Information technology for knowledge management in China

Knowledge management concerns integrating, sharing, accessing and accumulating information for action throughout the organisation (Pelton, 1999; Porter, 1998). It has been receiving increasing attention as the latest information technology based system to improve organisational efficiencies, which may be in the forms of successful implementation of innovations (Huber, 1990), sustainable competitive advantage (Grant, 1996a, 1996b) or productivity gains (Davenport et al., 1996). In knowledge management, information technology is an essential enabling tool because of the latter’s unprecedented technological power in information processing, storing and transmission (Hanley, 1999; Porter, 1998). Information technology provides the technological infrastructure for knowledge management (Davenport et al.,1998). However, the effective use of information technology for knowledge management requires the managers to take cognisant of the factors that influence the information technology adoption process as well as the implementation of knowledge management practices. These factors could be external or/and internal to the organisation. This chapter highlights the characteristics of the internal organisational factors that are of concern to the use of information technology for managing information and knowledge within the state-owned Chinese banks in the People’s Republic of China. The time focus of this research is between 1957 to 1995 in which this time period is