SITUATED LEARNING AND THE SITUATED KNOWLEDGE WEB 115 Journal of Management Information Systems / Summer 2001, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 115–151. © 2001 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 0742–1222 / 2001 $9.50 + 0.00. Situated Learning and the Situated Knowledge Web: Exploring the Ground Beneath Knowledge Management SARMA R. NIDUMOLU, MANI SUBRAMANI, AND ALAN ALDRICH SARMA “RAM” NIDUMOLU is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Management Information Systems in the Leavey School of Business and Administration at Santa Clara University, where he teaches full-time, and Executive MBA courses in Infor- mation Systems Management for Electronic Commerce. Professor Nidumolu’s cur- rent research deals with the adoption and impacts of new information technologies using knowledge management perspectives. Prior publications have appeared in In- formation Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quar- terly, Management Science, and Communications of the ACM, among others. MANI SUBRAMANI is an Assistant Professor at the Information and Decision Sciences Department in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He received his B.E. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani; a PGDM degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; and a DBA from Boston University. His research focuses on the strategic role of information technology within the organization and in interorganizational relationships. His current areas of research are knowledge management and the leveraging of organizational capabilities using information technologies. ALAN ALDRICH is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Department at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. ABSTRACT: Knowledge is now recognized as an important basis for competitive ad- vantage and many firms are beginning to establish initiatives to leverage and manage organizational knowledge. These include efforts to codify knowledge in repositories as well as efforts to link individuals using information technologies to overcome geo- graphic and temporal barriers to accessing knowledge and expertise. We suggest that Knowledge Management (KM) efforts, to be successful, need to be sensitive to fea- tures of the context of generation, location, and application of knowledge. To this end, we highlight the situated organizational learning perspective that views knowl- edge as embedded in individuals, in connections between individuals, and in artifacts as a useful lens to examine phenomena related to the establishment of KM initiatives. In an ethnographic case study of an effort to change knowledge-work processes in a market research firm, we apply the situated knowledge perspective to highlight the factors responsible for the limited success of the initiative in the firm. This study suggests that a consideration of the situated knowledge web and the alignment of the initiatives with the features of the knowledge web are central to success in knowledge management efforts in firms. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: ethnographic methods, knowledge management, organi- zational change, qualitative research, situated knowledge web, situated learning 06 nidumolu.p65 05/23/2001, 12:00 AM 115