Implementation Process of a Knowledge Management Initiative: Yellow Pages

Knowledge management has often been identified as an important challenge for sustained organizational success and as a prerequisite for the productivity and flexibility of corporate and non-corporate organizations. Due to the global interconnectedness of markets today, the scope and quality of individual employees’ knowledge have taken their place alongside more traditional organizational resources such as work and capital. Knowledge of employees is considered as the most important knowledge source within organizations. Therefore, it is necessary to explicitly plan and manage the development, consolidation, representation and application of the knowledge of organizations and individuals to support a learning organization. Above all, knowledge communication between employees is essential for growth of learning. When employees share knowledge with other colleagues within their organization, that knowledge can become a source of competitive advantage (Solano, 2010). The issue is finding the colleagues within an organization who can provide the knowledge and skills needed in a given situation. This is particularly true in large organizations, such as an international corporation with geographically distributed departments. Within the domain of knowledge management, the problem of finding a suitable expert is usually solved with the help of expert finding systems such as company yellow pages or similar tools. This article presents a case study in a biotechnological company concerning the implementation of yellow pages. The implementation process included four phases. Phase 1 comprehends a knowledge management diagnosis, including a differentiated needs analysis concerning knowledge management domains. Phase 2 is concerned about the design and phase 3 is comprehends the realization of this intervention; and in phase 4 the rollout of the intervention takes place (Tarlatt, 2001; Winkler & Mandl, 2007).