Identifying the Benefits of Knowledge Management in the Department of Defense : A Delphi Study

Knowledge Management (KM) has been identified as one of several enablers of the current Transformation effort in the Department of Defense (DoD) . Knowledge management is "the attempt to recognize what is essentially a human asset buried in the minds of individuals, and leverage it into an organizational asset that can be accessed and used by a broader set of individuals on whose decisions the firm depends" (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). The ultimate goal of KM is to take advantage of this knowledge asset in order to provide some level of benefit to the organization (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Nonaka, 1996). However, many in both the military and civilian information resource management communities believe that KM provides nothing beyond what is already accomplished with information management. Given that serious resources are already being committed to KM in the DoD, it follows that identifying the benefits derived from KM from a DoD perspective is highly desirable. Several organizations within the DoD have started using KM and are now interested in identifying and, subsequently, measuring its benefits to gauge success. While many studies have been undertaken to identify the benefits of KM in the commercial sector, similar efforts to investigate the benefits in a DoD context are lacking. Using a Delphi study involving key DoD KM experts, this research aims to identify the major benefits associated with KM practice from a strictly DoD perspective. (27 tables, 8 figures, 45 refs.)Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH School of Engineering and Management is the author of 'Identifying the Benefits of Knowledge Management in the Department of Defense : A Delphi Study', published 2004 under ISBN 9781423516316 and ISBN 1423516311.