Knowledge Management (KM) helps extend the knowledge of individuals or groups\ud
across organisations in ways that directly affect performance. Further, it is a formalised\ud
and integrated approach to identify and manage an organisation's knowledge assets.\ud
The study is an exploratory investigation of the implementation of IT-based Knowledge\ud
Management Systems. It is also a comparative study of the Kuwait and UK public\ud
sectors with the specific aim of building a best practice model for KM implementation\ud
in conjunction with IT. This includes examination of the relevant literature, a\ud
comprehensive analysis of case studies of KM implementation in 91 organisations\ud
presented in the literature, in order to arrive at the most critical factors of KM\ud
implementation and their degree of criticality, and an exploratory survey of 68\ud
organisations both in the UK and Kuwait relating to their experiences in implementing\ud
initiatives such as KM and the role of IT in that process. In view of the intensive and\ud
extensive data for interdependence relationships between variables, statistical\ud
techniques were used, and in-depth studies of 16 leading organisations, to understand\ud
how the KM implementation processes and the critical factors identified were addressed\ud
and implemented.\ud
This study identifies critical factors of success in KM domain that applicable to Kuwaiti\ud
organisations. These factors were categorised under four different headings: (1)\ud
Technology, (2) KM processes, (3) Change management, (4) Top management\ud
commitment. A generic holistic model for effective KM implementation is proposed.Kuwait Ministry of Interior