Knowledge Sharing as a KM Strategy: Panacea or Tyranny Cate Jerram 1 Lesley Treleaven 1 Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic 2 1 University of Western Sydney e-mail: c.jerram@uws.edu.au e-mail: l.treleaven@uws.edu.au 2 University of New South Wales e-mail: dubravka@unsw.edu.au Abstract The paper presents findings from an empirical study of a knowledge management initiative (KMI) in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) aimed at improving collaborative work processes. The key KMI strategy was to enhance knowledge sharing via Lotus Notes and thereby transform collaborative workspaces. While KMI has been highly successful and commonly shared workspaces (databases provided by Lotus Notes) well accepted, the elimination of individual workspaces (Word Processors and other MS office tools from personal computers) created some tensions. These tensions can be usefully examined by employing the sensemaking model of knowledge in organisations which enables distinctions to be drawn between knowledge at the individual, group (collective), organisational structure and cultural levels (including processes within and between levels). Using the sensemaking model the paper interprets the empirical evidence of knowledge sharing and collaboration through workgroup databases and individual experiences, and provides explanation of sources of tension. The findings from the study demonstrate that understanding collaborative work practices and knowledge sharing via Lotus Notes using the theoretical lens of the sensemaking model, enables deeper insights into these tensions and can thus inform changes of KMI strategy over time. Keywords Knowledge management initiative, knowledge management strategy; Lotus Notes, workgroup databases; enforced collaboration; collaborative workspaces; sensemaking model of knowledge. INTRODUCTION Investigations of knowledge management and the ways Information Technologies (IT) are adopted to support knowledge management processes are gaining increasing interest in Information System (IS) research (eg. Schultze and Leidner, 2002; Earl, 2001; Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Gray, 2000; Boland, 1994). This is motivated by raising awareness that knowledge has become a key organisational resource (Earl, 2001; Grant, 1996; Nonaka, 1994) and that IT are playing an increasingly important role in managing this resource (Schultze and Leidner, 2002). Despite notable difficulties in understanding the nature of knowledge in organisations and what it actually means to ‘manage knowledge’ – difficulties faced by researchers and practitioners alike – organisations continue to undertake various knowledge management initiatives (KMI), including investments in IT and organisational change processes. Studies of KMI and especially successful KMI examples represent opportunities for learning and increasing understanding of knowledge processes and roles IT play in these processes. This paper presents results of the investigation of one such example – KMI in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – which has been widely known as a highly successful and innovative initiative. The paper argues that to understand such KMI, including the adoption of IT and resulting organisational impacts, organisations have to be seen as distributed knowledge systems and KMI as interventions into these knowledge systems. Such a perspective, as the paper demonstrates, allows us to understand the multifaceted nature of KMI and resulting organisational changes, and explain confusing events and contradictory evidence. The KMI in the ABS relied to a large degree on the adoption of Lotus Notes to assist knowledge workers in knowledge sharing and collaboration. The ABS has made a considerable investment in Lotus Notes, its development and adoption to meet their own organisational needs. The workgroup databases provided a shared space for collaborative development and display of group work, enabling easy access for all members of the organisation to each others’ work and, consequently, the organisation’s knowledge, output and expertise. To foster the implementation and widespread use of Lotus Notes, the ABS’s KMI also involved elimination of MS office from individual workstations. The assumption was that work performed by the ABS’s knowledge workers Jerram, Cecez-Kecmanovic, Treleaven (Paper #336) 14th Australasian Conference on Information Systems Page 1 26-28 November 2003, Perth, Western Australia