Strategic Knowledge Management Issues when Designing Knowledge Repositories

Knowledge forms an important asset in modern organisations. In order to gain and sustain competitive advantage knowledge has to be managed. One aspect of doing this is to build knowledge repositories. In this paper we extend the strategic knowledge management framework to betters suit the process of constructing knowledge repositories. The extended framework highlights, for example, the impact of organizational culture and the importance of distinguishing between the individual and organizational knowledge processes and relating them to each other. The application of the extended framework to analyze a case in the public health care sector revealed a number of important aspects in the preparation and implementation of a knowledge management project. In particular we highlight the importance of having a strategic vision and making the dual relationship between usage and design explicit when implementing a knowledge repository.