Assessing Knowledge Management Performance in Organisations Based on the Criteria of Total Quality Management

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) has been gaining momentum as the means toward organisational growth. Recent literature also gives much prominence to emerging performance measurement (PM) systems for assessing performance. This chapter comprehends the concepts of integrating KM with PM, and in short, KM performance measures in organisations. It reviews the issues that surround KM/PM initiatives, and discusses the assessment criteria that integrate the philosophy and the principles of total quality management (TQM) with KM performance measures. Five KM/PM enablers/criteria are identified, namely 1) senior management leadership, 2) management by processes, 3) people development, 4) continuous improvement, and 5) results orientation. These concepts are constituted the development of an integrated knowledge management (IKM) model for assessing organisational KM performance. Future research could evaluate the efficacy of the IKM model, validate the key KM/PM criteria, and develop an implementation framework to foster the KM/PM efforts in organisations in different sectors.