In today’s fast changing environment, competitive firms can be seen as generators and transformers of different kinds of knowledge. As firms increasingly compete with a different stock of knowledge, management of the firm’s knowledge base has emerged as a major challenge in maintaining sustainable competitive advantage. In an effort to better understand this increasingly popular phenomenon of knowledge management, the Department of Information Systems has embarked on a flagship Knowledge Management (KM) project since 2002. This stream of research delves into complex organizational as well as information technological issues related to KM and knowledge management systems (KMS).

The Knowledge Management Laboratory (KM Lab) provides the latest computing facilities and acts as a focal point for faculty members and graduate students conducting research in the KM and Enterprise Systems (ES) arena. The various important issues in the KM and ES field rigorously pursued include knowledge sharing behavior, knowledge integration strategies, knowledge management systems, communities of practice and information technologies, knowledge management performance measurement, and Enterprise systems research covering technologies and practices such as Customer Relationship management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Facilities include PC workstations, networked laser printers and audio-visual equipment such as videocams for conducting experiments. While much of the research deals with the socio-technical and organizational impacts of KM and ES, some projects require the design and implementation of knowledge management systems.