Motivations of Knowledge Management Practitioners

Abstract

Knowledge management as a set of activities has been around for as long as humans have been able to communicate. In the modern world, knowledge management has become a multiple billion-dollar industry. Organizations know that their existence and growth rely on effective knowledge management programs and systems. But knowledge management efforts continue to experience high failure rates. Contributing to those failures is a lack of understanding the most important element of the system: the human. It is humans that have and create the knowledge. It is humans that build on the knowledge. And it is humans that are asked to share their knowledge. But there has been limited studies on understanding the motivations and behaviors of users in the context of knowledge management systems. This chapter explores the use of psychological contracts and positive psychology theories to explain and predict users' behaviors in knowledge management systems.