Evaluating knowledge management implementation in an organisation: A case study in the context of Eskom’s HyperWave

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In this paper, the interpretive philosophy was adopted and drawn from structuration theory’s (ST) concept of enactment of technology-in-practice (ETiP). ETiP was used as a lens to understand and interpret factors influencing the implementation of knowledge management (KM) in an organisation where knowledge transfer/sharing is critical to its operational efficiency. Eskom, a power utility organisation in South Africa was used as the case study and the HyperWave KM system implementation was used as the object of analysis. The study’s rationale was that at all levels of operations of an organisation the need to establish systems to manage the creation, capture, flow and delivery of knowledge and information is critical. The challenge is that such systems are often seen to clash with the corporate culture and as a result have a limited impact. The study investigated the challenges of implementing KM at Eskom. Using the concept of ETiP, a conceptual framework was developed, which guided the collection and analysis of data from questionnaires and existing documents that were verified by unstructured interviews. Forty-three respondents completed the research questionnaires and 15-minute semi-structured interviews were conducted with four individual participants. Questionnaires and interview questions were based on the KM improvement model regarding (1) measures of organisational support: (a) leadership, (b) incentive, (c) coworker, (d) supervisor and (e) organisational culture; (2) knowledge content quality; (3) KMS quality; and (4) perceived usefulness of knowledge sharing.