Studying Knowledge Management System Success in System Administration

Significant temporal and monetary costs are associated with the development and implementation of a knowledge management system (KMS). To justify this investment, it is important for organizations to measure the success of such systems. To help achieve this objective, this paper proposes a KMS success model, which is based on prior success models for information systems (IS) and KMS. This model extends previous models by investigating two modes of KMS use - knowledge sourcing and sharing. Additionally, individual impact is extended to include both merit (perceived usefulness) and worth (productivity) metrics. By also taking into account the effects of other knowledge sources, such as Google, email, and instant messaging, we are able to explore the contribution of KMS use. This research in progress proposes testing the model in the context of system administrators, technical experts who work in complex and dynamic environments.