Selecting knowledge management strategies by using the analytic network process

For ensuring the successful implementation of knowledge management, here raises a critical issue of how companies can better evaluate and select a favorable knowledge management strategy before that implementation. However, selecting a proper knowledge management strategy is a kind of multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem required to consider a large number of complex factors. Unlike many traditional MCDM methods that are based on the independence assumption, the analytic network process (ANP) is a relative new MCDM method which can deal with all kinds of dependences systematically. Since the ANP has these advantages, in this paper, we develop an effective method based on the ANP to help companies that need to evaluate and select knowledge management strategies. Additionally, an empirical study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed method. 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.