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Today, PS members consist of 12 consultants. However, the reports received from
customers show many negative symptoms, including flat number of projects delivered
per year (no increase since the second quarter of 2001), late implementation of projects,
low quality of solutions, and poor qualification of the customers’ requirements. In
addition, the PS division is showing flat revenues since the first quarter of 2001 (revenues
have not exceeded $1.6 million since first quarter 2001).
The PS division was relying on its IS to provide all new PS team members with the
required knowledge and to play its role in supporting the organizational memory. But the
high turnover rate has clearly led to a loss of knowledge and seriously affected the
company’s knowledge base. “CITE” had to find a solution for its IS to better support its
organization memory.
After conducting an internal survey, the PS management found that most of the
failed projects’ implementations were multivendor integration projects that were handled
by the new team members. According to the PS management, the new members should
already have the right level of skills — for the company’s own products — to do their
job at the right level especially when they have all been given extensive training on the
company’s products. In addition, the company offers them the necessary IS tools to
perform at the right level. The main tools offered by the company are based on
technologies such as access to the Internet, access to PS portal service, access to PS
intranet, and e-mail. The PS management was relying on its IS to provide all new PS team
members with the required knowledge and to play its role in supporting organizational
memory. From a knowledge management perspective, the above-mentioned IS technolo-
gies represent the tools required to build and to deal with “CITE’s” organizational
memory. However, it is becoming clear that the high turnover rate had clearly led to a loss
of knowledge and had seriously affected the company’s knowledge base, while the
company’s IS did not play its expected role in minimizing the leakage of knowledge.
As there are multiple types of PS knowledge (including best practices, methodolo-
gies, tips and tricks, and discussion on specific engagements) and as the structure of a
PS knowledge initiative must accommodate these multiple types, in the next sections of
this case study, we will analyze “CITE’s” success in implementing its organizational
memory information system (OMIS), based on the OMIS Success Model as defined by
Jennex, Olfman, and Pituma (1998). In essence, an OMIS is viewed as a component of
organizational memory. An OMIS is defined as “a system that functions to provide a
means by which knowledge from the past is brought to bear on present activities, thus
resulting in increased levels of effectiveness for the organization” (Stein & Zwass, 1995).
The theoretical framework used in the case study is mainly using the model
developed by Jennex, Olfman, and Pituma for organizational memory information success
(Jennex, Olfman, & Pituma, 1998) to build an OMIS.
Organizational Memory
The notion of organizational memory (OM) has been around for more than a quarter
of a century, and many definitions have been proposed. The knowledge in the minds of
individual workers is also considered a part of OM. Stein and Zwass define it as “the
means by which organizational knowledge is transferred from the past to present” (Stein
& Zwass, 1995). Most often, OM definitions focus on the persistence of knowledge in
an organization, independently of how this persistence is achieved. Therefore, the