Knowledge Sharing and Organizational Change in a Leading Telecommunications Equipment Vendor: a Case Study on Southern Networks

In 1999 Southern Networks deployed the Open Text Livelink knowledge management system (KMS). Livelink allowed for the centralization of key corporate applications and associated content at a global, regional, line-of-business, departmental and personal level. Prior to the implementation of Livelink on an enterprise scale, the corporation’s 94,500 employees relied on fragmented departmental web pages which were scattered across eleven different Web servers making the task of finding information very difficult. This paper describes how the process of knowledge transfer at Southern Networks changed with the deployment of Livelink and how it enabled the automation of workflows through the company’s Web-based Intranet. The paper also provides an insight into how KMS empowered employees, at least until the organization significantly downsized in 2001. The importance of this paper is in highlighting the role of people in the success of KMS and to provide examples of the knowledge sharing dynamics.