be giving bonuses to those who contribute the most. Of course the problem of quality against quantity is rising up here because it is hard to measure when the contribution is made just for the sake of it or if it is a worthwhile contribution. Of course this is up to the organization to decide how the reward scheme will work.

As it was aforementioned, tacit knowledge is usually exchanged by conversation and social interaction so apart from trying to encourage people within an organization to interact more during work, the organization can provide the means for the people to start interacting outside their work space also. One good way to do that would be organizing group activities like activity weekends, secret Santa, inter-organizational parties, etc. The more people come in touch with each other the more tacit knowledge is exchanged between them and for sure having a friendly environment in the organization can help the flow of knowledge as people will be less reluctant to share their knowledge with people they are friends with. This is backed up by Cortada and woods (1999) as they found out that in most successful projects they had studied people were not hold back from sharing their knowledge as oppose to unsuccessful projects in which people were holding the knowledge for themselves. Moreover, some other solutions would be introducing example a common lunch hour can be scheduled so if all the employees go to take their lunch together the sense of team spirit is raised and they have a chance to discuss during their lunch time. Maybe tacit knowledge won’t be exchanged but at the very less if people communicate the organization is building up the friendly environment that is desired. Also, another way to boost communication between employees would be reducing or even keeping the use of e-mails within the organization to minimal levels. If each person meets the person they want to reach in person instead of e-mailing they will have to socialize and discuss and this way the target of exchanging tacit knowledge is enforced as well as the target of creating a friendly-knowledge sharing environment.

References

CABE. n.d. BA Waterside Harmondsworth case study. http://www.cabe.org.uk/default.aspx?contentitemid=240 (accessed February 28, 2009)

Cortada, J.W. and J.A., Woods. 1999. The Knowledge Management Yearbook 1999-2000. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Earl M. (2001). Knowledge Management Strategies: Toward a Taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems. 18,(1),p.215-233.

Earl, M.J. and J.E., Nahapiet. 1999. Skandia. Case study LBS-Cs99-015-00. London: London Business School.

Velker, L. 1999. Xerox: from internal solution to KM product . http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Xerox-from-internal-solution-to-KM-product-9059.aspx (accessed March 1, 2009)

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